March 2007: Searching for Egg Whites

In March, I discovered the powerhouse that is Taking Charge of Your Fertility (aka TCOYF). For those of you have never been exposed to this book, it’s an easy-to-read tome that explains more detail that you probably want about how the reproductive process works, giving lots of information about the natural clues our bodies give us about their readiness to procreate. I am not mocking – this book is something else and taught me a lot more than Dr. J., my gynecologist at the time, ever did. Who knew (or in my case cared) that our bodies tell us something about our own baby-making capabilities, in a way that actually makes sense? I was a die hard fan.

I decided to start tracking my basal body temperature right away. This is your waking temperature, the same time each day. When you ovulate, it shoots up, and in combination with your cervical mucus, which gets all watery around ovulation, tells you it’s time to get going. But it's not always quite as easy as it looks. For one, “shoots up” is kind of an exaggeration, because your temperature only changes like half a degree. You’d be surprised how excited you can get by that half a degree—and it’s not just from personal experience that I say that, just spend five minutes looking at the posted charts on tcoyf.com. Besides, it looks like a big deal if you print out a chart and look at in on paper, like a graph you did in math class in high school.

Anyway, it all worked fine as long as my temperature remained somewhat steady, but one weird one and I'd think, "Did I already ovulate? Did I miss it?" I'd start looking at my cervical mucus very carefully, something I never ever, in a million years, imagined doing. "Is that more like egg whites or snot?" I'd think to myself, knowing that egg whites are a good sign. Egg whites mean fertility. Only I didn't know, because I'd never had egg whites on my underwear before. Finally I'd give up, and force my husband to have sex that morning, before he went to work, just in case.

I must say, as an aside, that DH was a dream husband from the very beginning. Even when he rightfully could have said, “You are a crazy, crazy woman,” he did not. He’s been at every appointment and has done every supportive thing requested of him, more or less. So if I make fun of him sometimes for being a leeeetle clueless, keep that in mind. You too, as you’re reading this, DH.

In those early temping days, he was very cute. He’d be half awake when he’d hear the double beep of the thermometer (beware, those things aren’t as easy as they look; mine took 3 minutes, even though on the package it said 1, so sometimes I’d fall asleep and it would fall out and I’d have to start over) and he’d mumble, “What’s your basal body?” He actually cared. He wasn’t obsessive, which is good, because we probably only needed one temping Nazi in the house. I’d wake up at 4 a.m., needing to pee, and lay in bed wondering if I should take my temperature now or at 5:30 a.m., when I usually get up. (I’m kind of a morning person.) Because you’re supposed to have at least 4 hours of continuous rest to get an accurate reading, but I have a small bladder, and there’s no way I could lay there another hour and a half. And the more I thought about it, the more I’d be awake, which is bad because you’re supposed to take it right after you wake up for it to be accurate, and I also risked not being able to fall back asleep which meant it would be less accurate later too. So I’d just end up taking it both times, and then I’d choose the temperature that made my chart look prettiest, or most like it did in TCOYF.