Complete newb, feeling a little lost

[Treemuh]

Hello everyone. So I'm new here and finding the sheer amount of information a bit overwhelming. I'm hoping that if I tell you my situation, maybe someone can give me some pointers?

I have one little boy, would prefer only one more child but if I have another boy I'm bound to want to try for a girl.

I'm still breastfeeding, lo is 14mo and we intend to self wean. I've heard breastfeeding mums have more girls?

Hoping to start TTC in summer. I am awaiting some minor surgery so want to get that out of the way first.

I have had about 5 cycles since giving birth, they were a bit haywire at first but are settling down at roughly 30days.

I'm using Ovuview to track cycles. I have an underactive thyroid, which I've heard makes tracking temps useless? Is this true? If so I could use OPKs I guess. My temps have always seemed unreliable. I have tracked mucus and so have a day or two of egg white every cycle.

I have to avoid eating dairy, soy, egg, fish and wheat. Will this make it easier/harder to sway? I can obviously take supplements for calcium etc but haven't yet read a lot into the diets. Since giving birth I've lost 4 stone, I've got a few lb left to lose, should I wait until TTC to do this? I know weight loss can help.

Finally, my partners family seems male dominated. He's one of 3 boys (or one of 2 from his dad), his dad is one of 4, 3 of them being boys. Will this make it harder for me?

I've seen so many stickies about different methods and I'd really appreciate some advice as to where to start, which methods might suit me and what others have found helpful.

Thanks everyone x

[Little Lunasa]

Hi and welcome :)
Personally I would recommend getting a personalised swaying plan, it would be tailored to your particular details and you get to ask as many questions as you want with individual attention from Atomic.
Good luck!

[Treemuh]

Thank you, I might just do that x

[atomic sagebrush]

Hi and welcome!

I believe breastfeeding sways pink, but can't say if breastfeeding moms have more girls. The reason for this is because women who breastfeed longer may be predisposed to having boys for a variety of personality and socioeconomic reasons and so it shakes out to be about 50-50 overall. I do think it's something to keep in your plan as long as you and your nursling enjoy it.

Temping can be iffy for lots of different reasons, personally I prefer you guys use OPK to detect your surge and forget about the temps (or use them only as a backup to help you know what happened)

Not eating dairy, soy, egg, fish will only HELP your sway IMO. Several people have done gluten free foods on LE and done quite well with it - you just eat rice instead.

We just don't know what is best on the weight loss. Generally I have people lose weight when and how they find it doable and not worry about the sway. The more pressure you put onto yourself trying to time weight loss and 9 zillion other things, the higher the risk that your testosterone levels will shoot up and inadvertently sway blue. full explanation here http://genderdreaming.com/forum/gender-swaying-general-discussion/33517-maternal-dominance-hypothesis-priviledged-daughter-hypothesis.html

Gender is not genetic and does not run in families. All men make 50-50 X and Y sperm, they have to because their bodies are made of XY cells that divide into half X and half Y sperm. :)

If you are really looking for more guidance, then we do have the custom plans and I can take all your info and come up with a plan for you.

[greeneyes]

I'm going to respectfully disagree with AS on the temp. As an advocate for natural family planning and fertility awareness method temping can be very insightful and let you know if you are having issues with your LP, if your thyroid is whack (as you already know yours is low), among other things. I've charted most of my adult life to successfully avoid and achieve pregnancy. A lot of MDs scoff at it because they don't want to be held reliable if you get PG by doing it incorrectly and because of big pushes from the pharmaceutical companies. Just sayin.

Anyway, you can temp with a low thyroid just expect your temps to be low like in the 96s. If you are an open mouth breather they can be a bit whack, so consider vaginal temping. Anyway, CM is great to let you know if you are fertile, but while TTC pink we try to dry that stuff up so its hard to know when you are fertile. Definitely go by OPKs like AS suggests. Unless you have PCOS, a three day thermal shift should be good for confirming O has occurred. If there are any doubts about if/when O has happened, just continue OPKs and only DTD once at a positive OPK or every four days until a BFP or you get AF. If temping causes you stress or confusion, you definitely don't NEED to temp. Good luck, and bottom line, listen to AS over me, lol, she's the expert at swaying. ;)

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes let me just clarify I think temping/charting is great in just about any other scenario besides gender swaying. Even though it's not reliable enough for me at pinpointing the surge/O-day to advocate when swaying (and studies have proven this), I am a fan of T/C for lots of other situations and it's def. very good birth control and as a method to help people conceive. We are trying to cut it a bit finer for our purposes and I think the OPK are better for that.

The prob. I have with temping when gender swaying, particularly for swaying pink, is because when people start T/C and they've never done it before, it can be the type of detail oriented, control-freak-y project that gals who tend to have boys, LOVE. It keeps swaying in the forefront of a person's mind from the second they wake up in the morning and I think that is bad for the personality aspect of swaying http://genderdreaming.com/forum/gender-swaying-general-discussion/33517-maternal-dominance-hypothesis-priviledged-daughter-hypothesis.html

For blue swayers, while starting new projects can be beneficial for their sways, I find that many (not all) moms of girls are not "project" people as much and they find the entire idea of temping to be overwhelming and defeating, which would lower T levels and inadvertently sway pink. I want to set blue swayers up to succeed.

So to make a long story short (too late!) I feel like, peeing on a stick is easy and while there is something of a learning curve, it's just better both for boy moms and girl moms and for accuracy for swaying. But I do think temping is a great thing to use in normal life and I do recommend it for birth control and for anyone who is just TTC in order to get pg.

[Treemuh]

So sorry only just seen your replies. Thank you so much I will take it all into consideration

[Treemuh]

Hello again.
Thanks for the link, I can so see why I had a boy LOL. I'm probably 70/30 boy mum by your descriptions. I do feel more Mary since being a mum though so hope that helps
I temped this month and on ovuview one of the temp methods did detect ovulation. I'm not going to temp any more though and I'm not going to use OPKs until we're trying (I'm trying to be more Mary lol, it's tough!) Am I right in thinking once we start that we should BD as soon as we get the first positive OPK?
I also see what you mean about breastfeeding mums being more likely to be Martha's but fortunately we have a really laid back nursing relationship (until he bites me lol)

So far my plan is looking like this:

Don't do anything until we start trying
Take cal/mag (if allowed by docs as I'm awaiting parathyroid surgery)
Shettles for timing using OPKs and cm
Frequent release
Nutrients lowered by numerous food intolerances and breastfeeding anyway but will cut out red meat and chocolate
Use a normal lube (they damage sperm?) And no big O.
Use gravity to my advantage (jump and dump)

I am a little confused by cm. This month I've been tracking I had 3 separate days of ewcm! By this I mean each day of egg white had at least 2 days of less fertile cm separating it and my app has placed O at the last occasion.
I tend to have low amounts of fertile cm but when the consistency is less fertile there is loads (visible in underwear). I only tend to be completely dry a day or so after AF if at all. Is this good or bad for pink sway and should I be trying to alter it?

So sorry for all the questions.

[Treemuh]

Hello again.
Thanks for the link, I can so see why I had a boy LOL. I'm probably 70/30 boy mum by your descriptions. I do feel more Mary since being a mum though so hope that helps
I temped this month and on ovuview one of the temp methods did detect ovulation. I'm not going to temp any more though and I'm not going to use OPKs until we're trying (I'm trying to be more Mary lol, it's tough!) Am I right in thinking once we start that we should BD as soon as we get the first positive OPK?
I also see what you mean about breastfeeding mums being more likely to be Martha's but fortunately we have a really laid back nursing relationship (until he bites me lol)

So far my plan is looking like this:

Don't do anything until we start trying
Take cal/mag (if allowed by docs as I'm awaiting parathyroid surgery)
Shettles for timing using OPKs and cm
Frequent release
Nutrients lowered by numerous food intolerances and breastfeeding anyway but will cut out red meat and chocolate
Use a normal lube (they damage sperm?) And no big O.
Use gravity to my advantage (jump and dump)

I am a little confused by cm. This month I've been tracking I had 3 separate days of ewcm! By this I mean each day of egg white had at least 2 days of less fertile cm separating it and my app has placed O at the last occasion.
I tend to have low amounts of fertile cm but when the consistency is less fertile there is loads (visible in underwear). I only tend to be completely dry a day or so after AF if at all. Is this good or bad for pink sway and should I be trying to alter it?

So sorry for all the questions.

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes I would not ahve you do anything involving cal/mag with parathyroid and I suspect that's what your doctors would say too, but they may know something I don't.

I do not think timing works and you can read all abotu that here http://genderdreaming.com/forum/gender-swaying-general-discussion/7691-trouble-timing.html

That is not unusual CM pattern. The stuff that actually comes out, while it does give you clues about what is going on, doesn't follow the neat pattern that some sites describe it as. It is almost certianly different for everyone in every month that passes by and so don't get too hung up on the variances, we all have them.

No one can say what it means for your sway, good bad or otherwise, we just do not have that type of info at our disposal. :)