OK to purchase a plan after I start swaying?

[A Mad Swayentist]

Hello! Still doing lots of reading and pondering and poking around the site. I have some ideas for what I'd like to try when I start swaying in the fall, but - since we are trying for our first (and I'm a bit nervous about our fertility in general, as well as losing too much weight; my BMI is 20.5 and I eat a TON right now so not much weight to spare), I might be interested in getting coaching and/or a personalized plan if I start getting frustrated and want to "throw in the towel", esp. since it seems Atomic has posted that many people end up with opposites by giving up swaying too soon, or dropping too many sway tactics at once. Do people do this? Would it be recommended to take a break and then come back to swaying after giving the custom plan some time, or could we just switch tactics and keep trying right away? (maybe that's a silly question - it probably depends on what the questionnaires and coaching tease out as problems, doesn't it?)

I'm thinking I'll be purchasing a dream membership too in late summer (when it will be of more use for the fall). Mostly I'm so excited to try for our first that I can't stop thinking about it! And I'm pretty sure I'll be just as delighted with a boy as a girl; I'm just nervous that I'll feel I've been wasting time if I can't get pregnant at all.

Thanks in advance. (Honestly, I'm amazed at the effort put into maintaining this site and the hard work with all the knowledge I've gained so far! I kinda have to purchase a membership soon just 'cause I owe ya. :))

[maidentomother]

I do know of several ladies who bought plans after they'd already started swaying, or even been swaying for quite a while. It can make sense if you get overwhelmed, personal health issues crop up, or you just feel better having a coach to rely on. So you could absolutely do that.

How old are you?

Welcome btw, I am swaying pink for my first also! It's quite a privilege to have, I feel. Good luck whatever you end up doing. :)

[A Mad Swayentist]

Thank you, maidentomother! I am 33, but will be 34 by the time we start trying. DH is turning 36 next month. The two of us have gone back and forth about starting sooner for years now, but when we picture our ideal family, we both want me to drop my workload to part time and minimize outside childcare...which means yet more savings. My fertility fears stem from the fact that the two of us have been together for 10 years, and for the last 9.5 have used spermicide + diaphragm as our TTA...which has a 6% failure rate or higher with perfect use, while we've never had a hint of pregnancy. The last 5 months I have had perfect 27 day cycles, though I think I sometimes O a bit on the late side (I only track through mittelschmerz, which doesn't always happen). I'm pretty sure it's just luck for us in TTA, but once the paranoia and anxiety kick in it's hard to let go.
Fx for you that you get your bundle soon!

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes of course!!!! The reason why we do personalized plans is so we can adjust it for whatever

Please let me clarify about what I'm talking about. We have MANY people who start off thinking they're going to do a whiz-bang sway, and it's easy to think that way before you start trying. So they do strict diet (too strict) for 3 months, 6 months, a year even, then start off doing 1001 sway tactics as hard as they can. And they don't get pregnant. The BFN start to accrue - 2,3,4,6,8 months pass and they haven't dropped ANYTHING. They've already lost too much weight because they've been on diet a really long time. They're running out of nutrients that their body had stored, they feel crappy, anemic, and their hair's falling out due to low iodine, and so on.

What used to happen is that people would do a "perfect" sway for a long time, scared to drop a single thing, and then after those BFN start to pile up, they panic. They think "oh god I'm now infertile because of swaying" and then do a full 180 and drop EVERYTHING all at once and even start to add stuff to sway blue, because they're so convinced that they're (going into menopause, now infertile, on the verge of death, etc) and then invariably they get pregnant right away, because they were never infertile they were just swaying too hard, and it's a boy. It is definitely something that people do, both here and on the other sites where it's even MORE common, and a fair number of our opposites in our stats are people who did exactly that. IT's not necessarily a matter of giving up swaying too soon, it's really more the opposite, people cling to stuff that doesn't work and cuts odds of conception TOO LONG and then end up in a panic doing anything they can just to get pregnant.

It is much better to start off swaying doing as many tactics as you prefer just to see what happens, but then start dropping them one after the other. So while you CAN do a pink friendly diet sensibly by going vegetarian in advance of a sway, I DO NOT recommend anyone do full LE Diet longer than 3 months prior to sways. Then, as the months pass, drop one or two tactics a month, starting with the ones that work the worst and cut conception the most (and also that you find personally annoying or difficult) while preserving the stuff that works, the longest. And over the last 2 years, the more I"ve emphasized this approach (and also since we now have enough data to really be able to see the stuff that is working vs. the stuff that isn't) our success rates have only gone up and up.

I hope that makes sense. It's kind of hard to get a feel for but from where I sit, having witnessed 1,234,567,890 sways both success and opposites, it's counterintuitive to the way you might think it would work. Simple approach, doing only what works and willlingness to drop ineffective tactics is working WAY better than "kitchen sink" and "I'll go on to menopause with BFN rather than give up swaying."

[atomic sagebrush]

Thank you, maidentomother! I am 33, but will be 34 by the time we start trying. DH is turning 36 next month. The two of us have gone back and forth about starting sooner for years now, but when we picture our ideal family, we both want me to drop my workload to part time and minimize outside childcare...which means yet more savings. My fertility fears stem from the fact that the two of us have been together for 10 years, and for the last 9.5 have used spermicide + diaphragm as our TTA...which has a 6% failure rate or higher with perfect use, while we've never had a hint of pregnancy. The last 5 months I have had perfect 27 day cycles, though I think I sometimes O a bit on the late side (I only track through mittelschmerz, which doesn't always happen). I'm pretty sure it's just luck for us in TTA, but once the paranoia and anxiety kick in it's hard to let go.
Fx for you that you get your bundle soon!

I'll tell you my "horror" story LOL which is that as a teen I was HIGHLY informed about menstrual stuff (but they used to focus on 28 day cycles being "normal") and my well-meaning doctor was very worried because I had irregular cycles and they were very light. They pushed me to go on birth control to "regulate" my cycles but my mom was like "nah". So I got this message that I was probably infertile and would have a hard time getting pregnant. Then I did go on birth control, for birth control, and it did switch up my cycles to 28 days even after I came off them. But I still had that voice telling me that I was probably infertile LOL and then I ended up pregnant literally the first time my now husband and I had sex. I really, truly, honestly thought that getting pregnant was going to be super hard for me, I had taken chances before (not on the BC) and never got pregnant, I was just SO SURE. but nope, fertile myrtle. So my point is, don't overthink it. Lots of us do, and then end up pregnant easily anyway!

[maidentomother]

Completely agree with atomic, you are probably plenty fertile! I know diaphragms can work very well even for fertile myrtles. My mom was one such (she had me at 36 via artificial insemination, first try worked, my brother at 43, also first try but multiple BD, an oops fraternal twin pregnancy at 47 which she lost, and she had a pregnancy she aborted in her 20s, when she thought she could use 'the power of her mind' as contraception). After her mind failed (lol), she got a diaphragm.