Lots of questions including an 'interrupted' sway plan

[Manatee]

Hey. I'm new. One girl, two boys, trying for a second girl.

1. It's mid-August right now. We're planning to start TTC in December, so (from some gender-swaying info I read aaaaages ago) I figured I should start swaying now in terms of diet and supplements.

The trouble is, for the entire month of November we'll be visiting the UK for my sister's wedding. This could muck up my sway in a couple of ways:

-Stress from travelling (pretty much unavoidable with three kids, right?!)
-Diet. I'm a foodie and while I don't plan to go nuts, there'll be a lot more temptation and it seems silly to go to England and not eat anything! (I'm thinking of the Borough Markets and the occasional cream tea, plus we're being billeted for two weeks, and I'll have to eat whatever we're fed for dinner, which will presumably be meatier than an LE dinner should be!)

On the other hand, everyone I know who's been to England warns me that I'll do a TON of walking and get very tired. I don't currently exercise at all, so a sudden month of walking for hours a day around the streets of London would probably sway pink, right?

So. Should I start dieting, taking supps now and just do the best I can while in England (skipping breakfast, choosing meat-free meals when possible, eating as LE as possible without completely ruining my holiday), and then go back to LE in December until I've conceived, that month or later?

Or would the England trip likely ruin my sway completely, meaning I should just forget about swaying/TTC at all until after we get back, and then do three months' swaying and start TTC in late February/March? For various reasons (child-spacing, avoiding a December baby) I'd rather not do that, but I'm not entirely opposed to it either.

2. Does coffee actually sway pink itself, or only insofar as tea sways blue, so switching tea for coffee is a better choice? I don't currently drink coffee or tea; would taking coffee up help or not? I found conflicting info on this.

3. I dieted properly last year for the first time in my life, losing 7-8 kg. Calorie- and carb-counting. It was horrible - I found it stressful and time-consuming. Is it likely to work if I just eat with the basic 'low-everything' principle in mind, but instead of tracking fat and protein in grams, using my weight as a guideline? I'm currently 60 kg; when I was down to 56 kg I started having very long cycles. I figure if I keep at 58 kg I'm probably on the right track. Does that sound plausible?

4. This early, should I just focus on diet, or start taking fiber, cranberry and baby aspirin as well?

Thanks very much!

[atomic sagebrush]

I'm sorry, this is a bit long and I'm at the end of my day here, can you please bump this for me???

Quickly - do NOT mix baby aspirin and cranberry, if you must use one (neither has worked for us and both had risks and side effects that have subsequently made me decide to totally give up on them) make it baby aspirin only and be sure to wean off at BFP by spacing doses further and further apart till down to one per week, then you can drop them.

[Manatee]

Bumping!

OK, so no cranberry and baby aspirin. I did just buy cranberry capsules though. Darn. Can DH still take 'em? If so, when should he start?

After considering some more last night I think we will go ahead in December. I'll just have to do the best I can in England. This will be a longer-than-minimum sway, which should help, right? Though if you think it's a truly dire idea, do say so.

[Manatee]

Bumping again?

[atomic sagebrush]

Don't worry about "stress". That kind of stress probably sways pink. The type of stress to avoid is the self induced stress that comes from things like doing big important detail oriented projects (like swaying LOL). I think a trip may simply serve as a welcome distraction from gender swaying.

I would do diet before the trip and after, and then eat whatever you want on the trip. People usually find they do better than they think they will on vacations, because everything feels like a treat when you don't have to make it yourself. :) So they end up eating things that at the time, feel like huge splurges, but really aren't.

:agree: the walking will be great for your sway.

Coffee actually appears to sway pink. Since many people weren't drinking either tea OR coffee and then had success with coffee, I don't think it can be as easy as a switcheroo away from tea. I know there's conflicting info on this but even using "the other sites" own data, their claims make NO sense (the reason why they say to avoid coffee is because they claim it causes calcium to leach from the body, but that idea has been fully debunked, and additionally no one has ever proven calcium levels in the body even sway pink to begin with - I know they say that they have, but that study has not ever been done - and given that our results with coffee are soo good I strongly recommend it)

The problem with not tracking is that it is really most important to track, to be sure you are getting ENOUGH. Honestly, I don't care if you guys go over a little - the key is that you're eating less calories, protein, and fat (particularly animal fat) than you were when you got boys, and not some arbitrary number that I pulled basically out of thin air. But the MINIMUM amount of cals, protein, and fat is based on data from the World Health Organization and reproductive endocrinologists' guidelines about what the safe minimum pre-pregnancy diet should be, and I do not want anyone going below that because it is there for your safety and the safety of your unborn baby.

So, if you can do that whilst making sure you are getting 1500-1800 cals a day, 40-50 g protein, and 30-60 g fat (with most of your fat coming from vegetable sources and not animal) then that's great to relax and not super pay attention to the limits and just let your weight be your guide.

Yes your husband can take the cranberry. It is safer for him because he can wean off of it. Cranberry is less safe for ladies than I like because it can cause miscarriage, so this means you have to stop it cold turkey at ovulation in any month you may be pregnant. Stopping blood thinners cold turkey can cause your blood to begin clotting too easily, which is risky both for you and for a potential developing pregnancy so especially given that it hasn't worked anyway, I am not a fan of cran for ladies. :)

[Manatee]

Thanks so much for replying! You're awesome.

I have started drinking coffee. So gross. Loathe the stuff. :p But all in a good cause, right? I'm having coffee with artificial sweetener and soy milk, which is like a triple dose of girl-sway badness, right?

Totally take your point about getting enough fats/calories etc. I'm the kind of person who's likely to go overboard with dieting, so I will track every so often to make sure I'm within the ballpark of sanity!

How long should DH be on the cranberry? Should he start taking it now and keep going until we TTC?

[atomic sagebrush]

Soy is honestly a bit of a gray area. I believe it sways pink, but others say it's blue friendly. Up to you whether or not to use it, just wanted to let you know that.

DH and cran - 6 weeks or more. As long as he tolerates it ok (it is a blood thinner and also can cause headaches) then it's fine to keep going with it, starting as far in advance as you guys would like.

[Manatee]

Just thought I'd update!

So things didn't quite go as planned. Day One into the holiday and I decided I'd be miserable if I tried to diet. So I thought I'd just eat normally and wait a few more months before TTC.

Well, we got pregnant. :p

So this is how my sway looks:

-12ish weeks of dieting (preceded by a good year or so of being skinnier than I was when I conceived my boys). Nearly vegetarian, no breakfasts, 1 cup of coffee with soymilk and artificial sweetener a day (I'm not a coffee drinker usually), diet soda with a splash of alcohol every night (I don't drink either of those things normally either), low-fat, made sure I was hungry before eating, tried not to snack.

-One and a half weeks of normal/holiday eating (plane food etc!) before conception. Not crazy on the meat or anything, but definitely had breakfasts and stuff, and dropped the coffee/alcohol/soy. I don't think I appreciably gained weight during this time though, as I was doing an insane amount of walking (tourism!)

-BD was one attempt in the fertile window, but without any 'method' - no Sylk, aspirin, J&D, FR, abstain etc. Me on top, I did O.

-DH took a few capsules of cranberry during the 12-week window, but was cautious about it because he's prone to headaches; other than that he didn't do anything to sway.

So. There we are! I honestly wasn't expecting to conceive that month or I would have done things differently, but... life happens. Still better than no sway at all, right? I'm 7 weeks pregnant now. Thanks for all your advice on this forum, Atomic: whatever the outcome, it's been fascinating!

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes definitely better than no sway at all and I'd have you do an "add your sway" if you'd like - the people who don't sway to the kitchen sink level LOL are the sways that tell us the most about what is really working and what isn't! http://genderdreaming.com/forum/add-your-girl-sway-/

I have seen quite a lot of girls conceived on holiday and vacation. :agree:

Good luck and pink dust!