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  1. #1
    Swaying Advice Coach
    atomic sagebrush's Avatar
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    atomic's stealth sway updated July 20

    I moved the update to the end of the thread. http://genderdreaming.com/forum/girl...y-20-a-23.html

    ETA - if we are FB friends, can you not mention this on my wall just yet? Family does not know.

    Surprise!! It's a

    So, I know I was planning on swaying blue BUT then my FIL contracted this wretched disease (ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and then in the course of doing research on it, I learned that not only is it probably at least somewhat genetic, it's also believed to be more prevalent among men with many brothers (FIL was one of 5 boys, 1 g) and high maternal testosterone levels in the womb may have something to do with it. Low index-to-ring finger length ratio in sporadic ALS supports prenatally defined motor neuronal vulnerability -- Vivekananda et al. 82 (6): 635 -- Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry Replies to Low index-to-ring finger length ratio in sporadic ALS supports prenatally defined motor neuronal vulnerability Both men and women can get this disease but it's more prevalent among males and the more older brothers you have, the more likely it is that you'll get it. As a result of this information, I decided to sway pink instead.

    I have known for some time that if I ever were to sway pink again, I could not do a traditional pink sway where I got all worked up to launch the "Great Sway of 2011", nor could I allow anyone else to know about it. I have so much time and energy invested in swaying at this point that it would make my testosterone levels go up too much and the more pressure I felt over succeeding, the more people who knew about it and who I didn't want to disappoint, the lower my odds of success would actually be.

    I had also long wondered what would have happened with DS 3 and 4, if instead of doing all this insane planning in advance of TTC (with DS 3 I was planning a pg and eating extremely healthfully, with DS 4 I was doing a major sway, taking massive doses of cal, mag, vit. D, B6, plus prenatals and folic and spending hours a day on IG discussing swaying constantly) if I had just gotten pg and let the chips fall where they may. So since we weren't really ready for another baby anyway, I decided that I would simply follow a mostly LE Diet and take vitex (which I was actually taking in the hopes that it would help improve my sex drive - it DIDN'T), nothing more than that, and then if an accident happened, at least I could feel ok that I had done something to up my odds.

    (((ETA - PLEASE NOTE - This is not meant as swaying advice in any way. I did some stuff that had I known I would conceive in the month in which I did, I would NEVER have done even if it meant I would have conceived a boy. We had been BD without protection for over a year, the odds of a natural pg at 41 1/2 years old are between 1-5% depending on the statistics you use and half of those pg are miscarried. I had basically abandoned hope. I am NOT advising that anyone try to emulate the conditions under which I conceived!! I am sharing this info to demonstrate how people can and do get pg with an opposite without swaying, and in the interest of keeping information as accurate and thorough as I can.

    Believe me, I would prefer not to air some of this dirty laundry publicly!!! I share it as evidence that some of the traditional swaying laws just can't be true and hopefully prove that pink swayers can safely have a glass of wine or a cup of coffee without fear of ruining their sway, and also so that blue swayers can see that it is 100% entirely possible to be taking in very little calcium and conceive a girl!!!)))

    Basically, we weren't actively trying, just not preventing. I wasn't ovulating regularly and was breastfeeding two kids. My thinking was that at 40+ and not ovulating, an accident probably wouldn't happen and it might take ages to get pg if we ever did decide to really try. If we did have an accidental conception, I wanted it to be pink, but the odds were that we wouldn't get pg, so I decided not to stress over it. So I simply watched my diet and took vitex 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, and put TTC out of my head all together. It felt to me like the best sway I could possibly have was one that I myself didn't even know about and that's kinda what I was aiming for.

    Life helped me out quite a lot in terms of lowering my testosterone - this is obviously not a repeatable sway, but I do think it can illustrate how lifestyle itself can actually sway just as effectively as any sway tactic and so even when you see someone who doesn't seem like they swayed but has two different genders, there may very well have been things at play that swayed for them, even tho they ate the exact same foods both times and never touched a cranberry in their lives. Sorry, I hope this doesn't sound too whiny!

    Last year was extremely rough for our family due to my FIL's illness. My MIL was also diagnosed at the same time with severe glaucoma that they couldn't get under control for months and it looked like she was going to be blind within a few months. My husband went onto a different work schedule to allow him more time to help with his parents (but also more time for he and I to get on each other's nerves) and that came with a pretty significant cut in pay. We were traveling constantly all summer long, working either on the IL's house or on our house we have been building for years - we were never once home for a full week from April-November, we were home for 3 days, and then gone for 4. I think DH was also having a bit of a midlife crisis - hopefully he'll never read this LOL - and he was next to impossible to live with for awhile there.

    In addition, we had a lot of other stressful events culminating in the most hellish month of my existence, Oct-Nov. 2011. If it could have gone wrong that month, it DID. Major car breakdowns, allergic reactions to bee stings, having NO money at all for food even, the baby wearing diapers made of a maxi pad and a pair of my preschooler's training undies, my oldest son declined financial aid based on our previous income and barely able to afford college after his car broke down and me having no money to help him in any way, and the baby ended up in the emergency room overnight unable to breathe from a minor cold, meaning we then owed another huge amount of money on top of it all. The house was a mess because we were never at home and when I was here I was frantically doing all the errands and answering gender swaying q's for 12 hours straight trying to get caught up before we left again!

    Anyway, enough about my sucky life , I just want people to understand how lifestyle can REALLY affect a person's T levels and sway for them, even if they don't seem to be swaying. Emotionally and physically, I was a complete wreck. I don't even remember vast swaths of time. I was utterly hopeless and desperate and just constantly waiting for the next dire thing to befall us and then when the next thing went wrong, I wasn't even surprised by it. At the same time, the weird thing was that I had more patience than I ever have had in my life and I really felt and still feel like I am a nicer, calmer mother. Little things that used to phase me don't bother me at all any more and I KNOW it is beneficial to the kids. I am so much more tolerant of annoyances now. It's strange that something positive can come out of being in a bad situation (hope it lasts!!)

    UPDATED - my adult son has independently expressed noticing a difference in my personality towards the positive, which he chalked up to me being pg with a girl. I tend to think it's probably the other way around - I got pg with a girl because of changes in T levels that then was affected in my personality, not the other way around.

    Anyway, the specifics:

    -I was averaging 4-6 hours of interrupted sleep for 6 months (the children did not handle the traveling or having Daddy home more, very well at all) before I conceived and that whole last month I was so stressed from lack of money there were nights I DIDN'T sleep! When I was awake, I had no motivation and felt physcially drained all the time. I would literally count the minutes until I could go to sleep, even tho half the time I would lay there and worry, at least no one could harass me or cause any problems that I had to deal with.

    -Taking Vitex for 6 months before I conceived 2 W on, 2 W off. I wasn't doing this for swaying, it was because I had no sex drive (which was one major sticking point between DH and I) and I had read vitex could help - if anything, it made it worse!! I stopped it the month before I got pg firstly because my sex drive was SO low it was nonexistent and I was pretty much fed up with DH anyway (really, he sounds horrible but he's a LOT better now!) Also, the month before and then the month I stopped the vitex, I had what seemed like it might have been a lame attempt at AF - a little bit of dark blood that lasted for a day but I didn't really think it was a true AF and thought I probably hadn't ovulated those two months, even tho I was crampy and had some EWCM - that had happened at other times when I was BF and they were fake Os. I was sort of concerned that my lining needed to slough off but the V was preventing it from happening, and so I stopped the vitex thinking I would have a real AF.

    -I had been doing LE Diet kinda for the last 8 months at that point but during Oct. and Nov we had so little money that I really hardly even HAD anything decent (by decent, I mean fresh fruit and vegetables, healthy fats, and meat - I wasn't starving or anything.) to eat - I made sure everyone else was fed of course, but I basically existed on toast and occasionally a tortilla with hummus or refried beans (they were giving away free hummus at the grocery store and I snagged some and I stretched that hummus out for 2 weeks LOL) I never ate breakfast because I was so upset all the time that I was often physically ill when I woke up in the morning and couldn't eat for hours.

    UPDATED - a couple people have asked me how much food I was eating and I was def. getting 1500-1800+ cals a day. Bread and tortillas are very calorically dense foods and it doesn't take a lot to break the 1500 cal mark. FRUITS AND VEG ARE ALLOWED ON LE DIET!! Just because I didn't happen to be eating much of them right that minute, does not mean that they should be avoided. It does not look like I was getting much potassium but I have to track my potassium intake for health reasons (I am very sensi to low potassium) and have potassium supps that were prescribed to me by a cardiologist to take when I need them.

    - Lost 3 lbs in the weeks before I swayed. UPDATED - Previous to that I had really gained a lot of weight during pg with DS 4 (I weighed 190 lbs when I had him) and then lost all of it down to 126 lbs. I held steady there for several months and then that last few weeks I lost the additional 3 lbs. When I lost weight for swaying with DS 4, I still had a lot of muscle mass but when I lost weight after having DS 4, I found that I was a lot more mush and a lot less muscle!!

    -UPDATED I Oed during the darker part of the moon cycle altho not the IG girl moon phase (boy ions according to IG)

    -UPDATED I got pg from one BD the day before O. We did not DTD for days before or days after so I am pretty sure when it was. I did have CM and also had an O. Woman on top, did not jump and dump and just went to sleep afterwards.

    -I had been taking my regular prenatal vitamins and DHA supps all along but I ran out and couldn't afford them so for the whole last 6 weeks or so. No vitamins.

    -I can't drink milk and I couldn't afford good cheese, yogurt, nuts, or anything I normally get calcium from. I did have American cheese on occasion. This was by far the least amount of calcium intake I have ever had probably in my entire life, let alone conceived at. Little to no fruits/vegetables. Again, PLEASE eat fruits and vegetables in your sway diet!!!

    -I felt so discouraged from for going so long without getting pg that when I heard some dire news reports regarding folic acid causing cancer, I stopped taking folic acid. I figured that there was no way I would get pg anyway at 41 and so I didn't want the cancer risk. I DO NOT recommend that and I am not proud of it either. Everyone must take folic acid.

    -I was so stressed out that I was drinking more than I should have on the days my husband was home so I could put up with him. (not a raging alcoholic, like 1-2 light beers and a couple of times as many as 4) Again, I am not proud of that whatsoever. I was also drinking more caffeine than I have ever conceived at simply because I was too exhausted to function otherwise (3-5 coffees).

    -My husband was drinking TONS of alcohol (4 a day and then a couple times he had a bender and was more like 6-8), was drinking 2-3 Monster energy drinks every day and/or lots of coffee and Mountain Dew. He also, rather oddly, decided to take up smoking a pipe to the age of 41 years old and so he became a smoker too. He's also at the heaviest point he's ever been in his life and is a good 60 lbs overweight right now (250 lbs).

    -Logically I knew that getting pg was a terrible idea and that we should be taking a lot more precautions but partly I felt like I couldn't get pg because I was too old and "cursed" LOL and partly I just didn't give a sh-- any more. I had pretty much totally given up on the idea of getting pg ever again and I think this played into the lower-T mentality. I had decided that if I did not get pg that month, it was over and I was going to start using lots of protection again because I was soon to be 41 and a half years old and didn't want to risk birth defects/miscarriage.

    - At the beginning of Nov, my 2 year old had been deathly sick all night one night and in the emergency room overnight the next, and both DH and I had had 2 whole days where we got next to no sleep at all. DH stayed with us in the ER until 2 am and got up at 5 am and worked for 12 hours straight 3 days in a row afterwards (see he's not ALL bad LOL) and so we were both exhausted for the next couple weeks. Not a lot of DTD going on - I don't think it was ever a full 7 days of abstain but I do think it was 4 -5 days between rounds for a couple weeks there - which that is a lot of abstain for us LOL. I conceived prob. on Nov 20 after baby was in the hospital on Nov 5 and I don't think we really got caught up on sleep until after Thanksgiving when he had a few days off.

    -The only difference in the pg is that the morning sickness is in a different pattern - I was never really sick at all in the mornings but did feel sick several times after eating and it also lasted for much longer than with any other pg. My sex drive came back and I craved salty foods (supposedly boy symptoms). I had zits just like with all my pg but they have cleared up. Same heartrate as with other pg. I do also have really bad varicose veins but that's prob. due to my age and not baby's gender. I have not gained anywhere near as much weight as I did with any of the boys and my tummy is much smaller. I do think the baby's skull shape is slightly different, the chin and nose are smaller and pointier than the boys' but actually she looks just like the others for the most part.

    -I had always promised myself that if I ever did get pg again, I wasn't going to let anyone on line OR IRL know until after my ultrasound. That day coming back from my ultrasound with both DS 3 and DS 4 were among my low points in life, and I just didn't want to repeat it! I thought I saw a VJ at my 13 week ultrasound - I saw the white lines which I had never seen before other than on the ultrasound forum, and there was a between the leg shot and nothing was there, and the skull looked definitely girly. So I was kinda hopeful but my doctor's office doesn't do gender predictions that early and they were all concerned because there was blood in my urine and they couldn't find a heartbeat and they thought I might by miscarrying (I just had a bladder infection and my usual tipped uterus) and so I didn't want to pressure them.

    I had my official gender ultrasound Mar. 22nd. The tech couldn't get a good look at first and then finally she was like, "I can see what you're having..." and then this big long pause during which I wanted to slap her and say "Out with it, woman" and then she said, "I'm looking between the legs and...mumblemumble". So I had to ask, "I'm sorry, did you say there's NOTHING between the legs?" And then she said, "Yes, it looks like you're having a girl!!" She checked several more times over the course of the ultrasound and there was never even a hint of anything remotely boylike.

    Anyway, that's my update! Hope it helps!
    Last edited by atomic sagebrush; April 23rd, 2014 at 02:03 PM.
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  2. Likes Chrisje, ScienceGirl liked this post
  3. #2
    Moderator
    ELP's Avatar
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    Atomic! Am I reading this right??? You have been hiding a sneaky pregnancy from us, and its pink!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Massive congratulations!!!!!! I am absolutely overthe moon for you!!!!! I'm just gonna go back and actually read your post now just to make sure I'm not seeing things lol!!!!!!! Over the moon for you again xxxxxxxxxx

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  5. #3
    Dreamer

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    At first I thought it was some kinda joke. Congrats!

  6. #4
    Dream Vet
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    OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Atomic, I am SO shocked, and SO SO SO happy for you!!!!! I seriously think my jaw hit the floor when I saw this!!!!!! WOW, congratulations!!!!!! I am SO thrilled for you!!!!!

    Enjoy your !!!!

    When are you due??
    2008
    2010
    2013
    2013: twin boy stillborn at 37 weeks
    Sweet baby boy, you are loved and missed more than you will ever know.
    There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of you and wonder what
    you would have been like. I love you and miss you so much.
    Rest now, my baby, in the loving arms of Jesus.


    Biggest shock of our lives - surprise BFP! And it's a GIRL!!!


  7. #5
    Dreamer

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    A huge congrats Atomic!!! I hope you are enjoying your pregnancy.

  8. #6
    Dream Vet

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    My word!!! I had to reread your post 2 times, lol! Congratulations, hun! Super duper fantastic news! I'm so happy for you!

  9. #7
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    Just actually read your post now and definately a massive congratulations What a rough rollercoaster of a time, but what a bright end of the tunnel!! Again, so excited for you

  10. #8
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    Sneaky little bugger.... I figured you were up to something when you talked about your plan for a 5th boy. But I didn't expect you to hide it. I think I mentioned once that you should really consider trying again (because of the pic you used to have of your 4 boys).

    Congrats thats great news!
    2007
    2007 2008 2009 2010
    2012 twin

    DADDY wants

  11. #9
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    Wow this is amazing!! Though I had a *feeling* this might happen, as I read a few posts where you had mentioned that even if you ever did sway again, you wouldn't tell us right away because of T levels and over-analyzing! Still, I'm shocked and excitied for you, and would love to see some ultrasound pictures of your little babe! Congrats on a !!!!!

    Your sons will make the best big brothers!

    PS: I am assuming that Atomic's due date is sometime in August since she concieved in Nov.
    Last edited by auroara78; March 23rd, 2012 at 02:37 PM.
    2007 / 2011 / 2012



    Link to my girl sway: http://genderdreaming.com/forum/add-...-its-girl.html

  12. #10
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    OMG Congratulations!!! I had to read this a couple times, I thought you were joking with the title

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