Wondering about swaying as someone with lean PCOS

[atomic sagebrush]

Can you bump this for later?

[emilyjo3]

Bump!

No rush though.. we are going camping and won’t have internet for the next few days


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[atomic sagebrush]

It's actually a really good skill to have, understanding more about the breakdown of your foods. When you get "a certain age" like me LOL it's really hard to balance staying reasonably thin with getting enough nutrients unless you have some understanding of that so it's actually more useful than it might seem at first blush.

No not at all, no need to be sorry! Most people on the site have NO numbers at all so even old numbers can be somewhat useful. I just don't want to rely on them and choose a course of action on that basis when it may not be what is best for you.

Tracking is actually NOT AT ALL useful for swaying and if you aren't already doing it, don't start. Since timing really does not work and has been debunked, you're doing all that for no reason (since cycles change dramatically while swaying anyway) and it serves to feed that "control freakishness" that many of us with all boys are plagued by, which may even sway blue if we let ourselves get too all-consumed with the minutest day to day details of swaying.

You can absolutely start with e4d if you prefer. The truth is we don't know why one attempt works. In the earliest days of the site, because I wanted to avoid the pitfalls and misery that I witnessed when I was back on Ingender, where people went years not conceiving only to end up having an opposite anyway, we put a premium on conception. Since none of us had ever guessed one attempt might sway, we did all the traditional stuff, most of which cut odds of conception hugely, but then added attempts to get pregnant more quickly. It was the WORST results of the site - only 58%. I couldn't understand what we were doing wrong, because the LE Diet was getting better results than the traditional diets, and we were still doing all the stuff, it was so discouraging. But then, we just through sheer dumb luck had tracked the number of attempts. We were shocked to find that one attempt was (at that point) at 70-75%, two attempts was at 60-65%, and then 3 attempts fell all the way down to 40-43%. (the variation in numbers was because we were watching for a few months before we put it all together). These people were doing all sorts of different, strong sways, the only difference seemed to be the number of attempts. We also found that some of the things that we'd assumed worked, like pH, frequency patterns, antihistamines, and herbal supplements did nothing (or were even worse than nothing, getting LOWER results than the site as a whole.) We changed that advice so people dropped the ineffective stuff first while keeping one attempt, and IMMEDIATELY, within three months (because that's the amount of time it takes people to conceive and find out gender) our results did a complete 180. They shot up and have stayed up ever since, and if I purged those early results from our database (which I never would, but if I did) I could make our overall results look even better than they are, since our results subsequent to those first couple years are vastly superior. OUr results on one attempt look less good now than they did, though, because quite a lot of people won't do sway diet and JUST do one attempt. That's at their discretion of course but it does make the numbers look different than they did for quite some time, though.

The e4d is just a low effort way to be in with one attempt no matter where in the cycle that ovulation falls. We can do that in either the 72 hour or 96 hour pattern (NOT that number of hours, that's just how we count the days). Since I do feel that one attempt (because of that inadvertent experiment we did) is more reliable, I have people typically start off with one attempt then go to e4d. But it's totally fine to start off with e4d. Most people who do e4d from the start, start off with the 96 hour pattern and then go to 72 hour pattern. E4d also boosts chances of conception because if people O early or late, and also can help if a person has mistakenly been assuming they can only conceive on a particular cycle day when the day before or after might have been better.

I'll post this now and reply to the rst when I can.

[emilyjo3]

Thanks for this reply! This is so interesting! Do you have any theories as to why the one attempt seems to help sway girl?? I know you don’t know for sure, but your theories are always interesting! Looking back at my charts, both boy #1 and boy #3 had 5-6 days prior to BD during fertile window. For boy #2 it was BD every 2-3 days. What actually is the definition of “one attempt”? One time within _____ number of days?

That being said, I was taking lots of supplements with all three of my boys and on a very boy friendly diet for the first two. I’m thinking avoiding supplements, reducing protein and fat calories, and e4d would probably be a pretty good sway relative to what I did before. I can also keep drinking lots of coffee (I mean, I’m taking care of three boys - that one is a no brainer lol), drinking alcohol (I am still breastfeeding, so I can’t get too crazy with that one), and figure out if I can add some exercise. The exercise feels the least achievable to me. Certainly I can do SOME, but not as much as I’m seeing other swaying women are doing.

Also, maybe by tracking my cycles so closely with my boys (with irregular cycles it felt like the only way to have any clue as to what was going on), I was having some of those control freak tendencies you talk about. I’m very much a type B person, but maybe my desperation to successfully conceive brought out some control freakishness. It will be interesting to see what happens, though, because I won’t really know if and when I ovulate unless I’m tracking my temp. Maybe I can just generally be aware of my cervical fluid and take pregnancy tests a couple weeks after EWCM dries up.. Or, if we really do decide to go for that fourth baby, maybe I’ll track my temp and nothing else, just to have an idea of due date in the event of pregnancy.

I’d love to hear advice about how much/type of alcohol and exercise is needed to make it worth it, or if I just shouldn’t worry about those.

Oh, and that’s really good advice about learning to track nutrients. Definitely a worthwhile skill in the long run!

Thanks again!!


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[atomic sagebrush]

I've speculated that it may be a sheer "sperm numbers at egg" thing, like somehow more sperm = advantage to Y and fewer = advantage to X. But I have come to suspect that the most likely explanation has to do with sperm capacitation. Sperm capacitates in waves, some always "sleeping", some awake, looking to fertilize an egg, and then dying shortly after waking up, and it can somehow communicate between sperm to coordinate that process. It seems very plausible to me that something in the environment may make one or the other stay dormant and never wake up, or one chromosome wake up en masse when the egg shows up (since there are attractants the egg releases at that time).

It's one attempt in the fertile window, and that can vary by person. We are just going off of what we see in terms of when people are conceiving - VERY few people have conceived 4-5 days before O, a handful 3 DPO (probably later in that day), and most people conceive O-1/2 and early on O Day. So we treat our functional fertile window as lasting on average of about three days. Hence the e4d method - the 72 hour pattern will always be about that far apart, and the 96 hour pattern will for sure have that gap covered.

exactly. It is NEVER just one thing. If you were taking lots of supplements and eating a boy friendly diet that's the first and most important thing to change.

Re exercise, since your tendency is to lose ovulation easily we would ~probably~ be best off skipping that esp. if it doesn't come naturally to you. It's just another thing that may delay or even stop O.

The amount of exercise can vary. People who actually do have PCOS can benefit from smaller amounts of exercise (since the benefits of lowering blood sugar are so great for them). But we're not sure you have that going on. Is there an amount of exercise you do feel you could manage without seeing weight loss?

1 drink a day for alcohol, tho some people have done less than that, that's the amount I feel confident with.

I know I still have some unanswered q's in your other post, I'll try to get through them today.

[emilyjo3]

Hmm I would perhaps go ahead and skip the exercise, or at least not worry about it too much. I used to be a runner back before having kids, but I don’t have time to commit to that right now, maybe a couple days a week but that would be it. Based on what you are saying I’m not convinced it would make or break things for me (and might just prevent ovulation altogether honestly..that may be what was going on when TTC the first time around) so I’m not sure it’s worth prioritizing. We are pretty regularly outside being active, hiking, or climbing, etc., but it’s usually with kids in tow, so pretty slow and not exactly cardio.. I’ll think about if I can add in at least a little more exercise once I get a handle on my nutrient intake.

Very interesting theory about the one attempt! Evolutionarily speaking, I guess living in “time of abundance” would theoretically allow for more sex and favor boys? On the flip side, it seems that more sperm might imply more men, and it would be logical for some mechanism to balance out the ratio in favor of females. So I don’t know, it’s pretty confusing and obviously very multifaceted and mysterious. But it’s promising that you have some data to show that for SOME reason e4d helps to sway! When are you writing a book on all this?


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[atomic sagebrush]

Let me rephrase. Exercise is a fantastic sway tactic, it absolutely can make or break a sway, but the issue is that for people who lose ovulation very easily, we need to do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening. Because if your ovulation stops, we would then have to do all this probably-more-blue-friendly-than-just-not-exercising-to-begin-with stuff. So it makes more sense to me (and this is based on having gone this route with 123,456,789 people by now) to forgo the benefit of exercise to prevent the harm of losing ovulation - in which case we'd have to mess around with diet AND also not exercise to get it going again, if that makes sense.

There really may be more than one thing coming into play here. What I have seen (and this is one of those "not universal, but very VERY strong trends") is that on average, the couples with all boys tend to be more sexual than those with all girls. I quite regularly will have couples with all girls where they have sex only once a week, once a month, or even more like once every few months. Some of these men have health issues or other fertility challenges that either lower their sex drive a lot or make them unable to perform very often. Sometimes the wife has physical issues like vulvodynia, or infections or cysts from actual intercourse so they don't have it very often. Other times they're just busy and not that focused on it. And it's not something I see among couples with boys - my husband would flip his pancakes if we went a week without sex, let alone a month! So that disconnect is definitely tied up in the mystery somehow.

But at the same time, I have what I call an "important minority" of couples with all girls who have sex every single day (about the same number as the amount of people who are going months without having sex at all). The logic with that seems to be, their husbands are making really small batches of sperm so there are fewer sperm to greet the egg - but again, we don't KNOW that, it's just speculation. That's something I ~also~ don't see very often at all among couples with all boys. (and please, no one, try this method of getting a girl. It is too subject to interruption, like people have job situations, or sick kids, and time after time people end up in a blue-friendly pattern when they were trying to do daily BD. Plus, a lot of men with all boys can just shake it off and make more sperm than ever that way.) I don't know what that means (re the daily BD and girls) but the couples who have been in that camp have often not been together very long and/or were very young, less than 25. That may have something to do with it.

Long story short, the logic of the ultimate mechanism is as yet elusive to me but seems to be tied to overall sex drive and possibly the longetivity of the relationship.

I probably should write a book, but I'm honestly in this to help as many people as I can. Me taking time away from helping you guys to get a book to a point of publication (because it takes such a huge time commitment to do that) and promote it, that just doesn't feel like the best use of my time when what I could be doing is helping people.
Long story short,

[atomic sagebrush]

Ok I told myself I would not leave work today without finishing replying to your post on page 1!!

RE progesterone, as long as it's medically prescribed then it's your call. I tell people my thinking on it simply because they're not often going to hear that from anyone else, but of all the things people do, that one I completely understand why you guys want to go that route and it's certainly not a bad thing for either safety or sway so it's at your discretion. Do be aware that (and this very well may not have been the case for you, I mention it simply because I've seen it so often) many times getting progesterone tested even just a couple days "off" of where you think you are in the cycle can really lead to a dramatically different result. So people sometimes end up getting prog. tested and told that it is low but they'd ovulated several days later than they thought. just something to keep in mind if you're ever in that boat in future.

I may have already mentioned this so apologies if I'm being repetitive, but I do have people from time to time who will consider swaying, maybe even start doing it for a week or two, and then seem to change their mind and say "what am I thinking, gender doesn't matter, all that matters is a healthy baby". These people nearly always end up with opposites; the people with all boys often treat pregnancy as this huge thing they must prepare for with massive amounts of healthy food and supplements and BD as much as they can to get pregnant quicker, and the people with all girls will stop eating healthy, often lose weight (since they gain some on HE, usually), and will cut back on supplements. And invariably they have big regrets over this, since it was more of an emotional wobble than what they actually, long term, wanted or intended to do. So I always like to point that out whenever anyone brings up the whole "gender doesn't matter" ball o wax - while you're right, and it absolutely doesn't matter, it's only natural to want to experience a child of both genders and if we can help make that happen with a few easy to make changes, well, why not?

Walking is fine! If you could walk for an hour even just 3 days a week I think it could help, but like I said at the start, my gut is for you to skip it all together because I think it carries far more risk to you than it does for the average person.

Alcohol has helped pink sways. 1 drink a day is all you need. Stop at ovulation of course but until you're actively trying you can have that drink all month.

[emilyjo3]

Atomic, thank you so so much for your reply, yet again. Your perspective is very refreshing, especially relative to other sway advice floating around out there. I really wish I would’ve reached out last time I swayed…except for the fact that I can’t imagine life without my perfect, sweet, makes-the-whole-family-smile third baby boy!

Regarding exercise—as the weather is getting warmer and especially this summer, I probably will be walking at least an hour 2-3 days/week. Good to know that I wouldn’t need to do much beyond this anyway.

You said….”the people with all boys often treat pregnancy as this huge thing they must prepare for with massive amounts of healthy food and supplements..” LOLOL. Aaaaaand that is precisely ME. No wonder I have three boys!! That single thing might be what I would change most this time around. Which will be much easier if we are still somewhat undecided if we should have another baby. It’s not as if I’ll be unhealthy, I just don’t need to feel the pressure to eat exceedingly healthy and obsess over supplements. It’s kind of a relief! It’ll be hard to skip ice cream though haha


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[atomic sagebrush]

Exactly! The nice thing about swaying is that there never is a "failed sway" because either way, we get the golden ticket!

We have to keep in mind that there are at least three separate multimillion dollar industries (medicine/wellness, fertility, and the supplement makers - not to mention the media itself which profits from running content, wherever they can find it, even if it comes from advertisers) with a vested interest in selling us health products and they're all willing to go to great lengths in order to do that. So what we actually need and what we're told we need is not always the same at all. We would not have gotten to the point where there are nearly 8 billion human beings on the planet if we truly needed organic powdered rhinoceros toenails just to get pregnant.

If you have a healthy lifestyle overall, you just don't NEED any of this stuff prior to BFP. There's time enough to start prenatals and any other supps you think you should be taking when you're looking at a positive pregnancy test.