The Jellybean Factory – Understanding Sperm Count and Frequency
People have a hard time wrapping their brains around how frequency patterns sway. Here’s an analogy that can maybe help us visualize the process a little bit.
Imagine that your husband’s entire body, but particularly his testicles, are a jelly bean factory, making jelly beans every day. By using the raw materials he gets/makes from the foods he eats, this jelly bean factory makes one big XY jelly bean that then divides into two X and two Y jelly beans in a process that take about 72 days for his jelly beans to mature. This process repeats itself millions of times a day.
AT the bottom of the jelly bean factory is a big glass jar – or two, but just to make it easier to picture we’ll imagine one glass jar (proper name – epididymis) where sperm are stored. At the end of the jar, is a spout that dispenses the jelly beans (I think we all know the proper name for the spout LOL). Every time he ejaculates, you get a ‘serving’ of jelly beans that have been deposited there over the course of several days. Some are older, some are newer. Some are X, some are Y – and NOTHING you can do can change that fact – both X and Y are ejaculated in roughly 50-50, every man, every time.
As the jelly beans age, they begin to turn into licorice ones that taste bad and even when dispensed, usually no one wants them and they just get thrown away – these ‘licorice sperm’ tend to be poor swimmers, don’t survive long in the female body, and they’re the least likely to fertilize an egg. After a while, the oldest and unhealthiest licorice ones get too stale and the materials in them are reused to make new jelly beans. There are NOT separate compartments for each day’s sperm, nor are there separate batches of sperm…the factory is always running, always depositing more layers.
As the sperm are made, they are added to the glass storage jar. For the sake of illustration, imagine that the jelly beans he makes every day are different colors and as they’re deposited, they kind of form layers (which they almost certainly do to some extent). Each scoop or layer, is sperm that DH is making on a daily basis. So one day he makes purple, one day he makes green, one day he makes yellow, different amounts each day depending on how well the factory is functioning, how full the glass storage jar is, and the amount of raw materials he has available. Among these layers, about half are marked with a tiny X and half are marked with a tiny Y (because remember, that first big jelly bean he makes is a big XY that then splits into 2 X, 2 Y jelly beans) and nothing you do can change that proportion.
The newest layers of jelly beans are deposited on top and over time, the oldest jelly beans tend to sink to the bottom and get used up while more new ones are dropped on the top. They are not strictly segregated, however – just like when you dispense anything from a dispenser, it’s totally possible that some old ones get pushed up against the sides and never manage to come out the spout, and also possible that some newer ones manage to jockey their way down a little faster than you might expect and “take cuts” ahead of some who’ve been waiting longer (you know how that sort of whirpool effect happens and the stuff in the middle sometimes gets pulled down faster than the stuff on the sides can.)
On average however, the older jelly beans tend to get dispensed sooner and the newer jelly beans, later. You’d probably never get any of the newest jelly beans in a batch, because they haven’t had the time to sink to the bottom of the dispenser, and you’d never get only the oldest layer of jelly beans because at least some other layers would get mixed in there as well. And it’s very likely that you NEVER are able to get all the jelly beans from any one layer or have any batches that are just one layer created on one day. Some will always get pushed up against the sides and turn into licorice and eventually be recycled into new jelly beans. So pink swayers, if you’re worried about the day your husband cheated on his diet and went to Kentucky Fried Chicken or blue swayers, if you’re remembering how your husband sat in a hot tub after you told him not to and are trying to count back 72 days to find out when exactly that day’s sperm is going to come out so you can just not BD that day, don’t!! It doesn’t work that way.
Further complicating matters, he doesn’t just make or dispense a set number of jelly beans on any given day. The amount of jelly beans he makes/dispenses depends on several different factors. Firstly, there is a limited amount of room in the dispenser. If the dispenser starts to get full and stays full for a really long time, he will start to make fewer jelly beans (he may experience testicular pain as well), the jelly beans may accidentally dispense themselves usually while he’s sleeping ;), and when you do dispense a batch, a LOT of jelly beans will probably come out because they’re under some pressure from the other jelly beans trying to get out. Since the jelly beans aren’t getting used up regularly, more of them will turn into licorice jelly beans, and the ones on the bottom will end up being a quite high percent licorice – but probably not all licorice. The whirlpool effect will probably ensure that some newer jelly beans make it out along with the licorice ones.
Obviously, this is how abstain works. Many men report they actually have very large batches of semen after abstain and people have been concerned about this for their pink sway, but more of the sperm are bad and incapable of fertilizing an egg. Net result – fewer edible jelly beans, fewer sperm able to swim to/fertilize the egg. Lower VIABLE sperm numbers = more girls.
Since it is a jellybean factory that is going 24-7, there are always more layers being deposited constantly, half X and half Y, and the more you take out (the more he ejaculates) the sooner the layers on top will make it to the bottom and get dispensed, so you can guarantee that if you take out servings of jelly beans pretty regularly, all your jelly beans will be fresh and tasty with very few licorice ones. At the same time, you don’t want to take out SO many jelly beans that there are hardly any left. This why you want to BD every 2-4 days for blue - max numbers of nice fresh jelly beans/sperm, and large amounts of healthy sperm = boys. Please understand, there are STILL about 50-50 X and Y sperm regardless, but more and healthier sperm, both X and Y sways blue for reasons we do not yet understand.
Blue swauers, if something happens and you go 5 days between BD, or would like to have more than one attempt in your fertile window/microwindow and BD every other day or even 2-3 days in a row, that’s FINE! That will not ruin your sway even tho it is not the strict, 'every 2-4 days' suggestion. You can see it’s still very, very different from what pink swayers are doing and is nowhere near enough to deplete the numbers of jelly beans.
At the same time, the jelly bean factory only has a limited number of ingredients for making more jelly beans, so if you scoop out lots and lots all the time, over time there start to be fewer and fewer jelly beans per scoop (which is how FR and compressed FR can sway pink.) The factory never shuts down production, so there will always be a FEW jelly beans being made. In fact, since demand seems to be high, the factory may even increase production to some extent but by constantly dispensing the jelly beans as quickly as they can collect, you ensure that numbers stay low. Lower sperm numbers sways pink even tho both X and Y are being dispensed in roughly equal numbers.
Sometimes pink swayers wonder about switching from abstain to FR, or continuing with straight FR after missing a day. The reason why this is not the greatest idea, is all about supply and demand. With abstain, the factory does kind of shut down production but then when you have your abstain BD, it’s usually a big batch that helps to ‘clean the pipes’ and get rid of a lot of the licorice jelly beans. All of a sudden there’s a lot of room for fresh jelly beans, and probably quite a bit of spare raw materials that the factory can use to make more very quickly. So production may go up suddenly and then if you BD again after your abstain, you may end up with a big batch of some leftover older sperm (the factory is still trying to get rid of those!!) and a nice big batch of fresh sperm, net result, higher sperm numbers than with just abstain + 1 attempt. With FR, production may even be a bit higher still, because demand is higher, so if you miss a day, you end up with fresh healthy sperm that may add up quickly. In both instances, it’s better to switch to compressed FR (2-3 releases in a 12-24 hours, using only the last batch for insemination) because you’ll be able to better deplete numbers that way. Keep in mind that neither of these two situations is make or break – you’ll still get about 50-50 X and Y sperm regardless and if you’re swaying (pink especially, but also blue sway tactics like BSF, BSD, and Shettles timing), you may actually NEED more sperm because so much of swaying can be harmful for sperm survival.
Like any factory, things can break down and go wrong – heat/pressure can cause good jelly beans to turn licorice before their time, high levels of chemicals (even things like nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine) and hormones like estrogen can both reduce the factory’s production and also increase the proportion of licorice jelly beans, some men are just born with factories that are a little less effective than they should be or their factory has become less efficient over time from aging, injury, lack of sleep, stress, or disease. All these things can reduce production and sway pink regardless of frequency of BD.
If you limit the amounts of ingredients the factory has coming in to begin with, your husband just cannot MAKE as many jelly beans as he would be able to under ideal circumstances. And too many ingredients can be just as bad as not enough – too much sugar, fat, and certain nutrients like zinc can cause the equipment to malfunction, even tho under ideal circumstances they actually help make jelly beans!!
For swaying blue you just want to get the factory running as efficiently as you can, provide ample amounts of high quality ingredients but not so much that the equipment gets overwhelmed (esp. with mineral supplements, more is not better!), take out regular (every 2-4 days) but not overly frequent batches of jelly beans/sperm to ensure steady production and freshness. As long as the batches are regular, not too many or too few, and DH is in good health and eating right, the odds are good that you will get large amounts of fresh jelly beans. Have him avoid stress, get plenty of rest, avoid heat and pressure from bike seats or tighty whiteys, limit alcohol and caffeine and STOP SMOKING, and if he works around industrial chemicals or radiation, he should take precautions to limit his exposure as much as possible. Make sure he is treated for any underlying testicular injury or disease (and having a very high pH 9+ can actually be a symptom of underlying infections that are actually BAD for sperm and will sway pink regardless of pH, so if your husband has high pH naturally, don’t celebrate, blue swayers - he needs to see a doctor to rule out any infections that are causing his pH to rise while making him shoot excess numbers of licorice jelly beans!!))
To sway pink, you have to take out A LOT of jelly beans frequently (once a day for 7-10 days or even more, OR 2-3 times a day for 2-3 days, dumping all batches, then 2-3 times a day using only the last batch for insemination), or else not take any for a long time (abstain for 7-10 days, up to 14 but no longer) and let the licorice ones add up. You may also want to limit raw materials (esp. saturated fat and cholesterol for DH) and keep the equipment in less than ideal condition by having DH wear tighty whiteys, take hot baths, use licorice root, getting less sleep, ride a bike, etc. He does not need to stop drinking or give up caffeine for swaying – and if he smokes, of course for his health it’s better to stop but it’s not better for your sway.
