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Hi
I'm 42 and trying to conceive, ideally a girl. We have been trying the one or a maximum of two attempts for six months but no success yet. Do you have any advice on what to do in terms of number of attempts as I'm panicking that this approach isn't working but also want to do something that doesn't sway blue! I saw somewhere about the SMEP - do you have any more info on that please and does it sway blue? Thank you so much!
Yes, SMEP sways blue.
I would like you to go to e4d instead (have unprotected sex every 72 hours from after your period ends till you are certain you've ovulated, even if this means going all the way till your next period begins.) And if you're really ready to pull out all the stops then go to e4d plus one more attempt at positive OPK rather than going to SMEP. This is still better chances of conception but is more likely to be pink friendly.
Only if you are ok with swaying blue should you do SMEP. IT's a great way to conceive, pushes odds way up, and you can get a girl that way but it is more blue friendly.
Thank you so much for the speedy reply- I will try the e4d possibly with the one more attempt at positive OPK. Can I ask how the stats are looking for the number of attempts? Have they remained constant? I wonder what the science is behind it too! 🤔 thank you so much again for your time x
Not possibly, DO add the extra attempt. We have no more time here (unless you are ok with not getting pregnant at all. Some people are) If it had been up to me I'd have had you go to e4d and then e4d plus one already rather than go on for 6 months doing 1 or two attempts (because you do e4d all month it is better chance for conception than 2 attempts in case you're Oing earlier or later than you realize) but we're here now and at 42 you gotta get pregnant ASAP.
I'll answer your second question first. When we started this site we had no idea one attempt swayed. That number of attempts might sway was something no one had ever guessed at. We knew timing wasn't possible because it had been debunked, and so we assumed it was frequency/pH/drying up CM/etc that worked and so we focused on those (and a lot of people still did timing back then). Swaying makes it hard for people to get pregnant, so in order to boost our odds of conception we had people do all the old school sway tactics while adding attempts to get pregnant (because they couldn't get pregnant doing all that stuff with one attempt.)
It was the lowest results for pink of the entire site. :( 58%, which was dreadful.
At the same time, blue sways (and I always assumed that more sperm meant more boys and so had people ditch Shettles for blue and have as many attempts as they could for blue) were through the roof. 80% boys those first couple years for the swayers who did things the Gender Dreaming way.
We track our results differently than other sites. WE include everyone, even if they only do a few things to sway (other sites refuse to add anyone who does not do many different things all at the same time) which enables us to track individual tactics independent from each other, if that makes sense. And we also (back then anyway) used to calculate the inverse results (which show us the number of people who got girls WITHOUT doing those things.) So because I was so disappointed and confused by the poor results for pink, I started analyzing the results and found a very strange trend. All the things I'd assumed worked - jellies, herbs, antihistamines, frequency patterns for hubby, etc - NONE of them worked. The exact same % of people got girls with and without them. The only things that appeared to be really working were diet, exercise, and much to my very great surprise, the number of attempts a person had (which we tracked totally by accident!!!) People who had one attempt were at 75% success during that point in time. People who had 2 attempts were in the low 60%. And people who had three attempts fell all the way down to 43%! (and remember, we were having great results for blue with lots of attempts too)
AT that point I could not conclude anything than number of attempts was swaying in a big way. So I immediately changed course. In stead of having people who were not getting pregnant keep doing jelly, frequency, etc and then adding attempts to conceive, I had them keep one attempt and start dropping that other stuff to conceive. Our results turned around the very next month and have stayed up ever since (which is like 7 years by now). So given all that I am completely and totally sold on the one attempt doing something. We don't know what that something is, I have my speculation but when I speculate I find people get too hung up on the speculation and not enough on just doing what works (altho happy to share if you're interested)
Now, to answer your first question. "Have the stats stayed consistent." The answer to that is no, BUT. The BUT comes from that as people heard one attempt swayed, people who did nothing else to sway started doing one attempt. People regularly would show up here wanting to get pregnant THAT month without diet or exercise and I'd tell them "do one attempt". So the group of people doing one attempt went from a group of pretty strict and careful swayers to include lots of other people many of whom weren't doing diet and exercise. And as you might expect, the results with one attempt have fallen to more in the neighborhood of two attempts, but that doesn't erase what happened before and that's why I recommend the one attempt to start out with.
But, all that having been said even one attempt is no magic bullet, and if you don't get pregnant you have no chance of a daughter. We have had good results with e4d too, and with 2 attempts too, so you aren't killing your sway to go to e4d plus one (which is 2 attempts when done properly)
Thank you so much for the thorough reply, I really appreciate it and it’s really interesting to read about.
I will do the e4d plus the extra attempt.
I would be interested to hear your theory about how the one attempt works if you have the time!
You mentioned the exercise part of the sway- I have chronic fatigue and I am unable to do much exercise at all. Do you think this will adversely affect my sway? Thank you again!
Edit: can I also ask about what happens when there are many more attempts eg every day in the fertile period or multiple times a day when very fertile? Thank you!
Ok. I think there are two possibilities. One is that it's a numbers game and having more sperm at the egg (keep in mind out of millions of sperm, only a very few survive to get to the egg) may make it easier for Y sperm vs. X sperm to get through the eggshell...either due to the size of the Y/X or by something the numbers of sperm communicate to the egg. OR (and I think this is the likelier of the two) since sperm have a rudimentary form of communication between themselves that controls capacitation so some of them stay "dormant" waiting for the egg, while others capacitate, or "wake up", it may be that something about the number of attempts or sperm numbers all together "tells" the Y or the X sperm to "wake up" while the others stay dormant. Or it may be both or some other thing entirely!
I can't recommend more attempts for two reasons. Firstly is that it might sway blue; whether it's from adding sperm numbers or from triggering some sort of communication between the sperm or with the egg (or some other thing) I can't say, but based on our results 3 attempts was dramatically worse than 1 (with 2 in between). Secondly, and many people have a hard time wrapping their head around this but it's totally true - it's not even a good way to get pregnant. If your ovulation is delayed (and it often is with swaying) you BD like bunnies but it's at the wrong time of the month and you miss ovulation totally. OR, by BD every day, what can happen is that when O is delayed (or you start too early) your husband kind of runs out of steam and ends up shooting mostly dust (even if semen comes out, it can be totally devoid of sperm or have only a couple million in it which isn't enough). Sometimes hubbies even get so exhausted from daily BD that when the fertile window opens they can't perform at all or can't ejaculate. So you end up missing months because of that, or your attempts are useless.
The best way to get pregnant is by having regular sex often enough to get pregnant from even when you don't ~think~ you're fertile, and that way you're protected against early or late ovulation (so the e4d) but then adding in another attempt when you're most likely fertile (the additional attempt at positive OPK). With the regular sex, your husband will be making ample sperm to conceive with and you'll always be in with those regular attempts to cover in case you don't ovulate when you think you will.
If you can't exercise, you can't. I got my girl without exercise.
Hi, thank you once again for such a detailed and informative reply. It’s much appreciated. The theories about why the number of attempts sways are really interesting, thank you for going into to them. And thank you for the advice about BDing too much too.
I was thinking about my plan this month for attempts and I wondered about the extra attempt- it could make the attempts every two days (eg the e4d attempt, the +OPK attempt, and the next e4d attempt). Would that not make it three attempts and thus sway blue? I noticed you said the three attempts swayed blue- would that be the case here or am I thinking about it wrong? Thank you so much!
Technically, it could be, but the 72 hours between first and third attempt typically ends up to be that one of those attempts is not in the fertile window. If anything is left from the first BD (very unlikely from O-4 and O-5 - like 1 in 1000/10,000 chance kind of thing and even O-3 is unlikely) it will have fertilized the egg (or the second one will) before the final BD is made. If nothing is left, the last attempt will have time to capacitate and still can make it to the egg. So it ends up being only two functional attempts, if that makes sense. (If not, I'll clarify)
Hi thank you, that does make sense. Sorry yet another question! What if the +OPK falls on a day that would have been a normal attempt? Would you suggest doing another attempt the day after then carry on as normal with another attempt 72 hours after that or just do the +OPK and leave it til 72 hours later? Trying to work out what’s best for keeping to the attempt schedule but also wanting to optimise chances! Thank you again!
Hi! I just wanted something clarified, I see you're talking about e4days and 72 hours in this thread but I assume that's a typo? Sex with 72 hours in between (for exampel Monday and Thursday) would be e3days, and sex with 96 hours in between (for exampel Monday and Friday) would be e4days - right?Quote:
Originally Posted by atomic sagebrush
Yes just have another attempt when it makes sense with your schedule to do so. Two that night, or one that night, one the next morning, or one that night and again the next day. If doing e4d plus one you NEED to have the additional attempt, don't just now count on the pos OPK attempt if it's on the same day as the other attempt is meant to fall.Quote:
Originally Posted by sparkles42
No, it's not a typo. "every four days" is just a code word we use to describe regular unprotected sex that is just close enough together to always be in with an attempt that has a decent chance at the egg, but far enough apart toQuote:
Originally Posted by Eko
there are two main ways we do e4d - we count it ONE (attempt) TWO (no attempt) THREE (no attempt) FOUR (attempt) and this is what I call the "every 72 hour" pattern. (but you can see how many people still count that as every four days.) Or you can count it ON ONE (attempt) TWO (no attempt) THREE (no attempt) FOUR (no attempt) FIVE (attempt) (but you can see how many people didn't think that was every four days!) and then some people were even not counting the days of attempt like this: Attempt day, then four whole days with nothing, then another attempt.
saying "e3d" and "e4d" and "e5d" was super confusing because I could never ever be sure how people were counting the days. We were having people say "e4d" but counting the days differently than other people and this was happening constantly. People were having sex every other day and calling that e3d. It was a disaster.
So now we have e4d, the technique, the general principle of regular unprotected sex, and you can do that technique with about 72 hours between, or 96, or even more than that if you're not in a hurry to get pregnant.
Hi again! I’m afraid I have another question if thats ok!
This month for a variety of reasons our attempt schedule is all over the place. It was Saturday then Monday and then I got a positive OPK this morning which was a few days later than expected. So do we have an attempt today which would mean two days in between the three attempts or wait and do another attempt tomorrow or not at all? Thank you!
Edited to say that we have had the attempt today and I’m hoping we haven’t ruined the sway ��
My motto is, when in doubt, have an attempt.
It all depended on how big a hurry you were in to conceive. If you had been trying for a while I'd have had you add an attempt, if you just started and weren't in a hurry I would have likely had you stick with the attempt you had and just ahve your regular scheduled BD the next day(today). But having an attempt was all good! Good luck!