last shot at ttc a dd: tips on tweaking my sway?

[balt0038]

Hello,

My dh agreed to three cycles ttc a dd, and we are on our last shot (cd 3 right now). I want to maximize changes of conceiving while not diminishing chances for a dd. Here's my plan for this month-if you have any suggestions/tips I would be very grateful for any advice.

Diet: continue low-nutrient, low sodium & potassium, no red meat diet. Eating lots of white rice, green beans, low sugar craisins, yogurt with low sodium no added nutrient granola, plain rice cakes with strawberry jam.

Timing: went for a cut-off the last two months, this time planning to dtd the four days around suspected O. Dh cannot do more than 5 bd days in a row and I am worrying that the fifth time isn't yielding healthy swimmers since it was so hard to finish the job on the fifth night. I don't want to do long abstain since that is what gave us ds 1 and ds 2.

pH and cm: planning to use Rephresh to lower pH. On our first try only had vinegar douche available and it didn't do the job well enough; last month did vinegar, lime and Rephresh and I worry it did the job too well (esp. the lime, that really lowered pH fast). Also, planning to take Sudafed around the clock around O to eliminate EWCM.

Other things: using Sylk lube each attempt, going outside a lot, limited computer time and nail polish for ions, planning to wait a few minutes before jump and dump to give them a chance. And a girlie sleeper under the bed, why not?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and advice. I can't imagine living the rest of my life without a dd, it feels like she is missing from my life. Hoping this last shot is the one!

[balt0038]

Oh, forgot to mentions supps: taking calcium citrate, mag. citrate, cranberry and folic acid. Thought I'd reduce cranberry for this cycle and add B vitamins to help lengthen luteal phase.

[3blue?pink]

I have just found out I am having a girl and I am totally in shock I truly believe that the diet, excercise, lowering my ph ie. jellies and the 1 attempt after abstaining is what high contributed to my precious pink bundle.

[3blue?pink]

Ps. I conceived 1st month

[atomic sagebrush]

Wow. These are the types of posts that keep me up at night. Just giving it to you straight here, you may as well have been taking birth control pills. Anyone who has 3 months to conceive a daughter, should not be doing most of those sway tactics. If you can't get pg, you have no chance at your DG.

You may not like this advice but here goes.

Drop cutoff and frequency entirely. Have DH release on his own every 2-4 days and then have ONE attempt the day of positive OPK (day before ovulation). To go from a cutoff which has poor odds of conception, esp. with swaying involved, to DTD 5 times around O (that's waht I have BLUE swayers do!) I feel is a huge step in the wrong direction. Timing doesn't sway, but doing just one attempt seems to, and your best odds of conception with one attempt are going to be on day of pos OPK.

Drop jelly (No RepHresh, no Acijel, no Sylk) drop douche, drop Sudafed. If you absolutely MUST use Sudafed, take ONE 3 hours before attempt (I do not believe Sudafed to be safe and I don't want anyone to take it but if a person has to, that's the safest way). The GOOD studies done by real scientists and not people selling stuff, show that with any pH below 6, there were NO motile sperm in the cervix. Not X, not Y. NO sperm love low pH, it KILLS them.

Drop cranberry all together. NEVER EVER take cranberry (or aspirin) with Sudafed, esp. if you are taking Sudafed for several doses in a row. You can give yourself bleeding in your brain that way.

B Vitamins probably sway BLUE and there is not enough time for them to help your LP, it takes several weeks for the B Vitamins to help with LP (and they don't work except for a small minority of people) It is no surprise to me that your LP has gotten short with the diet you are eating. You need some fat in your diet desperately, without fat you can't make progesterone or estrogen and will have a short LP and may stop ovulating. Please add in one full fat yogurt a day and 4 eggs a week for the next 2 weeks to be sure you will have a little cholesterol that your body can make progesterone with.

[atomic sagebrush]

Ps. I conceived 1st month

It is the lucky exception that can conceive 1st month while doing everything. Most people can't, unfortunately. So we have to be sure that people, when they drop things/add things, drop/add the RIGHT things!

[Emily]

Why 3 months? Could you convince DH to keep at it so to speak a little longer? 6 months is the average time to conceive with NO sway tactics. Not sure how scientific that figure is but have seen it a lot

[balt0038]

Thank you very much for the responses. Emily, my dh and I both wanted 3 Lo's and he wanted to stick with that number despite only having ds's, while I was hoping to try for #4 for one more chance at a dd. He agreed to try for 3 cycles at my request. We have conceived 4 times (1 a miscarriage) all on our first attempt, so I naively thought three months should do the job even with swaying). I could possibly convince him to try one extra cycle, but with our 3 lo's getting older and busier with sports/ activities it would be especially hard for us to have a newborn in the summer. Also, we have a trip to Florida already planned for Oct. next year and we would want the baby to be at least 6 months old in order to feel comfortable leaving him/her with grandma for that week.

Atomic, thank you for the candid advice. Hard to read, but I think I needed to hear it from you to believe it. I should have mentioned that the granola I eat with my yogurt has quite a bit of fat (9 grams per serving, and I eat one serving per day w/ yogurt). It actually makes me nervous to eat it because of that but I'm so hungry without it. Current weight is 108 so I don't have a lot to lose. I also include Swiss cheese in my diet a few times per week, plus I put non-salted butter on my white rice. I didn't want to bore everyone with all my specifics but I guess those things should have been included.
I will definitely take your bd advice...I knew we needed to tweak our system but didn't know how. I will also take your advice on the jellies/douches...besides MAYBE doing Rephresh (one time, perhaps that morning of + OPK and we wouldn't dtd until night)?? My pH after bd is really high (7.5+) so that makes me nervous. And I do feel strongly that my normally copious amounts of CM has contributed greatly to my all-boy status, so I'm also hesitant to drop Sudafed entirely. But I definitely won't take it with cranberry and will reduce my dose. Perhaps if I do Sudafed I can feel okay in dropping RepHresh as well, knowing it will take away my EWCM and the high pH that goes along with it? Can/should dh continue to take cranberry? I usually give him 7,000 fe in the days leading up to/through our attempts.

Thanks again for your input. It will be hard not to stress about this for the next few weeks! It's really helpful to have this community.

[atomic sagebrush]

apologies for spelling, I am holidng a baby and can barely type LOL

Re the fat - my absolute lowest recommendation for fat intake is 25 g and most people eat quite a bit more than that, up to 60 g of fat. I really think that you need more fat or you're going to stop oing all together. you know best how much you're getting, but if you're 108 lbs and yoru LP is short, that indicates to me that you aren't getting enough fat.

If you absolutely must do Rephresh, I woudl do it no sooner than 24 hours before. 12 hours is pushing it, we've had many people who couldn't get pg with Reprhesh 8-12 hours before.

can you switch sudafed for antihistamine like cetirizine, diphenhydramine, or both if need be?? One sudafed is fine, but for you to be taking it days at a time, that is exactly the scenario that caused strokes in young women - the max dose, for days at aa time, while taking a blood thinner (cranberry is a blood thinner.) I just don't think it's safe for you.

pH of 7.5 after bd is not high pH. that is normal pH. both x and y sperm thrive in ph of the 7's and the sperm has moved onto greener pastures within 15-30 min. of intercourse anyway. those greener pastures ALWAYS have pH in the 7's regardless of what you read on IG - your body grows special cells at ovulation in your fallopian tubes, that do nothign but make alkaline fluids to keep sperm alive. It is irrelevant what your pH is after intercourse, I know it's hard to believe but it doesn't matter. I got a boy with pH of 4.5 that never went up for weeks before and so little CM that I didn't evne know I ovuated.

If I had one cycle to get pg I would have DH drop the cranberry. But you have to be able to live with your sway, because it's not MY sway LOL. Only you know where you are on the GD continuum and how much you'd be haunted by dropping x,y,z and getting an opposite. Good luck.

[fish2012]

Hey hun

I Think I stopped myself o-ing some months with too low fat do you track your food on my fitness pal or something? could be a good shout

In terms of conditions in the v I think low qty of cm is the only thing to worry about cant imagine you have much on that diet

First months is lucky up to 6 while swaying seems to be the norm even thou lots of us conceived ds easily

I'm interested how dh will know if your ttc if you don't tell him, I was obsessive about the age gap it's twice as big as I wanted like you I thought 3 months would do it ;-) however I do think don't stress about those factors if you get your dd you won't care

Good luck try not to stress xxx