Its a viscius circle, stress affects ovulation, ovulation affects stress. This is our focus isn't it when trying to get pregnant, we chart, we test, we plan and it can be a hugely stressful time. Particularly the longer you have been trying, or if you don't have a regular ovulation.
In this episode I dig a little deeper, discuss the ovulation tigers, the What If's you may have and what you are doing to determine when you are ovulating.
Transcript
In this episode, I'm going to talk about the stress of ovulation, which if you've been trying to get pregnant, whether that be with your first, second or further children, you may well really identify with this and see this as being an issue.
So my first question for you is, do you know when you ovulate, have you always known when you ovulate, are you still unsure or have you recently found out that it's not at all when you thought it was.
I often talk about how, what we're taught in school. Isn't actually relevant to what we need to know when it comes to trying to get pregnant. We often have this idea that we all ovulate on day 14 in the holy grail of 28 day cycle. But actually, even if you had a 28 day cycle, it's not guaranteed that you would ovulate on day 14.
I know some people have been informed from a medical professional that they will ovulate 14 days after their period starts. And other people have been told that they will ovulate 14 days before their period starts. None of which is a guarantee, none of which is true for all.
I have worked with some clients over the years where the only issue in their fertility journey was that they weren't completely sure when they were ovulating. Often it's that they were ovulating a lot later than they thought. So it was when working together quite a quick win for many. And sometimes it can be as simple as that, but we know it's not, we know, as I've said many times that there are many, many factors involved. And we also know that we are not looking for further information when we're going through the doctors necessarily.
Ovulation signs
So do you know your signs of ovulation? Now, this is something I discussed earlier in the podcast in episode six. So that's worth the listen, if you haven't already listened to that one where I talk about ovulation signs.
So naturally, when you ovulate, think about us as animals, not as logical overthinking at times, humans, but as animals, your body tells you it's time to reproduce. So your libido will be increased and you will have changing cervical mucus that will change over this fertility window. The type of mucus varies as we get nearer to ovulation, it's very choosy early on as to which sperm it let through. And the nearer to ovulation, as I've talked about in the episode six, it's going to let anything through at this point. So it is important to know what that mucus means and what it demonstrates.
Stress and Ovulation
We know that stress, anxiety, worry, fear affects ovulation. It's a very natural process in the body. It's a fantastic process to keep you safe because ultimately the first job of your body is for you to stay alive. It's second job is for you to have sustenance for you to continue. So to stay alive in the moment of danger and then to stay healthy and alive. And it's third job, and this is a hierarchy is procreation. So unless those other two are in place, as I've talked about before, procreation is going to come very, very low down on the list. So at times when your body feels you are in imminent danger in the past, this would be with predators. And I talk about tigers a lot, and Tiger Taming is something I work with my clients. It's a way to address this stress, worry, anxiety, and fear, and bring your body back into balance and help your fertility.
So, when you are faced with a tiger, then your body, your hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal access is working to ensure that everything is put into staying alive. And when everything is put into staying alive, then other aspects are switched down or switched off and ovulation can be one of these. Okay? So it could be that ovulation comes later, or it could be that you don't ovulate at all, as well as that, what we also know is not only can, and I hate using the word stress, but, but when your emotional health is, is, is unbalanced. When there is fear and worry and anxiety in place, it will affect ovulation, but equally ovulation can in fact be the cause of the stress, the worry and the fear. So it's in effect of, um, working with this to try and get the balance. Now, as you know, I hope you know that I will never tell you to just relax.
Relaxing can be really, really difficult. So, when we look at your tigers, and again, I've talked about this many times before, but I'm going to talk specifically about your ovulation tigers and your tigers are your thoughts, your fears, and your worries. So what are the thoughts that are running through your head around the time of ovulation? What are those thoughts? What, what ifs do you have?
What if I'm not ovulating?
What if I don't get pregnant this month?
I may never get pregnant.
How do I know that this is the right time?
How do I know that I'm ovulating?
What if it's me?
What if your partner isn't going to be around during the magic window and
What is your magic window?
What is the time you have put aside, or you have in your mind that is your magic window. And I hope your answer will be the period of seven days before ovulation.
So that's what I work with, with my clients. And we look at that in different stages in order to maximize your chances of getting pregnant, because remember the egg lives for up to 24 hours. The sperm lives for three to five days can be up to seven. And I've repeated this time and time again. I know, but if you think about that, the design of the body is that the sperm needs to be there, ready. It needs to be there ready and waiting for when that egg is released. If you wait for ovulation, you may well miss. Also, if this is the first time you've had sex in a while at ovulation, you could be some quite dodgy sperm. That's not a medical term, but you know what I mean.
There could be some dodgy sperm in that ejaculate at that point, the other thing is, what are you doing to analyze when you are ovulating? Are you using your body signs? Have you used ovulation predictor sticks before, or perhaps temperature charting?. And if you know that you're very regular and you know, when you ovulate, are you still peeing on ovation sticks around this time? Or do you have irregular periods now, or maybe even you have absent periods? I have clients who have a cycle every 28 days who aren't ovulating. So you can have anovulatory cycles and there are many things that cause this, that we can look into that we can start to learn more about. But if you are peeing on ovulation sticks every month, this in itself can cause a stress.
This in a sense can cause that anxiety and switch down those natural signs of ovulation and maybe even be switching down ovulation itself, also ovulation predictor sticks. aren't always accurate. So if you have polycystic ovary syndrome, particularly you will have quite regular hormone surges potentially that don't lead to ovulation.
So what can you do?
What can you do to support yourself at this time to know more about ovulation and to get in a better head space for it? So rather than reading everything and sending yourself crazy with your Google searches, I would suggest that you choose some, just a few sites that you find useful to support your fertility journey.
You could work with somebody like myself to support you. Of course, when you are looking on the internet, when you are looking at social media, and I've mentioned this phrase before, don't just look at what Jane did, because the factors affecting Jane might be very different to the factors affecting you and also going to be a bit controversial, but this is my message, don't just believe what your doctor is telling you.
I'm sorry, but your family doctor is not a fertility expert. And when you go to the fertility clinic, what you are really looking at there are assisted methods of conception. So if you really want to get a handle on ovulation, then it's important that you truly know and understand what is going on personally for you with ovulation, that you understand your body's signs. Now I've talked about ovulation pain before in an episode, ovulation pain is not a positive sign, always of ovulation. So don't think, oh, I get pain. So that's really good. So I know when I ovulate, we need to look a little bit further into that, especially. So when you understand your body and know the signs, you can develop a sense of trust in your body.
And when you have a sense of trust that can in effect, start, start to support the reduction of the fear and the worry and anxiety, and the more understanding, and the more sound information with an action plan that you have, the more in control you can feel because let's face it. We don't feel in control of this at all. You can of course use ovulation predictor kits, but it's important to know when to use them. And it's important to identify what stress they in themselves are causing for you.
So when I'm working with clients, we monitor the cycle. And I say, we, because I ask my clients to gather the data and I analyze the data because looking at that data and trying to analyze what it means can send you into anxiety, worry, stress, and fear. So whether you are doing your basal body temperature, and it's important to know the right way to do it, first thing in the morning, as soon as you wake, before you do anything else at all.
And I encourage my clients to chart this on an app called fertility friend, it can be a bit overwhelming for you as an individual, but it gives me an incredible amount of detail about all parts of the cycle, not just ovation. We can see slow rises in ovulation. We can see a strength of ovulation and that's really, really key as well. And also the magical Luteal phase. If you are using a fertility analyzer, such as MIRA then you can see there, your estrogen and your lutenizing hormone to give you that picture of ovulation, but what you can also do now with their additional wands that they have is that you can measure the progesterone as well. And that's really, really powerful. And don't forget that progesterone production starts after you ovulate. So if you've had a blood test to look at your progesterone and the progesterone is low, if it's super low, that might mean you're not ovulating, or if it's low, it might mean that the ovulation isn't very strong.
So there's lots that progesterone can tell us as well. It's also really, really important to look at the wider aspects affecting fertility. Remember your egg is a cell. So your cellular health is really key when it comes to nutrition and also oxidative stress can have an effect on your cellular health oxidative stress that is in the body as a result of emotional stress, as well as physical stress on the body.
So it's key to look at some key deficiencies that might be affecting your cellular health as well. And of course the pelvic health itself. So is there sufficient space in your pelvis in episode nine, I chatted with Claire Mockridge about, does your womb have enough room? You know, is it trying to do its job from behind a wardrobe in effect? So what is the pelvic space like? What's been affecting that particular area. What might be impacting ovulation? Have your reproductive organs got enough room in there? Is it been affected by endometriosis or possibly any adhesions or scarring? And also if you've had a previous child and you're trying to get pregnant again, there might be effects from your previous pregnancy and birth that could be having an impact as well. And we also know that ovulation and when you ovulate changes, it's not always the same as it was. It does change throughout your life cycle
So there is potentially a lot, you don't know, but there is a lot you can know. So if you want to get more answers, if you want to get the answers or even find the right questions, so you can get the answers, then I can help with that.
So if that's something you want to reach out, get in touch, can get me on socials at fertility, rewire or [email protected] or book an insight call.
I hope that there is sufficient information here in this podcast. And in the podcast episodes, I've mentioned episode six and episode nine, that might give you more information and might arm you with the information to get the answers that you need, and to be able to interpret those answers as well.
If you haven't heard already. I have a group program: as well as working one to one with anybody experiencing fertility issues. I have a group program that where I'm working with people who are trying to get pregnant again. So trying to extend their family and the specifics involved in that.
And then also, just before I go, if you have these tigers that need taming, if you have an ovation tiger, a timing tiger, a getting pregnant tiger, a worry, you know, these tigers that are there. I do have a tiger Taming program, which is a four week online program. and if you want more information about that, then again, reach out and I’ll point you in the right direction