Let's Talk About: Getting Pregnant
A big part of sex education is focused on preventing pregnancy. And it’s true, most people will spend the majority of their sexual lives preventing pregnancy, for some it’s their whole lives. But for some there does come a time when a person is ready to be a parent. Not everyone has to have children at some point in their lives. However the rate of people who either have children or wish to have children in the future is around 90%*, though the rate of the people who chose never to have children is rising.
Many people get pregnant by surprise, without ever trying to get pregnant a day in their lives. According the the CDC in 2006 about 49% of pregnancies in the U.S. were unplanned. For the other 51% of us, pregnancy is something which must be worked for.
There are many ways to become a parent. Some people become parents through heterosexual vaginal intercourse, some people have to see doctors and undergo treatments and therapies. Some people will adopt children that are either partially biologically related to them or their partners, or not biologically related to them at all. There is no one “Right” way to become a parent.
This week we’re going to discuss pregnancy through vaginal intercourse.
When teaching sex ed to younger people, middle and high school students, it is incredibly important to stress how easy it is for them to get pregnant. “All it takes is one” is a popular motto and one that I’ve caught myself using. Given the ease with which it seems teenagers are able to become pregnant, and the fact that around 49% of pregnancies are unplanned, this is not an altogether unfair characterization.
So it can often come as a huge surprise to many couples when they start actually trying to get pregnant that sometimes it takes work, planning, and research. If you’re considering getting pregnant or if you’re a uterus having person who just wants to know more about how your body works I recommend “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” by Toni Weschler. Only about 20% of couples will get pregnant their first month trying. Good news is that about 85% of couples trying to conceive will become pregnant within the first year. There are a million and one factors that can play into it, age, lifestyle, but most notably, timing.
Every female’s reproductive cycle is slightly different. It’s easy to think about a 28 day cycle, where ovulation occurs always 14 days before your next period and each period shows up exactly when it’s supposed to, “Like Clockwork”. For most women, that’s just not the case. Our bodies are not as simple as a graph in a pamphlet or a string of beads meant to help with “natural family planning”. If a female is fortunate enough to have regular cycles, figuring out when they’re fertile should be relatively simple. The majority of females ovulate about 14 days before the start of their next period. This 14 day period between ovulation and menstruation is called the “Luteal phase” . Of course one’s luteal phase can vary as well. However if you are tracking your cycles and you find that your luteal phase is less than 10 or 12 days (depending on who you ask) it may be worth mentioning to a doctor, as that can make implantation very difficult.
On average the fertile egg will only survive for about 12-24 hours and if it is not implanted by sperm in that time period it will die. However some women will release two eggs during the 24 hour ovulation window. Sperm can survive around 5 days inside the female reproductive system (which totally weirded me out when I first learned about it, although I can’t quite put my finger on why). This works out to around a 7 day window of fertility, although peak fertility tends to be about 3 days (the day before ovulation, the day of ovulation and the day after).
If a female is not fortunate enough to have a reliably predictable cycle it is still possible to know when they’re ovulating. The best most reliable predictor is cervical mucous. This is where things get sticky (pun intended). Reviewing female anatomy, the cervix is the gate, for lack of a better word, between the vagina and the uterus. Keeping track of the position of the cervix is a good idea, is it down low in the vagina, is it up high? Also the consistency of the mucous and discharge. Most females have vaginal discharge that changes at different times in the month. It can change in quantity based on arousal or dehydration or any number of other factors. As with so many other things with sexual health, knowing what is normal and what is not normal for your body will help you stay healthy. During ovulation, a female’s cervical mucous will be thick, stretchy, and mostly clear, about the consistency of egg whites.
Another method for determining whether or not ovulation has occurred is through charting basal body temperatures. Basal body temperature is a person’s body temp first thing in the morning, before they’ve moved or drank or ate anything. If you wake up at the same every day it’s pretty simple to do, just take your temperature before you get out of bed. A basal body temp can be taken either orally or vaginally. I strongly recommend choosing one method and sticking with it, don’t go back and forth. Temperatures can be kept track of and charted either by hand or with one of the many fertility tracker applications. I’ve used Fertility Friend (which has both a website and an app) and found it to be user friendly. The main downside to using basal body temperature is that it can only tell you after the fact if ovulation has occurred. Temperatures can vary a couple degrees one way or another on any given day, but the most distinct change is that when ovulation occurs the basal body temperature will spike. Of course this is usually only noticeable right after ovulation, and once the temperature spike is recorded the egg might already be past its viability. But it can give one a really good idea for the rhythm of one’s cycle.
There are also over Ovulation predictor kits that test the level of different hormones in one’s urine to tell when ovulation is most likely to occur. They’re available at most drug stores and online, although they are one of the most accurate ways of predicting whether or not one is ovulating they can also be a little bit pricey.
In order to have the best chance of conception, it’s ideal to have sex every other day leading up to ovulation and try to have vaginal intercourse on the day of ovulation itself.
I know that this can sound really gross and feel weird to think about. Especially egg white cervical mucous, you’re welcome for that particular mental image. However, like all things with sexual health, it’s a really normal part of the human body and the only way to normalize it for each other is to talk about it. When it comes to learning about conception I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to some amazing women. From about 2008 on I was a member of an online message board that eventually migrated into being a private community. I learned more about getting pregnant, pregnancy, infertility, and loss from these women than I learned during my stint in nursing school, or from my training to be a sex educator. Their brutal honesty and insistence that every piece of information be factually accurate and properly sourced laid the foundation for my own study. You know who you are, thank you.
If you’re feeling a bit confused and like all this charting and planning and checking might be a bit more work than you thought it would take to get pregnant, just wait. It gets even more complicated from here. Next week we’re going to talk about the ways in which pregnancy doesn’t always go as planned, and how to not be a jerk to people who are dealing with the difficult realities of infertility and loss.
* Data on parenting- Gallup Poll http://www.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx
* Data on unplanned pregnancy rates- CDC https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/unintendedpregnancy/
* Data on fertility- Baby Centre http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a1813/how-long-will-it-take-to-get-pregnant
* More information about Fertility from “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” http://www.tcoyf.com/fertility-info/
* Fertility friend online ovulation tracker https://www.fertilityfriend.com/
Originally posted on Femislay.com