Or....Not.

Just when I was pondering the irony of an anovulatory cycle when Fertility Awareness Husband and I had decided we were open to the idea of adding a little one to the Fertility Awareness Family, my charting suddenly departed from the confusing pattern it had followed while we were traveling, and instead started looking more like this:

Which really looks a lot like this:

As confirmed a couple of days later by this:


So what about my supposed anovulation? When I looked at my chart more closely, it was really only 2 or 3 aberrant temps (while we were traveling, no less) that made it look like my pattern was...not a pattern. If you cover those up (as I've done below), it's actually a very distinguishable pattern of low temps, followed by high temps. And given that we were monitoring other signs, trying to conceive, and, you know, you get the picture, we realized that the odds were (hopefully) in our favor. I was confident enough that by the day I expected my period and didn't get it, we went ahead and bought a pregnancy test.So. Life after birth control really begins...

Putting a Name With the Face

The name? Anovulation. After many days of up-and-down temps, and start-and-stop eggwhite fluid, I've come to the conclusion that I'm in an anovulatory cycle. As Toni Weschler notes in Taking Charge of Your Fertility, "travel is notorious for wreaking havoc with ovulation." That would certainly make sense. The clincher?

Example of an anovulatory cycle from TCOYF

My current cycle

They could be twins, right?

Anovulatory cycles are the trickiest of all because you don't know IF or WHEN you will either ovulate or menstruate. Either one could show up at almost any time. So, after the smugness of a textbook-perfect cycle right out of the blocks, I've now got this to contend with.

Back, and Confused

Photo by B Tal

Well, we've successfully been to the West Coast and back. As predicted, my temperatures were all over the map, but I thought I was fine even so, because I had three days of totally obvious eggwhite-quality cervical fluid, up to and including the day we flew back. We all know what to expect next, right? Thermal shift!

However, it's now been two days since then; and while I didn't have a solid baseline to go off of before, both of my temps since returning have been LOWER than the rest of this cycle. In Seattle, they were up in the 97.6-97.7 range. Given the change in time and activity, I would not have been surprised if they'd stayed the same, which could possibly have been interpreted as an actual net rise, since I wasn't taking my temperature at 2am (5am East Coast time, when I usually do it), and knowing that temperature rises about 1/10 of a degree for each 30-60 minutes you sleep in. Instead, I've had temps around 97.0--my previous baseline.

So, I have to figure that my body geared up to ovulate, but possibly because of the traveling and time change, didn't actually do it. Because even if, say, I were pregnant, I should still have had a temperature rise (and then high temperatures lasting for weeks). The fact that my temperature, if anything, has dropped seems like it can only mean that I haven't ovulated.

Yet.

I guess we'll just stay on the lookout for it.

Time change

Photo by Leo Reynolds

I'm working nights this week, which means I'm waking up between 3 and 4pm instead of 5 and 6 am. It also means that taking my temperature after "3 hours of uninterrupted sleep" is a difficult task, because that's a hard commodity to come by when you're sleeping during the day. So I just take it when I first get up--in today's case, 3pm, which is 10 hours after I usually take it, and I'd also gotten up twice already to go to the bathroom.

As such, I wasn't surprised to see my temperature out of whack (97.5 as opposed to my normal 96.9-97.2). To make matters more complicated, we're also traveling to the West Coast this week, meaning that after having just shifted my body clock by 10-12 hours, I will then have to adjust it back 12 hours to get back on days, and then back another 3 hours to get in the right time zone. Then readjust it 3 hours forward when we come back, travel all day, and work first thing the next morning. I get the feeling this will wreak havoc on more than just my basal temperature! Incidentally, I'm curious to see whether this will delay or otherwise affect ovulation, or have any other effect on my cycle.

Reflections On My Cycle

photo by Wonderlane

As I come to the close of my first full cycle, I'm reflective as to the significance of it--this event that's common to the lives of childbearing women everywhere.

For the past two days, I've found myself with a catch in my throat for reasons I can't name. It's not that anything in my life has changed; but on the other hand, it's not as if I don't have any reason for sadness, either. I'm not perplexed by the emotion, which seems fitting and right based on what's going on in my life right now; it simply feels like the veil between the undercurrents of my life and my daily experiences is somehow thinner. And today, I found myself feeling melancholy in a nearly inexplicable way that I often do during fall. There's something about it that has always gotten to me, even as a child. When you grow up starting school in August, it's a time of new beginnings; looking at nature, you also realize it's a time of endings. There's a tension there which shares a fine border with sadness, and it has nothing to do with your conscious thought. Your body bleeds and grieves without your permission.

When I revisited the Menstruation chapter of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, I found that Northrup also compares the seasonal cycle to the menstrual cycle, in terms of energy and awareness. Spring and summer, along with ovulation, are typically times of great inspiration and fullness. Fall and winter, along with menstruation, are seen as times for quiet and reflection. So it seems as though I've got a double whammy right now. While I don't quite feel the need to retreat from Fertility Awareness Husband and spend a week in the red tent, we've both remarked that we can see the utility of such a practice, especially in cultures that don't especially encourage emotional openness between spouses. For our own part, we've spent the past week continuing to be very emotionally open with each other; I've made a particular effort to be nice to myself; and I found great solace and comfort today in spending a long time talking things out with my mother. This might sound stereotypical or overly simplistic, but to me, it's just doing what comes naturally. It just seems to make sense. As Northrup notes on pages 134-135:

"We have been taught to be suspicious of these natural energies--and too many women see them as a weakness that needs to be overridden and ignored. Heaven forbid we should take a break from getting it all done!

"The second half of the menstrual cycle and autumn are times when the tide is out and everything that you don't want to see on the muddy bottom of the bay is uncovered for all to see. Women need to learn to pay attention to the information available to them at these times of the month and of the year. Think of this information as compost that you'll be using to create new growth in your life once the light comes back."