First things first, what exactly is ovulation? Ovulation is the release of a mature egg from the ovarian follicle into the fallopian tube. Inside the fallopian tube is where the egg will be fertilized. If the egg is fertilized, it must implant successfully on your uterine lining, which typically takes place 6-12 days after ovulation. If fertilization doesn’t take place within the 12-24 hours, the egg disintegrates and is absorbed into the uterine lining, which is then shed at the time of menstruation.
There are many ways to help you determine not only if you are ovulating but also when you are ovulating; increased levels of luteinizing hormone (LH) and estrogen, and changes in your basal body temperature and cervical mucus.
Just prior to ovulation, your body experiences a rise in estrogen, which in turn stimulates a surge in LH. You can detect your estrogen surge with saliva fertility monitors and your Lh surge can be detected in your urine using ovulation predictor kits. Electronic monitors, such as the OvaCue, are very easy to use and can help predict your fertile window with even more accuracy – using your saliva to detect ovulation as well as an optional vaginal sensor to confirm ovulation.
After ovulation, progesterone levels rise (could be a little as four tenths of a degree). You can detect this rise if you are charting your basal body temperature. Another sign to look for is the consistency of your cervical mucus. As you approach ovulation your cervical mucus should become clear and slippery, also known as ‘fertile-quality’ cervical mucus. Keeping track of all of these ovulation signs can help determine if and when you are ovulating and are most fertile.
The benefits of herbal supplementation to enhance fertility are unfortunately often overlooked. One of the most recognized and recommended herbs used in fertility enhancement is Chasteberry, or Vitex (vitex agnus-castus). Vitex is a fertility-promoting herb that has been used as far back as ancient Greece. Vitex was and still is recognized for its medicinal properties, which are used for a number of ailments. For centuries, women have used vitex to increase their odds of conceiving a baby, as well as to treat symptoms associated with hormonal imbalance and PMS.
Recently, Vitex has been shown in several clinical studies to help stimulate and stabilize the reproductive hormones involved in ovulation, cycle balance, and menstrual regularity. These studies also document a statistically-significant increase in fertility among women using vitex, with more pregnancies than in control groups using a placebo. Vitex is an important ingredient in both FertilAid and FertiliTea which contain a number of other fertility enhancing and nutritive herbs such as Red Raspberry Leaf, Green Tea, Ladies Mantle and Nettle Leaf.
Couples who are trying to conceive are now, more than ever, turning to more natural ways of addressing infertility. Scientifically validated ingredients found in fertility supplements may lead to increased conception rates and provide a healthful alternative to conventional treatments such as prescription drugs or other invasive treatment options.
It is true that FertilAid may help to normalize an irregular cycle, and as such, it is often used by women with cycle irregularity issues such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), however most of the women who take FertilAid already have regular cycles. This is because cycle regularity represents just one small facet of what FertilAid is designed to provide. FertilAid is designed to improve a woman’s overall reproductive health. Not only does it provide all of your preconception vitamin and mineral needs, but it also contains key herbal ingredients that have been found to benefit reproductive rates. If you have a regular cycle, you may experience a bit of irregularity initially as your body adjusts, but typically regularity is re-established fairly quickly. For more information about FertilAid, visit www.fairhavenhealth.com.
Ovulation occurs when an egg is released from one of your ovaries and travels through the fallopian tubes to await fertilization. On average, the egg will live approximately 12-24 hours awaiting fertilization from sperm. If conception doesn’t occur, the unfertilized egg, uterine lining, and additional blood will be shed during menstruation. If conception does occur, the egg will implant in the uterine wall within about 6-12 days.
Understanding ovulation is very important if you are trying to conceive. Here are a few common myths and misconceptions.
A Woman Can Get Pregnant Only One Day During Her Cycle. It is true that ovulation (meaning the dropping of one or more eggs) generally only occurs on one day of the cycle, but a woman can actually get pregnant from having had intercourse 4-5 days before ovulation occurs. The reason for this is that sperm can live for up to 5 days in a healthy reproductive tract.
A Normal Menstrual Cycle is 28 Days, and Ovulation Occurs on Day 14 of the Cycle. The reality is that every woman’s cycle is different, and generally ranges from 24-36 days. Ovulation days can also depend on the woman and can occur many days before or after the 14th day of her cycle. You will not necessarily be fertile on the 14th day of your cycle. Fertility Charting, and the use of ovulation microscopes and other predictor devices are recommended to test for your window of fertility.
Women Can Ovulate More Than once During Her Cycle. This is not true. Ovulation only occurs once during the cycle of a healthy woman. It is true that more than one egg may be released during ovulation, but this almost always occurs within 24 hours of each other.
Women Ovulate on the Same Day Each Month. While most women ovulate towards the middle of their cycle, the actual day can change month to month, even in women with regular cycles. This is one reason that tracking for ovulation is so important!
Dating back thousands of years in China, acupuncture is increasingly becoming a respected form of treatment in Western medicine for many ailments and conditions, including infertility. Yoga is also increasingly viewed as a legitimate alternative fertility treatment. Traditionally Indian, meaning “union” in Sanskrit, yoga is a series of physical postures and poses designed to create union between the mind, body and spirit. Combined with proper supplementation, yoga and acupuncture may help you increase your fertility odds, and is a great alternative to harsh and expensive fertility treatments!
Acupuncture
In acupuncture, based on the problem you’re experiencing, different ‘points’ are stimulated using long, thin acupuncture needles. These long, thin needles vary in length according to which point it is to be inserted into. The idea is that by stimulating these points, energy flow is rebalanced and the body can then begin to heal itself. While Western practitioners admit that they are unsure of the connection between acupuncture and fertility, many recommend it as a way of regulating ovulation and menstruation for women trying to conceive, as well as decreasing stress levels, opening blocked sperm ducts in men, and increasing blood flow to the reproductive organs. Acupuncture has been recommended by fertility specialists and naturopaths and homeopathic specialists for both diagnosed and non-diagnosed couples with fertility problems. It has also become widely recommended to women undergoing In vitro Fertilization (IVF) and other fertility treatments. In fact, A German study in 2002 found that performing acupuncture about 25 minutes before and 25 minutes after an embryo transfer increases pregnancy rates to 42.5 percent, compared to about 26 percent without acupuncture! *
Yoga
While gaining popularity by many Westerners as great exercise and an alternative to the gym, like Acupuncture, yoga has also become a recommended alternative to infertility treatments such as In vitro Fertilization and Clomid. Yoga and specific yoga poses recommended for fertility, help to balance hormones while others increase the amount of blood flow to your organs, thereby stimulating and strengthening them. Meditation can also be a part of yoga, which can be a great stress management technique. Check out PhD, RYT, scientist and yoga instructor Anna Davis’s Bend, Breathe & Conceive for a respected fertility yoga DVD that receives incredibly good feedback and reviews!
“…infertility has had such a huge impact on my life – I’m going to have a huge impact on infertility”!
Elizabeth Austen is the Founder ofFill Their Arms, a non-profit organization created to provide financial support for those struggling with infertility. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from California State University of Northridge as well as a certification in crisis counseling from The Women’s Coalition of Ventura, California. Elizabeth is married and has experienced the pain of infertility and miscarriage. We feel very fortunate to have been able to interview her about Fill Their Arms and hope you find this information helpful.
Fill Their Arms Mission Statement: We intend to eliminate the financial hardship that infertile couples experience by empowering family and friends to contribute and provide support. We strive to increase infertility awareness by educating the public and spreading truth.
Fairhaven Health: What prompted you to start a business like Fill Their Arms?
Elizabeth: There is a huge need! During my and Zach’s four year struggle with infertility, we found that our options were extremely limited. Fertility care and treatment was a struggle because of the expense; Adoption was completely out of our reach. Meanwhile, I observed how other foundations served people who had illnesses. I thought to myself, “What about infertility? Why isn’t there something for that?” I thought about how much easier things would be if everyone in our family and circle of support donated towards our efforts to become parents. As I began to connect with other couples in the same boat, I saw that there was a real need.
Fairhaven Health: And then you started Fill Their Arms?
Have you ever received a faint positive on a pregnancy test… only to be later told by your doctor that you’re not, in fact, pregnant?
What you may have experienced is known as a “chemical pregnancy”, a clinical term used to describe what is essentially a very early miscarriage. In a chemical pregnancy, it is thought that an egg is fertilized but fails to implant. It is believed that chemical pregnancies occur quite frequently (around 50% of first pregnancies end in miscarriage very early on in the pregnancy). They often go unnoticed, however, unless the woman is actively testing for pregnancy with early detection pregnancy tests prior to her expected period.
More readily available today, early detection pregnancy tests can predict pregnancy days before a missed period. This style of test is designed for couples who want to know of their pregnancy as early as possible. Unlike older style tests that are to be used after a missed period, early detection tests have the ability to detect a chemical pregnancy.
Doctors are unsure why chemical pregnancies occur, but they are thought to be similar to a miscarriage in that there may have been chromosomal abnormalities in the developing fetus. Chemical pregnancies are not a result of anything that you have done, nor can you prevent them.
Many women suffer the emotional affects similar to those of a miscarriage; it is OK to feel these emotions and feelings of loss. While you will most likely not experience reoccurring chemical pregnancies, if you do, please see your doctor to discuss possible causes and solutions.
Hi all! A lot of people have been asking me about Pre-Seed- the sperm friendly lubricant. I poked around for information, and even got a letter from the inventor of Pre-Seed with a lot of information….
Here’s an excerpt from the letter:
* Does not harm sperm, or interfere with fertilization & embryo development as shown in presentations at major medical meetings
* Numerous US and International Patents
* Contains the plant sugar, arabinogalactan, for antioxidant support of sperm
* Pre-Seed is applied internally, because it has the same pH, ion concentration and viscosity (consistency) as fertile cervical mucus.
* Clinical tests support Pre-Seed’s benefit in peer-reviewed published studies
* Used in and recommended by hundreds of fertility and women’s health clinics -
* Read our many inspiring Users’ Stories from people just like you Read the rest of this entry »
Many store-bought pregnancy tests recommend waiting to test for pregnancy until after a missed period. In contrast, early-detection pregnancy tests (often used in fertility clinics) may detect pregnancy as early as just six to eight days after conception!
Early pregnancy tests can come in the form of a test strip (like the ones clinics use to dip in a cup of collected urine) or a midstream test (the same style you would find at a drug store where you urinate directly on the test stick). Both test types are capable of detecting human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG (a hormone present in women’s urine during pregnancy) at very low levels (i.e. ~20 mIU/ml/hCG). This means that instead of waiting for a missed period to test for pregnancy, you can begin testing about a week before your missed period.
Many women don’t realize that the same pregnancy tests found in your neighborhood drugstore are available to purchase online for a fraction of the price. A store we recommended is early-pregnancy-tests.com. They have an excellent reputation, offer free shipping, and they also supply fertility clinics and hospitals around the country.
Thank you so very much, to all of you who have opened your hearts and shared your story with Fairhaven Health. Here are some thoughts that have been shared by our customers, friends, and online community about infertility.
Infertility…
is the time a future parent suffers the most for their child.
can be scary, emotional, and very difficult to deal with. But it doesn’t have to be dealt with alone!
is a struggle that can be overcome… we just have to believe and stay positive!
is a struggle that no one can understand until it happens to them.
is really difficult, but “Some of the BEST things in life are WORTH waiting for.”
has been and still is the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to go through.
is the most frustrating & heart wrenching aspect of life one can go through. To not know “why” and “what” is the biggest problem.
is something most don’t understand. Those suffering from it would give anything in the world to get pregnant. Along with infertility comes: tears, charting, OPK, BBT, frustration, neg pregnancy tests, and much more.
is hard to deal with but worth it in the end when your blessed with an angel!
changes the lives of many. Not only do we have to deal with all the problems of trying to get pregnant, but also the many losses that can also result from infertility issues, then we try and pick up the pieces and start all over again. It gets harder and harder as more time goes by.
gets harder and harder as each HPT is negative.
is rarely talked about and the person next to you could be experiencing the same thing and u never know it. It is one of those things u wanna hide in the closet and leave there. Quite depressing really when all u want is a child of your own!
is very emotional, it makes you a whole different person. You feel like no one understands you and what you are feeling and struggling with. It is also very hard on couples to become so consumed with with having a baby
is life altering. You never think you are going to be “that person” until you go through it first hand and the experience really changes you- as a person and as a couple.
__________________
Waiting *patiently* for a baby isn’t easy, it’s quite a roller coaster ride! Between the hopefulness, anticipation, letdown and tears, not to mention the insensitive comments from others, it’s overwhelming sometimes.
No matter how tiring and frustrating it may become…we will continue to push forward in hopes that one day soon we will be blessed w/ another child.
I so want my little boy to have a sibling soon. I wish for it real soon, but know it will happen on God’s timetable.
People tell me that since its me and not my wife and that we still have a chance of getting a pregnant. People tell me to get a sperm donor and that hurts me very much. Prayers are appreciated from a great man that wants to be a great father.
After trying for 7 years, we finally became pregnant in 2005 with our now three year old son. We started trying again in 2007, so that there wouldn’t be a big age gap between our kiddos, well two years later and one chemical pregnancy, we still do not have another baby. I really want to give my son a sibling and want to feel the joys of being a mom all over again.
First things first, what exactly is ovulation? Ovulation is the release of a mature egg from the ovarian follicle into the fallopian tube. Inside the fallopian tube is where the egg will be fertilized. If the egg is fertilized, it must implant successfully on your uterine lining, which typically takes ... […]
The benefits of herbal supplementation to enhance fertility are unfortunately often overlooked. One of the most recognized and recommended herbs used in fertility enhancement is Chasteberry, or Vitex (vitex agnus-castus). Vitex is a fertility-promoting herb that has been used as far back as ancient Greece. Vitex was and still is ... […]
It is true that FertilAid may help to normalize an irregular cycle, and as such, it is often used by women with cycle irregularity issues such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), however most of the women who take FertilAid already have regular cycles. This is because cycle ... […]
regularity. These studies also document a statistically-significant increase in fertility among women using vitex, with more pregnancies than in control groups using a placebo. Vitex is an important ingredient in both 
rs on Day 14 of the Cycle. The reality is that every woman’s cycle is different, and generally ranges from 24-36 days. Ovulation days can also depend on the woman and can occur many days before or after the 14th day of her cycle. You will not necessarily be fertile on the 14th day of your cycle. Fertility Charting, and the use of 
