Young Women Trying to Get Pregnant

I just received 3 emails today from women in their early 20’s who are trying to get pregnant. This should be the most fertile time of their life. Why would they be looking for help from a fertility herbalist? In my experience there seems to be are two main reasons they are searching for help.

The biggest reason is that they really aren’t sure how to get pregnant. Of course they know that they are supposed to have sex but that is all they know for sure. For most women in their 20’s this might be all they really need to know. They are having sexual intercourse regularly enough that just by accident they will get pregnant.

But what if their husband is in the military and they aren’t able to see them regularly? I get calls every day now from women who tell me that they want to get pregnant when their husband is on leave or they want to get pregnant before he is deployed. They aren’t able to have sex every day or every other day.

I am not going to go into all the intricate details in this blog there are plenty of places to find this information. The best book on this subject if you ask me is Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Wheschler.

Here are the very basics of what it takes for a young woman to get pregnant:

1- Know your cycle. You don’t care what an “average” menstrual cycle is. You care about YOUR cycle. Your “cycle day 1” is always the first day that your period starts. Don’t count the days that you might spot before your real period starts. Your cycle will end when your next period begins.

2- Know when YOU ovulate (when the egg releases and you can get pregnant). The “ovulation calendars” only tell you when the “average” woman would ovulate. Who cares about “average”. You care about YOU. The only way to know for sure when YOU ovulate is to use an “Ovulation Predictor Kit”. You can buy these at most drug stores. Read the instructions on the package. Basically, it will say to pee (urinate) on a stick and look at it. Ovulation usually happens half way between periods but everyone is not exactly the same so use the kit to see when YOU are able to get pregnant.

3- Look for fertile vaginal discharge. When you see that you are ovulating by using the kit you should also see some other changes in your body. The biggest indication that you are ovulating and can get pregnant is that your vaginal discharge will become clear and slippery and it will look like uncooked egg white. Don’t look for this when you are sexually aroused because it combines with your normal “wetness” and it will always look "fertile" if you check at this time. You need to see this discharge when you are not aroused.

Some women will have so much of this discharge that they need to wear panty liners and other women will only see this slippery slimy vaginal discharge when they wipe after urinating. You need this discharge to get pregnant. The sperm will be able to swim in this discharge but when it is sticky or watery.

When you see this “fertile discharge” you should also check to see if the “Ovulation Predictor Kit” is also indicating that you are ovulating so that you can get pregnant.

Once you have seen that the kit is telling you that you are ovulating and you see that it is happening at the same time you see this “fertile mucus” you will not have to keep using the kit. You can just look for the right discharge.

4- Have sexual intercourse for 4 days in a row as soon as you see the fertile discharge and/or you see from the kit that you are ovulating. We never know exactly when the egg releases. We only know that it is about too so cover your bases and have sex for 4 days and this should do it. If you can’t do it for 4 days in a row you can do it every other day as the egg will wait for a few days before it is reabsorbed into the body and also the sperm will also live for a couple days before the body absorbs it too.

5- Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t do if you are pregnant because you won’t know if you got pregnant for about 2 weeks. You can use an early pregnancy test but a lot of the time it isn’t accurate until you have missed your period. The babies’ brain and spinal cord are the first things that start developing and if you drink alcohol or smoke or take drugs it can affect the brain, heart and spinal cord.

6- Once you have missed your period use an early pregnancy test (purchased at a drug store) to see if you are pregnant. YOU HAVE TO USE THE FIRST MORNING URINE at the very beginning of a pregnancy for the test to be accurate.

The second big reason that a young woman might contact a fertility herbalist to help her get pregnant is that her body isn’t doing any of the things that everyone says should be happening. Her period doesn’t come regularly or she doesn’t have fertile discharge or the ovulation predictor kit never picks up an ovulation. When she goes to the doctor they usually want to put her on birth control pills but somehow this doesn’t seem right when she knows that she took them to prevent a pregnancy. Why is it that they are giving the same medications to her when she is trying to get pregnant? It just doesn’t make sense to her.

This is a good reason to contact a fertility herbalist. I can figure out what the problem is and give you herbs to help. If the problem is something that I don’t think Chinese herbs will help with I will try to convince you to go back to the doctor but you would be surprised at how effective they can be. I know I was shocked about this.