Does following your cycle on the calendar really help you conceive? Share your experience

To be clear, when we conceived my son, yes we planned to have a child. We just got pregnant quite easily. Didn't take much of method or planning in that sense. So baby #2 is quite harder for us

I tracked on my cycle app and took LH tests. We also both tried the mucinex idea and used pre-seed at the same time and got pregnant the first time we did both.

@MaryKate okay please explain more how that works and what you do because I've never heard of that method and I am totally down to trying literally anything at this point

It was something that was going around tik tok a couple years ago, I have a calendar of what we did I can send it to you! Basically you just track when you’re going to ovulate and you start taking mucinex a few days before ovulation up to a couple days after and then have sex on ovulation day, the day before it, day after it, maybe even 2-3 days before ovulation and when we use pre-seed I would just put it in about 15min before having sex and you take the mucinex 30min-1hr before sex (and at the same time every day)

I have an Oura ring which is linked to my natural cycles account. The Oura ring tracks my temperature throughout the night and day. Natural cycles interprets the data and gives me a BBT which it then uses to pinpoint my ovulation. The app will also ask occasionally to take an ovulation test and import the information. Usually right after birth or when you first start using it. With my first I was barely using it so it wasn’t accurate yet and I was taking my temp manually and we were ttc every other day around the timeframe it said. For my daughter I had l been using the ring and app for a year prior. We had sex on the exact date it said we ovulated and we got the positive test that cycle. I know it was correct cause we weren’t having sex multiple times a week at that point since our son wasn’t sleeping through and we were very exhausted. So yes it can help but you have to with be diligent about taking your temp or have tools to help.

@MaryKate ok. And what's pre -seed?

It’s kinda like a lube that you put in a tube and shove it up your vagina, it’s supposed to help the cum travel better

I use the Fertility Friend app to track my cycles by inputting information about blood flow, cervical mucus, BBT and other symptoms. When I’m in my ovulation window, I’ll take ovulation test to report as well and based off all of that we were able to successfully avoid pregnancy as well as get pregnant with our first within 5 months of trying.