Ovulation station

It’s not really the “ovulation station” around here.  I just wrote that ’cause it rhymes.  That makes it sound like it’s a non-stop ovulation party or something.  Really, I just bought my first ever ovulation predictor kit and I wanted to write about it.

For reasons of my own, I choose to avoid the more modern methods of birth control and instead opt for something obvious but overlooked: natural family planning, if you’re catholic, fertility awareness if you’re just a plain person.  Basically, there are only 6 days out of every menstrual cycle when a woman is actually capable of conceiving and you just need to narrow it down as best you can based off of a few metrics to find out when these 6 days most likely occur.  Yeah, just something they sort of skim over in sex ed in the public schools (don’t even get me started).  “Oh, and young women?  Your bodies?  They’re pretty weird.  And gross.  And pregnancy?  Basically you can get pregnant any time ( I swear, this is honestly what they tell you) so you should always either be abstaining or using contraceptives within a religiously condoned and legally sanctioned relationship.”  Yeah, let’s not do something crazy like give young women the power to understand their own fertility.  Nah.  Let’s just use smoke and mirrors and make it all seem like strange voodoo.

You can probably tell that I’m so going to be all up in unlocking the “mysteries” for both my daughter and sons to a woman’s fertility.  I mean: hello?  I swear this is the first time in my life I have ever actually researched and become aware of the timing of my own fertility.  Pathetic.

So, I have a bit of an issue, though.  I spent most of my twenties on birth control that altered my hormones and cycle.  Then I’ve spent another 8 or so years being pregnant and/or breastfeeding which also alters your hormones and cycle so I honestly feel like I don’t know what normal is for me.  And I don’t know if breastfeeding is still messing with the timing.  What I can say is that my last two cycles were around the same length and so, based off of those, I have my ovulation narrowed down to like a weeks worth of days.  Now, I add the tests (there are ten in a pack) to detect the proper hormones and I guess they are 99 percent effective at telling you when ovulation has occurred.  Add this to my calendar method and I should be able to get a pretty good idea for when ovulation for me happens on a monthly basis.

Is it weird that I’m excited?  Why do I feel so giddy about gaining so much insight into my own fertility?  I don’t know!  But I can say that there is a feeling of empowerment at getting to know and respect my body and it’s awesome capacity to create life.  Mind you, I am learning in order to avoid this capacity, but still.  I approach the subject with a sense of profound respect and awe.

(Hey, if you don’t homeschool, parents, at least consider taking sex ed into your own hands.  Trust me, if it’s still being taught the way it was when I was in fourth grade or whatever, it’s severely lacking.)