Well, that sucked

I've been keeping track of my ovulation for over 6 months now, and, until this month I had only experienced one incident of ovulating early.  It was an ovulation that happened one day early about 3 months ago.  Luckily, we had only been able to make an attempt to conceive happen 3 days prior to that, so I wasn't in any danger of conceiving a boy at that time.  But it did raise an alarm that early ovulation was  possible.  Now that I think back on it, that happened when I cut my son down to two nursings a day.  Interesting.

Now, this past month, I've cut my son down to one nursing a night.  At bedtime he nurses to sleep.  I know he doesn't do it so much for the milk anymore as for the comfort and bonding.  I'm ready for him to walk away from breastfeeding and not care, but I'm not ready for him to cry and feel deprived and betrayed if I stop nursing him before he's ready.  So, one nursing a night is good for us both right now.

Ugh, in hindsight it makes so much sense.  we cut back on the nursing again and I ovulated early again.  Two days early.  We'd had sex two and a half days prior to when I was supposed to ovulate, which meant we had tried for a child less than a day prior to my actual ovulation.  That's prime boy-making time.  Sigh.

Luckily, I have no compunctions about buying a morning-after pill so that this month is a wash, but not an utter failure in my quest to conceive a girl.  It was $50 down the drain, but that's better than knowingly conceiving a boy and having to have a fight about trying for a girl again.  I took the pill last night, about an hour after ovulating, so the chances that sperm met egg are almost nil.  The chances that the zygote (fertilized egg) had already made an attempt to implant are far less than that.  Still, I think about it and I wonder if I would have gotten pregnant if I'd done nothing.

I'm pretty sure I would have.  My cervical fluid has been of a far better quality this month, and it would not have surprised me at all if a baby had resulted.  Oh well.

I know a lot of people have a serious problem morally with what I just did.  It's interesting, I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that it's better to bring a child into your family under the best possible circumstances, than to just be forced to accept what has come to pass.  I mean, if a pregnancy with a healthy child still results from this week's activities, I would keep it.  I know I couldn't bring myself to abort a healthy baby just because they happen to be the wrong gender.  But terminating a pregnancy before it had begun just doesn't feel wrong to me.  I mean, I just want to make the best attempt I can to bring gender balance to this family.  I'll do what I can to have a baby girl, and hopefully it will all turn out right.

No wonder the Shettles method isn't recommended for breastfeeding women.  It definitely complicates the process and makes it a lot easier to make mistakes.  I should have known at the beginning of my cycle that this wasn't a good month to try.  My period lasted 5 days, and it has never done that before.  I've had a single 4-day period, and all the other periods in my life have been 3 days.  One heavy day, one light, and one very light day.   That's it.  This time I had one heavy day and three and a half light days.  The last half day was very light, but it was annoying.  I know everyone out there who regularly has long periods is rollig their eyes at me right now, but I also have a 24 day cycle, so in the end I think it all works out so everyone deals with the same number of period days per year.

Well, I took my morning-after pill last night and I'm a little crampy this morning.  Maybe next month.  Unless, of course, he stops breastfeeding.  I've learned my lesson now.  Any changes in breastfeeding will result in a month when my husband and I will not be trying.  I don't want to spend $50 on another mistake.