minervasmom

September 2009 - Posts

• How does extended frequent BD sway?

  Another theory I have been interested in testing is whether extended frequent BD - that is, frequent BD for longer than just the 5 days prior to ovulation - favors girls. I know that BD from AF to O is a popular girl timing method. However, I have been skeptical about how effective this would be, since frequent BD shortly before ovulation seems to be pretty close to 50/50. It also seems to me that there are other potential problems with extended frequent BD. First, it's an awful lot of work. BD every day from AF to O results in a LOT of BD, and a lot more than most people would normally have by choice. It's hard enough to ttc in general, and when you have to BD every day - not just during your fertile window - it makes ttc that much more difficult. Second, because you start BD so early - especially for people who ovulate late - there is an increased chance of "pooping out" right when you get to the most important time. Finally, it seems to me that dealing with the "We have to BD tonight!" feeling for one to two weeks - or even longer in some cases - would be quite stressful. And stress of course, raises testosterone and sways for boys. Swaying is stressful enough as it is; extended frequent BD just seems to me to add to the stress. However, if it works it works, and if extended frequent BD does significantly favor girls, then it might be worth the drawbacks. To analyze this timing pattern, I had to go back to the original charts I used in order to find timing patterns earlier than 5 days prior to ovulation. There was one little problem with this: I no longer have copies of all the charts used in my study. When I first started this project, I was pretty informal about it. I just looked at the charts on FF and took down notes. By the time I realized that I could - and should - save the charts I was using, a bunch of the charts had already disappeared from the FF chart gallery. Only about 50 charts are missing from my study, but that still poses a problem when I need to get further information from the charts. What I decided to do in this case was simply remove the first 55 boy and 55 girl charts from this part of the study. Not all of those charts are missing, but the missing charts are all from the first 110 charts I looked at. So for this particular theory that I'm testing, I am only looking at the most recent 590 charts. When I looked at the charts again, I decided to analyze the 10 days prior to ovulation through the day afterwards. I defined extended frequent BD as at least 7 BD times during those 12 days, at least 4 of which had to occur within the 5 days prior to ovulation through the day afterward. 130 charts out of 590 had this pattern, 62 boy charts and 68 girl charts (sways girl 52.3%). - 7 times: 27 boy charts, 30 girl charts (sways girl 52.6%) - 8 times: 15 boy charts, 21 girl charts (sways girl 58.3%) - 9 times: 11 boy charts, 8 girl charts (sways boy 57.9%) -10 times: 3 boy charts, 5 girl charts (sways girl 62.5%) -11 times: 2 boy charts, 3 girl charts (sways girl 60%) -12 times: 2 boy charts, 0 girl charts (sways boy 100%) -13 times: 2 boy charts, 1 girl chart (sways boy 66.7%) As you can see, there is a small preference for girls on the extended frequent BD charts, but the overall results are pretty similar. And while there were more girl charts than boy charts, the boy charts had a slightly higher rate of BD: The 68 girl charts had 546 BD times (an average of 8.03 BD times), and the 62 boy charts had 510 BD times (an average of 8.23 BD times). As usual, the thing that made a difference in whether the extended frequent BD charts swayed for a girl is whether there was BD on the day of ovulation. 50 boy charts and 52 girl charts had BD on ovulation, which results in a slight preference for girls (51%). On the other hand, if the day of ovulation was avoided, it resulted in a stronger preference for girls. 12 boy charts and 16 girl charts avoided BD on the day of ovulation, which results in a 57.1% preference for girls. Just like with frequent BD shortly before ovulation, extended frequent BD only seems to really favor girls if the BD avoids ovulation. And extended frequent BD doesn't appear to do anything to improve the odds of a girl. In fact, right now frequent BD for the shorter period of time has 59% odds of a girl, which is, obviously, higher than 57.1%. If you really like BD every day or nearly every day and are enjoying the ttc process, it may not hurt to BD every day from AF to O. But for the rest of us mere mortals,  I think it's best to just leave the frequent BD to the five days prior to ovulation. As far as I can tell from looking at FF charts, BD every day for a week or two or three does not appear to significantly raise the odds of getting a girl. Posted Sep 23 2009, 09:40 PM by minervasmom with no comments

• How does BD every other day sway?

  For anyone who is interested, our first sway attempt resulted in a BFN, so now I don't have to stress about how I ruined the timing part of my sway. Instead, now I can start stressing about how maybe I'm too old, my eggs are all rotten, and I'm not going to be able to get pregnant. (There's always got to be something to stress about, you know! ) Anyway, since we are still not pregnant, I am still obsessed with analyzing charts, and so today's post deals with another theory I have run across for swaying. One of the theories I've wondered about is whether BD every other day results in more boys, since gaps of 48 hours or more are supposed to favor boy sperm. So I looked through the 700 charts I have amassed to see how BD every other day sways. In order to have BD every other day, you can only BD 2, 3 or 4 times during the 5 days prior to through the day after ovulation. There were 40 boy charts and 42 girl charts with every other day BD, resulting in a preference for girls of 51.2%. - 2 times: 23 boy charts, 23 girl charts (50/50) - 3 times: 16 boy charts, 14 girl charts (sways boy 53.3%) - 4 times: 1 boy chart, 5 girl charts (sways girl 83.3%) As you can see, the results were pretty similar except for BD every other day for 4 days. That pattern significantly favored girls (though since there are only 6 charts, the percentage isn't particularly reliable). Part of the reason for this is that there is only one BD pattern possible if you are BD every other day, for 4 times, within the 5 days prior to through the day after ovulation: O-5, O-3, O-1, and O+1. This pattern also counts as frequent BD that avoids ovulation, which as has already been discussed, significantly favors girls. Apparently if you are swaying for a girl, the benefits of frequent BD that avoids ovulation outweighs the risks of BD every other day. If we omit BD every other day for 4 times, the results are essentially the same as chance (39 boy charts out of 76, sways boy 51.3%). I would still be leery of BD every 48 hours if you are swaying for a girl because of other evidence that BD every 48+ hours favors boys. However, the above information suggests that BD every other day may be another timing pattern that does NOT sway, and so it won't hurt or help your efforts for whatever gender you are hoping for. There were some aspects of BD every other day that did appear to have an influence on gender. 25 of the charts had BD on the day ovulation: 15 boy charts and 10 girl charts, which results in a preference for boys of 60%. And 11 of the charts had a cut-off of at least 2 days: 4 boy charts, and 7 girl charts, which results in a preference for girls of 63.6%. This suggests that while BD every other day seems to be pretty close to 50/50, it does favor boys if it includes BD on ovulation and it favors girls if the every other day BD has a 2-3 day cut-off. Posted Sep 11 2009, 03:46 AM by minervasmom with no comments