One of the things that I've been really interested in since I first learned about swaying is ph. It makes a lot of sense to me that low ph would favor girls and high ph would favor boys. But how much does ph sway? Is it more effective than timing? Less effective? And if your ph is in a specific range (4-5, 6-7, or 8-9, say), how does that specific ph sway?
Unfortunately, ph doesn't appear on FF charts - which is what I've studied in the past - and the information on swaying boards about ph is too anecdotal to be very helpful. Someone might say her ph was "low," but was it really 4-5 her entire fertile period? Did she check every day and how often? Did it ever spike without her knowing? Without carefully keeping track of ph during the entire fertile period, it is difficult to know for sure what the ph was and how it swayed.
So I have decided to try to put together a study of ph. This will be a volunteer study; I will need people who are swaying (or who have swayed) to keep track of their ph and send their information to me. If you would like to be part of the study, this is what I need you to do.
1) You must be an active member of IG. I don't at this time have a definition for "active member" (I will update if/when I come up with a specific definition). While I don't expect you to have 1000s of posts, I do want to avoid including people who are only lurkers. You need to have some minimal level of participation and visibility on IG.
2) You need to keep track of ph from 5 days prior to ovulation through the day afterward. For each of those days I would like at least 4 ph readings spaced throughout the day. If you have more than 4 readings - great! But I would like to see at least 4. For instance, this is the format I would like to see:
5 days prior to ovulation:
- 8:00 am: 4.5
- 1:00 pm: 4.7
- 6:00 pm: 5.0
- 10:00 pm: 4.8
4 days prior to ovulation:
- 8:30 am: 5.0
- 1:00 pm: 5.2
- 5:30 pm: 4.8
- 10:00 pm: 4.9
You don't need to have the exact same amount of time between your readings; I just don't want all the readings to, say, be 1 hour apart in the morning. They should be spaced to reflect your ph throughout the day. If you happen to be missing ph information for the day after ovulation, it is okay to send me the information anyway as I may still be able to use it - but the days prior to and including ovulation are not optional.
One exception: If you are doing just an O+12 and have at least 5 days abstinence prior to ovulation, I only need to have one day's worth of entries on the day of ovulation (that is, at least 4 ph readings on the day of ovulation). Please specify the time(s) you made your O+12 attempt(s) and keep testing ph for 12 hours after that.
3) You need to have a Fertility Friend chart that verifies ovulation based on BBT, and you must send me a link to your chart. In my opinion, OPKs, cm and cervical position are useful for helping to identify ovulation - but BBT is the best method for determining whether ovulation has definitely occurred. Thus you must be verifying ovulation by BBT.
4) You need to let me know how you are testing ph. I would just like to know, as specifically as possible, what ph tester you are using. E.g. Hanna 99104, Colorphast ph strips, etc. Please only send me ph information if you feel confident your ph tester is testing accurately and you are interpreting it correctly.
5) You need to have gotten a BFP on the cycle for which you send me ph information. I don't need ph information for cycles that resulted in BFN. Please also update me if you end up having a miscarriage and/or when you find out gender.
6) You need to let me know if you are swaying for a girl or a boy. If you ph is low, I can guess you are trying for a girl, just like if your ph is high, I'll guess that you are trying for a boy. However, I know that not everyone can get their ph in the right range - and sometimes it spikes or drops and we can't get it back where it is supposed to be. So I do need to know for certain what you were trying for.
One of the big things that distinguishes this study from the one I did on timing is that few if any people in the timing study were swaying whereas everyone in the ph study will be. So this will really be testing how ph affects gender for women who are already swaying. This is why I need to know what you are swaying for. If you are trying for a boy, but you can't raise your ph as high as it should be, you are still more likely to have a boy because of all the other things you are doing to sway. An "average" ph for someone who is swaying for boy is more likely to result in a boy than an "average" ph for someone who is swaying for a girl for reasons other than just the ph - so I will need to account for that when I am analyzing the information.
7) If you would like to send me information about when you did anything that directly affects vj ph - douche, Replens, baking soda finger, etc. - that could be helpful information to have. But if you don't want to send it that is okay, as I will primarily be looking at the ph.
For now, I think this will be adequate information for me to get started on a ph study. However, these requirements are subject to change, as I may find that I need to make changes or request more information as the study progresses.
Thank you very much to anyone who is willing to participate!