Many women use their menstrual periods to help them determine when ovulation is likely to be on its way. Menstruation or being on your period is something that is hard to ignore, so it makes sense that this is the time that many women consider to be the beginning of their fertility cycle. And, when your period is regular, this can make sense as long as you follow with use of an ovulation predictor to confirm what you already suspect. But what happens when your cycle isn’t regular? What happens when you skip a period or have more than one a month? Does this mean you’re ovulating twice or not at all?
I recently heard from someone who said: “my menstrual periods have always been very erratic. There have been times when I would go for a couple of months and not have a period at all. And then other times, I’ve had a couple of periods in a month’s time that occurred only a couple of weeks apart. Am I ovulating during the months when I’m having periods and not ovulating when I’m not having one?” I’m trying to conceive a boy baby and I know that sexual intercourse needs to happen after ovulation but with my erratic menstruation schedule, I am just not sure how to proceed.”
It’s very difficult to answer these questions without knowing more. Some women ovulate in the absence of menstrual periods. And some don’t. Also, not all women who have regular periods are also regularly ovulating. The only definitive way to tell for sure is to see your doctor for testing (which is preferable) or to test yourself with an ovulation predictor. These predictors pick up surges in your hormones which confirm ovulation. Sometimes, when I explain this to women who don’t have periods or who have multiple periods, they are still confused as to when to start testing. They will often ask me if they should wait until they have their next period to begin.
In my opinion, waiting truly isn’t necessary. People use their period as a starting point because it makes things easier. However, there is no need to wait when your cycle is so irregular. You could just as easily chose a day and test until you get a positive reading to indicate that ovulation has either happened or is getting ready to happen. The idea is that you continue to test until you get a positive. For some women, this may take a while especially if they don’t ovulate on a regular schedule. And others might be lucky and find that their positive reading comes quite quickly. But testing for hormones is a much more reliable way to tell if you are ovulating then trying to use your period as a starting point and then to just guess. Because not all women ovulate mid way through their cycle and some women ovulate in the absence of periods or even when they have excess periods.
So to answer the question posed, your ovulation schedule may or may not change if you have two periods in one month. The answer really depends on the reason you’re experiencing the two monthly periods and why you are have been ovulating in a regular or irregular pattern in the first place. Many people worry that irregular ovulation means you either can’t get pregnant or that you can’t get pregnant with the gender of your choice. This isn’t accurate. It may take longer since you may have less opportunities for conception, but any time you ovulate, you can become pregnant. And any time you ovulate at the right time and then schedule your attempts at conception around that time, you can influence your baby’s gender.
No comments:
Post a Comment