Day 91 (CD 138)

Freedom!!! The semester is finally over! I took my last final on Monday and was glad to be done.

Despite the Christmas madness that is going on right now, I wanted to make sure to find some time for an update; and so here it is....

My chart just gets tinier and tinier by the day, even if you click on it to open it up on another page, so I've cropped it to show that last couple of weeks better. the 3 check marks in a row are the nights I used the night-light, the 1 check mark above that is the full moon, the 1 check mark below that to the far left is the new moon, and the shaded in boxes are the days I had EWCM.

I finally stopped spotting after 2 months and something. I'm still not quite sure why it just stopped. I got what I think was a stomach bug for about 1-2 days and then for the next couple of days my temps were higher, but fluctuating a lot, and then when my temps settled down again, I stopped spotting. If you look at my chart you can see that right before I started with the bleeding my temps fluctuated a lot too only they dropped. It has to be either the hormones or my thyroid. Maybe they were trying to stabilize after I got sick. Or maybe it was the change of hormones that made me sick...who knows...

My 3 months of darkness are up! This past full moon I slept with my night-light on (which was a lunar eclipse I might add, and on the winter solstice, a feat that hasn't happened in 350 years! I think they predict though that the next one is going to be in 2092 or something...It still made me feel kind magical though, as if this was the perfect time to start fully practicing Lunaception lol). I did have a hard time sleeping the first and the second nights and I woke up pretty often and pretty tired. I even marked the temperature from the morning after the first night of light as disturbed because I felt like it was higher than the rest because of my restless sleep. The third night I dimmed the lights a little more and slept all the way through.

My temperature seemed higher those 3 days and I wonder if it was because of the light. I'll have to wait to verify but I think it was, because I also had Egg-White Cervical Mucus (EWCF) the days following the light which is great!! +1 for lunaception. So the light certainly did something! It didn't cause ovulation this cycle...yet...but this gives me hope for future cycles that ovulation will happen with in the nights I use the light. I'm almost tempted to sleep with the night-light on for another night to see if I ovulate. I'm scared that going back to darkness is going to delay it further. At CD 138, I'm ready to get a move on.

As far as symptoms go, I have been feeling unusually energetic through out the day and I've been very productive. Maybe it's just coincidence, but I felt like it was worth noting. Possible theories: Maybe the night-light = higher temps = better thyroid function = more energy. There are studies that show that your basal temperature is a good indicator of your thyroid health. Low temps are a very good sign of hypothyroidism and high temps of hyperthyroidism. If not that then maybe ovulation is near and I get more energized around that time.

I want to wish all of my readers a very merry Christmas/holidays and a happy new-year!!!! I hope you all get what you wanted. I'm dying to open my presents...I feel like a little kid lol.

Day 75 (CD 122)

It's been 2 weeks since my last update! School has had me too busy to even breathe these past few days. The semester's almost over and I've got a bunch of papers to write and finals to prepare for. I wouldn't be all that surprised if I took another 2 weeks to do another update. We'll see how it goes.

As far as what's happening in my cycle, I'm still sleeping in total darkness although I'm looking forward to doing something different and turning on the lights in 2 weeks! I can't believe that by then it will have already been 3 months of sleeping in total darkness. I still haven't ovulated and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll happen by then, or then, but with all this school related stress crossing my fingers just might not do it.

I'm still spotting, but it seems to be almost over. Hopefully if it is, it'll stay over because last time I thought I was done it started up again 3 days later.

On 11/29 (Monday) I was really sick with some sort of stomach virus and kept throwing up although I didn't eat a thing all day. My husband and I ate the same exact food the day before and he seemed totally fine. I have really no idea what happened. I woke up about an hour before my alarm rang to temp and I kept trying to go back to sleep but couldn't. When my alarm finally did ring, I didn't even bother temping because I knew it wasn't going to be accurate. On Tuesday, although I slept well, you can see that I still had a pretty high temp of 97.9. So I'm attributing it to the stomach bug even though on Tuesday I was only nauseous and had only a bowl of some creamy soup at night. It's funny, it seems that after I had that stomach virus my temps have been fighting to stay up and are zigzagging between the low and mid 97 degree range. I think my hormone's are starting to stabilize and that's probably why the spotting/flow is stopping. Looks like the stomach bug cleared what ever was bugging my system!

I think I'm going to start looking for another solution for darkening my room. The cardboard is driving me mad because I'm having a harder and harder time making it stay up. In the beginning the cardboard will fit all nice and snug in the window and within a week or two it won't stay up by itself anymore. For my windows I use 2 pieces and I've been having to pin one to the other. If Lunaception works, I'm definitely going to find a more sturdy solution. For now though I don't want to waste money on something that I don't really know will work for me. I'm trying to think of cheap alternatives and have thus far come up with none. Maybe I should take a trip down to the arts and crafts store....

Day 59 (CD 107)

Tomorrow will be 2 months that I've been sleeping in total darkness. Next full moon a get to start turning on the lights! Woohoo!

I was so excited I had stopped spotting, and then the day after my last post the spotting began again. So, I started taking female harmony again today. Hopefully it'll help again. I think the problem is that this cycle has been going on for too long and probably my endometrium lining is too thick and can't sustain itself anymore because all it's been doing is building up and up since I haven't ovulated in more than 3 months. If I could just ovulate, I'm sure I would stop spotting.

I think another problem is that because I've been sleeping in complete darkness all the time with the exception of a couple of days, my body is actually producing too much melatonin and this in turn is preventing ovulation. I haven't been offsetting sleeping in darkness with spending more time in the sun during the day or turning on the lights at night to balance the melatonin production because I didn't want to introduce a whole bunch of variables at once. But I suspect that all this darkness is screwing with my cycles. I think I'm one of those people who needs the 3 nights of lights. However, I did promise 3 months solid of darkness and I've got one more month to go. I wonder if the 3 days that I did have egg-white cervical mucus (EWCM) and no spotting occurred because I had to keep turning on the lights to take care of my little sister at night. If so, that could be a +1 for Lunaception when I finally do start turning on the lights at night.

3 more comments about my chart above:
1. I've added another category called "Lunaception Not Practiced" to show the days where I didn't sleep in total darkness for one reason or another. I feel like this would give me (and anyone else who reads my blog) a clearer picture of how closely I've been following Lunaception. 2. The full moon was actually yesterday, on Sunday, but you can see on my chart that it's showing up that it's today. I have no idea why. I inputted the data correctly on the TCOYF online software. I suspect it's some sort of glitch. Sometimes using the free charts on TCOYF is so annoying! They can take forever to update and lots of times the functions and options don't work like their supposed to. Hopefully this error will correct itself soon. I'm sure the paid version works better.
3. The cycle day on the chart really only goes up to the first two digits, so since I've hit 100, all you see is 10. I guess you have to start counting if you want to figure out what day I'm on.

Hopefully I'll have better news next week!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Day 53 (CD 101)

What a week! Thursday was my little sister's birthday party, she just turned 6 --- yes there is an enormous gap between her and my older brother and I--- no, she was not an accident---Well, afterward my mom really wanted my husband and I to come over so we did. We hadn't planned at all on sleeping over but my mom had to pack her bags bc her and my dad were going to Brazil the next day to visit my sick grandma :'( and my little sister had to take a bath bc she had sand in her hair...so I stayed to help. My little sis was going to stay with my in-laws bc I'm busy with school, but I felt so bad bc she was so sad about the whole thing that I decided to sleep over my in-laws house too to help out. So that's where I slept from Friday to Tuesday. 4 days in hell. My sis kept my husband and I up at night coughing bc of a cold all 4 days. My little nephew also came over to play with my sis and it was just chaos all weekend. Little kids are cute...but they are exhausting!!! My husband and I would periodically look at each other and just shake our heads as if to say, "Nope...we are definitely not having kids within the next 10 years". I'm glad we're on the same boat. I'm back home now and looking forward to getting a restful full night's sleep.

Unfortunately, Thurday-Tuesday I wasn't able to sleep in pitch black darkness because my mother didn't have thick curtains and at my in-laws I was turning on the lights all the time to give my sister medicine. I did try to use a sleeping mask but halfway through the night I just took it off because I had to keep turning on the lights anyways. Sometimes life happens. Tonight though I am going to put the cardboard back up. You'll notice some of my temps are missing. I didn't have my thermometer one day, and another day I woke up too close to my temping time bc of my sis to consider it accurate.

This Friday I'm going to a bachelorette party and I'll proabaly be out all night...so no cardboard then either. I was actually supposed to go to Canada this coming Thursday - Monday, but unfortunately won't be able to. I had written about my concern of sleeping all those days in a less than pitch black room, but I guess I don't have to worry anymore.

Looks like sleeping 3 months solid in darkness if not as simple as it seems since life is full of unexpected things.

On a brighter note, it does seem like the bleeding finally stopped. Yesterday I had only the slightest tinge of pink but it seems to be all gone today. I'm going to take the female harmony one more day and then stop. I did start seeing some egg-white cervical fluid as you can see from my chart but I don't know if I can attribute it to lunaception, to the female harmony tincture, or to the fact that I wasn't able to sleep in total darkness these past few days. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid when I started lunaception...adding in new variables in so I didn't know which caused what. But like I said, what can you do when life happens? With things getting back to normal now, hopefully I'll be able to tell which did what and hopefully this egg-white means that ovulation is eminent bc I'm already on day 101 of this cycle. Sunday is a full moon--maybe I'll ovulate then? We'll see what happens.

Day 47 (CD 95)

Well...my cycle is still going! I'm almost hitting the 100 day mark. I started taking some herbal tincture called Female Harmony from http://drfosteressentials.com/ I love dr. foster!!! She has a completely natural approach to things and all her products are of excellent quality. I go to her if I have any problems! Well I started taking the tincture mid last week and my flow has decreased to the point that it is now almost nothing. I was hesitant to take the tincture because I didn't want to add any other variables into Lunaception, but I was afraid that the bleeding was going to go on for a long time before it stopped. So I decided to only take it until necessary. I'll probably only take it for another 2 days.

The womens retreat that I went on with my church was great! I went with my mother-in-law and couldn't be happier that I did. I am so thankful to have her in my life and was grateful for out time spent together. We talked for hours about everything under the sun! We definitely do not have the stereo-typical in-law relationship.

During the retreat I slept with an eye-mask on (for the 2 nights I was there) since I couldn't really do anything about the light coming in from the window. If some part of my body was exposed to light, it was definitely only a part of my face because it was so cold there that I was bundled up in a zipped up sleeping bag. I think that could be why on saturday and sunday my temps were kind of low...because I was freezing! I've noticed during the summer if we put the AC on too high my temps seem to be kind of low in the morning too, so I think I'm one of those people were the temp in the temp in the environment affects me, although waking up earlier or later doesn't really seem to. Sunday was daylight savings time and my temps were pretty much the same. However, on Monday I think I woke up earlier then usual and stayed in bed half a sleep and half awake...which gave me that unusually high temperature. I had gone to bed really early and woke up at around 4.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe this cycle I'll ovulate around the full moon! Regardless, like I've said before, I'm still going to be sleeping in darkness for another month and a half, but ovulating around the full moon now would definitely give me some encouragement! I feel though like my body needs the light though to give it an extra boost to bring on ovulation.

That's all for now. 'Til next time!

Day 38 (CD 86)

Today is day 38 of Lunaception. My cycle has pretty much been the same. Still haven't ovulated, still having anovulatory bleeding. The bleeding has gotten heavier and I'd say it's at a medium flow. It's been going on for 16 days now non-stop. If it turns into something like the other times this happened, I'm going to shoot myself. November 2008 and sometime in 2005 I started having this same anovulatory bleeding and it went on NON-STOP for 6 months!! Dr.s did a whole bunch of tests and and all tests came back fine. So they told me to wait it out or take birth control (grrrrrr) I don't see how birth control would have "fixed" my cycle irregularity since you don't actually have a cycle on it. You don't ovulate on it and no ovulation means no REAL period which all means no REAL cycle. That bleeding you get at the end of a pack....it's not your period because again, you didn't ovulate. It's withdrawal bleeding from not taking any hormones that week. When people invented the pill they wanted to make it look as natural as possible and if women didn't get what they thought was their period, they would have hesitated to start taking it, remember the pill was absolutely revolutionary and novel at that time, so they put a week's worth of those sugar pills in there give you that hormone withdrawal bleeding and make you think it was your period. Not cool. Birth control impedes your body's natural rhythm of its reproductive cycles and that just doesn't sit well with me either. Plus putting all those artificial hormones into your body is another negative for me. I'll post some sites when I have the time regarding this information.

As promised here are some links:

How the pill really works:

The fascinating story of the pill:
https://www.seasonique.com/about/the-real-story-of-the-pill/
http://science.jrank.org/pages/63321/The-Pill.html

The "Pill Period"
https://www.seasonique.com/about/what-is-a-pill-period/
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/7876.html

How do birth control pills work?
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/0663.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-birth-control-pills-work.htm

The answer to: Can you have a period without ovulating?
http://www.ivillage.com/ovulation-can-you-have-period-without-ovulating/6-n-145810

* It's useful to note that what applies here to birth control pills, really applies to all hormonal contraceptives because they all have the same job of preventing ovulation.

hmmm....maybe I'll post these to the right too....I feel like a lot of women don't know a whole lot about the pill and nobody explains to them that you're not having a real menstrual cycle

On another note, this weekend I'm going on a women's retreat with my church. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do about the whole sleeping in darkness thing. I think Friday and Saturday I'll just have to sleep with only an eye mask on. Hopefully it won't be too bright in the room and it won't be that big of a deal that my body isn't immersed in darkness like it's supposed to be. I'm going to have the same prob. when I go to Canada in 2 weeks, except it'll be for 3 days then. I'm going with friends and we aren't staying in a hotel (so no black out curtains). Even if I could make my provisions to ensure a dark room, I really don't feel like explaining the whole lunaception thing. Hopefully I'll be able to take my temperature. I normally temp at 5:30 am and my alarm goes off then. I hope my friends don't mind. I'll probably have to explain to them that it's my birth control (I'm anticipating the puzzled looks when they see that I'm equating my thermometer with birth control lol). That would probably lead into a long conversation about FAM. *Sigh*. I love FAM but I've explained it a lot of times and don't feel like doing so again at the moment.

Day 31 (CD 79)

So the full moon came and went and I am still waiting for ovulation. I was really keeping my fingers crossed that I'd ovulate this full moon. It would have given me a bit more hope and lifted my spirits...but no...didn't happen. Maybe the next full moon?

Also on Saturday (CD 77) my spotting actually turned into a light period, so now I'm having more like anovulatory bleeding. Here's a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" kind of question for you...Which comes first, your period or ovulation?......
You actually first ovulate and then get your period. You get your period because you ovulate, not the other way around. Thus if you start bleeding, but you didn't ovulate that cycle, it's called anovulatory bleeding and ovulation can still happen anytime. Technically, even though you may have a period like flow, it's still part of the same cycle. On my chart however, you may notice that I only put spotting down. That's because if I put that it's any heavier, the software starts a new cycle for me...which I don't want.

I hope this flow stops sometime soon!!! It seems like it's been forever. Thank God for the divacup though! It does make life soooo much better. (I'm definitely going to have to write a post singing my praises on the divacup! But for now, check out this great article on the divacup: http://blog.earthlingshandbook.org)

Another observation: My temps seem to be leveling out again. For a while my chart looked like a roller coaster ride, and that's why I was actually anticipating anovulatory bleeding...which I was right about. Now it seems like it's getting back to normal. Maybe I'll ovulate sometime in the near future. At this point I don't care as much if it happens on the full moon. I just want this cycle to be over!

Today also makes 1 full month that I've been sleeping in total darkness. 2 more months to go!

As a side note, I posted some resources to the right like helpful books and links Lunaception. I'll post more when I can and as I find them.

Where I am now

To give you some background on my cycles, here is how many days my last 10 cycles lasted, counting day 1 as the first day of my period:

46
34
36
47
75
34
52
30
60
50

So in the last 1 1/2 yrs, I've only had 10 cycles. This also means that my pre-lunaception average cycle lasts 46.4 days. Remember, I'm trying to move this average to 29 days, the same length as the moon's cycle.

As you can see by the chart, today isn't my first day of doing Lunaception. I've summarized where I am in my journey below....

• Started Lunaception: Cycle Day 28 (9/4) Sleeping in total Darkness

• Turned on the night Light: CD 46,47,48 (9/22-24)

• CD 49 (9/25) Back to sleeping in total darkness. I also decided to sleep 3 months straight, beginning now, in total darkness before turning on the light again.

• So, my first day to turn on the light again is 12/20/10, the day right before the full moon.

*Louis Lacey states that your cycles should align naturally to the moon, but if you want to speed up that cycle, turn on the lights only during the full moon, which is what I was doing.

**Like I said before, Joy deFelice states to sleep in darkness for 3 months solid before turning on the lights. In an email that another person sent to Louis Lacey, Lacey also said for her to sleep in total darkness for 3 months before using the lights. So I decided to do the same and began my 3 month count the day after I last used a night-light. That's why I'm only on Day 27.

My Expectations upon starting lunaception:

• Have regular 29 day cycles
• Ovulate with the full moon and get my period with the new moon
• Sleep better
• More stable temps
• More egg-white cervical fluid
• A shorter period
• More defined temp spike after ovulation
  

I think these are reasonable expectations because Louise Lacey claims that all these things can happen...except maybe for the stable temps. But I saw a lot of people claim that lunaception did that to them.

My setup:

• To block all light from coming into the window, I've been using cut cardboard. I made it just a tiny bit bigger than the inside of the window so that way it could stay up all by itself. I put up the cardboard at night and take it down in the morning. You can get them for free at furniture stores and chain stores like walmart.
• I tried to find a light bulb that has super white light like the moon does. But finding one that was only 15 watts definitely took me a while. And the lampshade that I have requires a lamp with the smaller base. I found the perfect one with a light just like the moon's --a little expensive--but remember it'll last forever!-- at http://www.greenelectricalsupply.com
  If you decide to buy one, make sure the base of the bulb is appropriate for your lampshade. They have both sizes on the website.
• On the days that I'm supposed to sleep with the light on, I put the lampshade as far away from me as possible...which in a small room isn't all that far. The lampshade ends up being about 3 feet away from the foot of my bed on the floor.

My observations thus far:
I must say....I've been very discouraged with Lunaception. Maybe my body is still adjusting, and in all fairness, Lacey states that it can take 3-4 months for you to really see a difference, but a lot of people report some change within the first days or first month of doing the method. I however, am of the lucky few who hasn't noticed any change! This first cycle of mine using lunaception has actually been my longest cycle in over a year!! Even after I first used the light I still didn't ovulate. I feel like sleeping in darkness has actually served to delay my ovulation.

As you can see from my chart, my temps aren't any more stable. I also don't feel like I've been getting a more restful sleep sleeping in the darkness. I do know however that sleeping with the lights on is HORRIBLE and I didn't sleep well the nights that I used the light. On one night my husband actually slept on the couch because he couldn't take it anymore lol. Next time I turn my lampshade on, I'm going to put something over it to make the light dimmer. I don't think it needs to be as bright as it was. I also haven't seen a change in my CF pattern. *Sigh*

I started spotting a week ago. A week before that I thought I was going to have breakthrough bleeding because my temperature was fluctuating so much, but what I got instead apparently was spotting. Hopefully it won't last much longer.

Ovulation still doesn't seem to be very near. I've been checking my cervix and it still feels low and firm. When will this cycle end?!?!

The introduction

After many years of irregular cycles lasting anywhere from 1 month to 4, I started looking up natural ways to regulate my cycle. When clicking on one hyperlink led to the next, and the next to the next, I stumbled upon Lunaception and decided that I had to give it a try.

What is Lunaception you may ask? Well it's the belief that women used to menstruate with the new moon and ovulate with the full moon. But then enter the light bulb, and our cycle became unsynchronized with all the use of artificial lighting. Often times, even when we turn out our lights for bed, we still have light pollution from alarm clocks, cable boxes, cell phones, street lights, and many other places that affect the amount of light in our rooms. The problem with this is that melatonin production is affected by even the smallest amount of light and our body picks up light even through our closed eyelids and skin. This imbalance affects our menstrual cycles. Lunaception is therefore the practice of getting our cycle back to the way nature intended it: in tune with the moon. This is done by manipulating our sleeping environment with a variation of complete darkness on most nights, and a soft white light on a few nights.

Although there were some resources and how-to's on the internet, I decided that I wanted to learn the method from the source; Louis Lacey's Lunaception - A Feminine Oddyssey into Fertility and Contraception. The book had long been out of print, but the author was offering photocopies of her book for $11 (now available as an e-book on her site), including postage. So I quickly ordered one up for me. Although the book was long, the method can really be summed up into just a couple of steps. Basically, here they are:

LUNACEPTION HOW-TO'S

1. Sleep in total, pitch black darkness Days 1-13 of your cycle. Day one is the first day of your period. By pitch black I mean 15 min. after turning out the lights you can't see your hand in front of your face, let alone the furniture in your room. Just an eye-mask might not do it because studies have shown the our bodies respond to light "unseen".

2. Days 14, 15, and 16 - Put a small white nightlight, 15 to 25 watts, on the other side of the room and sleep with it on. Try to get the whitest light you can find to mimic moon light. Lampshades work fine too.

3. The rest of your cycle, go back to sleeping in pitch black darkness. If you still haven't ovulated in 2 weeks, you can try the lights again. Caution: Using the lights in less than 2 week intervals might actually delay ovulation.

*Louis Lacey states that your cycles should naturally align to that of the moon's. However, if you want to speed up that process, sleep in darkness until your cycle matches that of the moon's. It'll align much more quickly. Then use the night light as above. So basically, wait until the full moon to turn on the light...although I imagine you should wait at least a couple of days after your period begins.

**Another person named Joy deFelice also studied the effects of light on our cycles. Although I haven't read her booklet, which is available for only $5. She says much of the same things except that the first 3 months solid you should sleep in total darkness.

After almost 2 years I decided to get serious about lunaception and judge for myself once and for all if it worked or not.

So why the blog?

When I first began doing lunaception I researched and researched to find people's stories and experiences but found very few complete pictures. I did find a few random testimonials, but they were short and felt like there wasn't really anything that was documented. A lot of people also either began lunaception and soon after stopped or got pregnant shortly after (congrats!) or did the method but weren't strict about sleeping in total darkness and turning on the light. Others introduced a lot of different vitamins and supplements into their cycle so you weren't really sure which one worked. Also, many had fairly regular cycles to begin with.With all that, I feel like I wasn't able to really evaluate if Lunaception works or not. I'm determined however to follow lunaception to the T, without introducing anything new into my very irregular and long cycle. And I don't plan on getting pregnant so you'll be able to see over a greater span of time what lunaception did for me, and will possibly do for you.

In another blog I'll update where I currently am right now with lunception and how I feel things have changed. I'll also put up some super useful links to the right for anyone who wants to pursue lunaception.