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....