Podcast EP 37
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[00:00:00] Have you ever felt like your cycle is playing tricks on you? Like one minute you see a nice, clear ovulation, and then the next month there's no ovulation. Maybe you're spotting in between your cycles. Maybe you're tracking and temping and all of it, and you just cannot confirm if that egg has dropped.
If this sounds like you, then keep listening. Today we are gonna dive into why your ovulation may be inconsistent. Let's go.
Hi, I'm Sophie Byfield and when I decided I was ready to be a mama, I thought it would be so easy. Get off birth control. Baby dance, like no one's watching. And poof, I was pregnant. But like many of you, that wasn't my story. After months of negative tests, endless treatments, and more supplements than you can count, I realized that getting pregnant isn't about fixing one piece of your fertility puzzle. It's about bringing your whole body. Back into balance so it feels safe enough to conceive. And this is where we focus on what really matters. Healing your whole body so that you can see those two pink lines. Welcome to the Heal to Conceive podcast.
Oh, irregular, ovulation, sis. Has this ever happened to you where you've been tracking and temping and doing all the things and then you don't actually confirm if you've ovulated? I know when I first started tracking and when I started getting more detailed in my tracking and my hormones didn't shift right, or the LA strip didn't get dark enough, I was more [00:01:00] confused than ever.
You're supposed to ovulate every period. Why am I not ovulating this month and could this be the reason why I didn't get pregnant? The very first thing I want you to know is that ovulation can vary from month to month. You do not ovulate on the same date of the month every single month, but you ovulate around the same time within your cycle.
However, your follicular phase or the first half of your cycle before ovulation is very sensitive to internal and external environmental changes that could lead to you not ovulating when you think you're supposed to. Things like stress, sickness, travel, inflammation in your body can throw off or even delay ovulation, making it look like it's later or didn't happen at all.[00:02:00]
This doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you, sis, at all. I want you to hear me when I say this Doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. This is your body's way of protecting you, because if it's too stressed out or too overwhelmed, or the inflammation is too high, it's saying to you it's not safe to get pregnant.
Let's not ovulate. But when I'm trying really hard to get pregnant and you take it away ovulation, we're not working in sick. So here are the five most common reasons why ovulation disappears. Both internal and external environmental factors. Number one, stress. And this stress is both emotional and physical stress.
They can wreak havoc on your body. You see, when your body is stressed out, it produces a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol competes with your reproductive hormones. [00:03:00] If your brain senses that you are stressed out. And quick sidebar. Your body is wired to protect you. It is its main goal not to reproduce. So when your brain thinks it's stressed out or senses any kind of stress, it says, Hey, hold up.
We're not gonna ovulate because it's not safe to get pregnant. We cannot run away from the saber tooth tiger. It is literally wired to protect you, and in doing so, it blocks your blessing. Number two is illness, travel, and disrupted routine. Your body thrives on a schedule. So when you are traveling, switching time zones, it can all delay ovulation.
And when your body is sick again, your body is wired to protect. So when your body is sick, it says it's not safe to get pregnant and it can move your [00:04:00] ovulation by a few days. And number three, overeating or over exercising. Sis, this one is a bit of a sneaky one because you may think you're eating clean, you're eating healthy, and you're moving your body more.
All great things for reproduction. The problem is if you do it to an extreme, your body doesn't feel safe and it doesn't feel nourished, and so it can delay ovulation to protect you. A lot of women fall into this particular category with delayed periods or missing periods because they are over exercising and reducing their calories.
TH we wanna make sure that we are eating a balanced diet and moving our body optimally, but staying in the zone for our body so we do not delay reproduction. And you can really see the shift in your hormones if you are tracking your cycle consistently. [00:05:00] And number four is hormone imbalances or PCOS sis.
There's some women out there who have PCOS or hormone imbalances where their body tries to ovulate multiple times throughout their cycle and is unable to release that egg. They may see multiple LH peaks on their tracking sheet, or they may see an LH peak, but do not confirm with BBT or progesterone rises.
This is common with people who have PCOS hormone imbalances or even thyroid issues, and it really has to do with the follicle not getting mature enough to be able to be released. Your body's trying, but the follicle isn't ready to go. And number five is misreading the signs or user error. If you've been here for a minute, you know that I talk about the time when I was using my LH strips, tracking like a beast [00:06:00] your girl was tracking and then drank too much water and missed her peak completely.
Sometimes we think we're doing everything perfectly, but we can misread what the app or the device is actually telling us. Maybe your week was off and your BBT thermometer, you got up. You had to pee so you didn't take it right away. Maybe you missed cervical mucus. Maybe your progesterone didn't rise.
There's so many outside factors that can lead to you missing ovulation when you were tracking it. All we can do is try our best and do our best, and hope for the best. So now we know the five most common reasons why your ovulation can be delayed. But it's also really important to know how to confirm if you ovulate it.
So here's what I teach my clients inside the Heel to Conceived System and the Heel to Conceived tribe. One, [00:07:00] understanding that there is more than one way to confirm that your egg has actually dropped. We wanna look at BBT and I suggested tent drop because hey, your girl loves a tent drop. And then number two is using progesterone.
If you're tracking with a fertility monitor and the secret weapon is actually cervical mucus because cervical mucus will tell us that the doorway is open and the body is ready to drop that egg. And then our BBT or progesterone tell us that the doorway is closed and the egg has been dropped. We wanna make sure we're looking at both of them to really confirm and know for sure that we ovulate.
So the question becomes, where do you go from here? The first thing I want you to know, do not panic. You've got this. If you're not tracking all three, I suggest you start with tracking your cervical mucus, your lh, and your BBT, or progesterone. If you're tracking all [00:08:00] three, excellent, let's move into tracking them for two to three cycles so that we can see the trend.
It's not about hitting an exact number. It's not about getting obsessed with every single detail, but it is about understanding the trend of your body. The more you track, the more you understand. I started to realize that when I switch time zones, my cycle is delayed, or my ovulation is delayed by two to three days.
That is great knowledge when you were trying to time everything correctly, but that's when you become a detective and an investigator in your body, into your body, and understand what it's doing and not become an outside observer looking in. And if you've noticed that your ovulation has shifted a couple days a week, you are gonna tap into the question, what has changed for [00:09:00] me this month?
Was I stressed out? Was I sick? Did I travel? Maybe I started exercising. Maybe I changed my diet. What happened in my internal or external environment that could have affected my ovulation? And if you are ready to go deeper, sis, I don't want you to worry. I got you. You can join us inside the Heel to Conceive system where I teach you exactly how to do this, how to investigate your cycle.
So to really understand what is going on with your ovulation so you can bring your baby home So inconsistent ovulation, are you ovulating one month and not the next? Does not mean your body is broken. It means that your body is responding to something and when you start listening, you can really start to find that missing piece, heal it, and move forward.
And remember, you've got this. You're gonna bring your baby home. And when you don't got this, I got you baby dust for [00:10:00] all.
