Oh boy do i have a visual feast for you today. First of all: for a few days this past cycle i became convinced that we must be missing my ovulation. This, it was clear to me, could be the only possible explanation for my current non-pregnant status. Temperature charting, ovulation predictors, cervical mucus, they must all be wrong! I must add something new to the repertoire. And so i ordered a saliva ferning kit. Oh yes i did. Actually, i don’t think it’s all that crazy. It involves microscopes and that strongly appeals to my scientific side! One of my sisters told me about this a while back, but i was already monitoring everything else, so i never looked into it. But i decided what the hell? The thought of injecting a new measure into this relatively stale process had me all excited again. It arrived yesterday and i woke up like a kid on Christmas this morning.
Here is how it works: basically, the estrogen in your system increases as you approach ovulation, “peaking” just before the LH surge that ovulation predictors measure. As estrogen increases, so does salinity. And you know what happens when saline solutions dry on a slide? They produce crystals with distinct patterns. Et voila: a “ferning” pattern is supposed to indicate – via salt – an estrogen surge, thereby predicting your impending ovulation. So there are supposed to be three stages throughout the cycle:
As i looked through my little microscope lens this morning, i thought “damn i wish i could take a picture of this!” I imagined scouring the interwebs for just the right picture to show you what it looked like in lieu of buying a microscope with photographic lens. Well, a person can always try, i thought. And it worked!! So. Just getting used to this taking pictures through a smaller-than-dime-sized plastic lens thing, and so they are kind of blurry and basically look like Mars, but bear with me. So here’s the hilarious part: i have ALL THREE stages on one slide! Yes – these are three photos taken from different parts of the same slide this morning (all at the same level of zoom/focus – the third one isn’t just zoomed in on the second or anything):
Ok, so this test is like anything else with this whole damn process. There’s typical, which is some statistical mashup of every woman in the world, and then there’s you, who deviates from that mean in many, many ways. As always, you have to learn what’s typical for you. Such as: i don’t ovulate on day 14 and i don’t have 28 day cycles. But i’ve learned what’s normal for me, and when that changes, i know it’s abnormal. I don’t get egg white cervical mucus, but i know now what’s fertile for me. I have low temperatures, but i know my usual range, etc. And so now i shall have to learn what my usual “ferning” pattern is, too. Fertility Friend actually lets you chart this. I called this morning “transitional” based on the fact that most of the slide contained the Mars pattern on the left and quite a bit of the middle stuff, which appears to be classic transitional. There were only a few ares of actual fern-looking stuff like on the right. I can’t believe i got pictures of it for you!
Ok. This was going to be only half of a post, and then i was going to write about looking forward, but this is too long and so that has to be a second post. I’ll work on that – after homework. Also: i made my first batch ever of baked macaroni and cheese last night with manchego and canadian white cheddar plus a little gruyere and tons of garlic and it’s the only homemade baked macaroni and cheese i’ve ever liked. And banana bread for dessert/breakfast. It’s the best banana bread i’ve ever made. Perhaps i’m on a domestic roll this month? Perhaps that will extend to baby-making skills?
8 Comments
Saliva, eh? Interesting. I’m gonna think about that and comment further once I’ve fully processed it.
As for the mac & cheese…right on! For big parties, I make a giant batch in my slow cooker with gruyere, white and yellow cheddar and paprika. It’s always a huge hit! When I’m feeling super domestic, I take the same recipe, alter it slightly and put it into mini-muffin trays to create a mac & cheese finger-food appetizer.
That is way cool how those pictures came out! Most of what I’ve heard about the ferning is that it can be really hard to read, but your pictures look pretty clear. Seems like quite the time commitment though..
And speaking of saliva, that mac and cheese sounds delicious.
muffin trays! that is such a good idea! R’s favorite part of, well, basically any type of baked dish at all is the crust – i do the muffin-tin thing with meatloaf sometimes for that very reason. Given that he was very into the mac’n'cheese, i’m thinking he might actually explode from happiness if i tried that. Will do!
I really didn’t think the pictures would work, i was so excited! I tried it yesterday when the package came and got nothing. I’d read that you really can’t do it after eating or drinking or brushing teeth, but i admit it had me worried about this morning’s attempt. As far as the time commitment, i guess it depends… so you just lick a slide in the morning, that’s pretty much it. It has to dry, but you could deposit your sample (that’s right, samples aren’t just for men anymore) and then go to work or school or the grocery store, and then come back and check it later. Actually finding the part you’re supposed to be looking at seemed a little tricky and time-consuming, but not too bad. Definitely time-consuming in the way that temping is, though, because you really have to do it every day in order to see the big picture. So yeah… i guess you’re right. In the end, i honestly don’t think it’s going to tell me anything i couldn’t already deduce from the eight thousand other ways i’m tracking ovulation. But i get cool pictures! It’ll be really interesting to see if it really is any different during ovulation. I mean – how much fernier can those ferns really get?
Here’s where I stole the muffin tray idea from: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/three-cheese-mini-macs
I just changed up the cheeses a little (Larry would consider the use of American Cheese possible grounds for divorce).
kind of pretty lil pictures.
the first time i made baked mac n’ cheese i used a recipe out of a book at borders when i worked there… it called for half an onion to be boiled in the milk for the cheese sauce. it doesn’t taste ‘onion-y’ but does give it a really nice flavor. i also like to use a lil pepper jack in my cheese mix.
molly – i was kind of combining a few different recipes, and one was alton brown’s, which called for onion. R really doesn’t like onions in food, unless they’re cooked to the point of disintegration, or maybe raw on sandwiches. But the little pieces – he says they’re like fingernails. I love onions in my food but it’s kind of grossed me out ever since he said that! Anyway, i decided to leave the onions out of this one, and i’m glad i did. Maybe next time a tiny bit of onion powder or something. I did add bacon, though! And i’m definitely trying some pepper jack next time, that sounds awesome.
Mmmmmm… Bacon. In my recipe, the onion only gets cooked in the milk – then completely removed, it’s not even cut up, so there aren’t any onion bits to worry about.