The resources mentioned in this episode are:

• Resources mentioned in this episode:

  Fertility Awareness Educator (FAM) : - https://www.instagram.com/fertilityawarenessproject/?hl=en

  Tempdrop (get 10% off with my link)  - http://tempdrop.refr.cc/moniquedickson1

  Sign up to The Ovulation Conversation - www.moniquedickson.com/ovulation 

  Cycle tracker for temperature charting - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-gFk7wbyBR8-s5knFwdideLZ6aTqfF_C/view?usp=drive_link 

   

00:01:01
Hello. My name is Monique Dickson, and I love everything to do with the menstrual cycle of hormones and periods. I'm a beginner unschooler to four very free range kids here in rural New Zealand. I have lived with unbalanced hormones, adult acne, and burnout. Just like so many of you, I now teach you the tried and tested ways to replenish your body, balance your hormones, and finally understand how you feel in each phase of your cycle.

00:01:32
Just think of this podcast as your one stop shop for finally getting your period and hormones back to being better than ever before. Because hormones really are our superpower as women. Pour your tea, get cozy, and ready to learn. This is the Hormonally Balanced Mother's Podcast. So this could be a little bit sciency, hopefully not too sciency for you.

00:01:56
It'd be filled with lots of interesting facts about what happens inside your uterus every single cycle. And note that I just said every single cycle, not every single month, because we've gone and learned that ovulation doesn't happen every single month, and you have to ovulate in order to have a full cycle. Anyway, we're going to talk about the ovulation process. So what actually happens inside our uterus, why we need to ovulate, and some facts for ovulation, why we might not ovulate. So what does stop ovulation?

00:02:27
Some signs of ovulation. So you can start to recognize the signs of ovulation in yourself, because becoming really aware of when you do actually ovulate is going to give you so much confidence when it comes to body literacy and predicting your period and living in alignment with your cycle. And also, it's going to give you confidence to know that you are ovulating. So therefore, you're on the right track to start with when it comes to balancing your hormones, because it is the very first question that I will ask you if you work with me or do any programs with me, like are you ovulating? And the next question I ask you is, how do you know you're ovulating?

00:03:05
So we'll talk about that as well. So let's start with what actually is ovulation. So you might have learned this in school and sex ed, but ovulation is the act of the follicle, releasing an egg from your ovary into your fallopian tube, where this egg is then literally just waiting to be fertilized by the male sperm. It'll travel down your ovaries. I'm just like, drawing on my own uterus right now to explain the process.

00:03:33
If you can just imagine this egg floating down your fallopian tube waiting to be fertilized. And if it's not fertilized, it then disintegrates and comes out with your menstrual flow. But if it is fertilized, it then implants in the side of your uterus and TADA and you have a fertilized egg, which can then turn into a pregnancy. So it's a little bit more complicated than that. And that the egg that is released out of your ovary is actually taken about a year to get to that stage.

00:04:03
So a year ago, your body started choosing which egg is going to be released. It's starting to grow it up. It's doing a lot of changes inside your uterus, I mean inside your ovary. And in the last three months, it's really growing bigger until it's mature enough. Your brain has fed this follicle hormones to grow it.

00:04:24
So it's big enough, it's called FSH, follicle stimulating hormone. And then that is the mature egg. It then releases another hormone to stop the other eggs growing because our body only wants one egg to be released at a time. In special cases, there is two eggs released at a time. But so our body releases this egg and then as a whole cascade of hormones, this egg is released.

00:04:44
And then the sac that was surrounding the egg turns into a corpus litium, which is just spectacular. That our body can make this hormone making gland inside our ovaries within four to 24 hours. It's honestly the most amazing thing. You think that our body does this without us even thinking about it kind of blows my mind. So this corbacetium, which is made from the fact that the egg has just been released from it, then produces progesterone.

00:05:15
So progesterone is that beautiful hormone that I feel like I always talk about it's all about. It keeps you calm, it keeps you regulated, it improves your sleep. It does so many other things to your body we'll talk about soon. So the gist that I'm trying to get across here is that you have to ovulate in order to get progesterone. So estrogen is around our body, and estrogen is made primarily by the egg that is growing up before is released at ovulation.

00:05:43
And there's a whole lot of estrogen around. And if we don't buffer that really high energy estrogen hormone with some progesterone, then we get a little bit erratic, we get a little bit too much, and things just feel really hard for us. So it's important for us to have progesterone, not just for our mental health, but actually for our physical health as well. I need to tell you that if you're on any kind of hormonal birth control, you're not ovulating. The whole point of hormonal birth control is to stop ovulation.

00:06:12
And by stopping ovulation, you are stopping any chance of having a pregnancy. Because if you don't ovulate, you can't have a baby. I hope that makes sense. That was about as sciency as we're going to get in this episode. The rest of it is about why we need to ovulate.

00:06:27
A few facts about ovulation, what stops ovulation, that kind of thing. All right, so you've done it. You've got through the science a bit. I'm going to give you a round of applause because that is amazing. All right, so why is ovulation so important?

00:06:40
Now? We all know ovulation is important. If you want to have a baby. And I'm assuming that most of you have had babies or about to have babies. Listen to this podcast because it is aimed at mothers.

00:06:49
But what if we're done having babies? Do we still need to focus on ovulation? Yes, we do, because ovulation is more than just having babies. Ovulation is more than just that egg that has been released. It actually sets off this cascade of hormones, which is the progesterone that we need, okay?

00:07:05
If you want progesterone, you need to ovulate. Even if you've been told for years that it's okay to stop ovulation by going on hormonal birth control, it's not really okay for your long term health. So you ovulate, you get progesterone. But in order to ovulate, you have to have estrogen around your body as well. So there's combination of these two hormones, estrogen and progesterone, that's generated because you have ovulated.

00:07:27
So estrogen and progesterone are really good for your brain health. They really boost our brain function and our cognitive function. So they make us less brain foggy. They make us a bit cleverer and make our memory better. And a caveat to this is there's been a really high link to being on hormonal birth control pill where you're not ovulating to having major mood disorders that are associated with your brain because your brain is not getting estrogen and progesterone, so therefore it's not being boosted in a really natural way.

00:07:56
You're kind of missing out on those hormones. And yes, there is estrogen and progesterone in the birth control pill, but it's not estrogen and progesterone that our body recognizes, okay? It's a progestin, which is not the same as that, same as progesterone. Estrogen and progesterone also really help our sleep regulation, help us sleep better. They also help our bones, especially our bone density.

00:08:18
So it's going to help you have stronger bones and not have bone related issues. It's also going to help your heart health out. There's been studies that have linked low estrogen to heart disease. So, yeah, there you go. That's your brain.

00:08:32
It's your sleep, it's your bone, it's your heart. It's also your skin and your vaginal health as well. So there you go. If you want to have long term health, then you need to be supporting ovulation in your body as much as you possibly can. So a couple of facts about ovulation here.

00:08:49
It doesn't happen on day 14 of your cycle like we all seem to think it does. It doesn't. So if you have a 28 day cycle and it's really consistently 28 days, then you might ovulate around day 14. But if you have a stressful situation in the first half of your cycle, you're not likely going to ovulate on day 14 because there's so many things that can stop ovulation or delay ovulation. So it's not a guaranteed thing to ovulate on day 14 of your cycle.

00:09:18
There is like a funny joke around people that think this. And what do you call people who use the rhythm method, which is where they abstain from making love around day 14 of their cycle? Because that's when they ovulate. And you call those people parents because it's not true and it's not a good way to sustain from a pregnancy. I'm not a FAM educator.

00:09:40
I don't educate you on your fertility awareness method. So I can't tell you, I can't look at your chart and tell you when you are definitely ovulating, but I can give you the tools to look at your own chart and say, oh, that's interesting, that's ovulation. But I can't do it for if you're trying to conceive or trying to avoid, I need you to do more research on that or to look up a specialized FAM educator. I can link them below if you like. The other thing about ovulation is that it only happens once per cycle.

00:10:04
So you can't ovulate twice in a cycle. You ovulate and then that egg has been released and then the follicle that has been left behind, like the egg sac that's been left behind, that turns into the corpusitium so there's no more egg to be released from that. So you ovulate and then eleven to 17 days later you get your period. TADA. And then you go through the cycle again and again and again.

00:10:25
So if you have a regular cycle, that's a good indication that you are ovulating. But I would really like you to double check that you are actually ovulating and we'll talk about the signs of ovulation soon. And if you have irregular cycles, it is unlikely that you are consistently ovulating. So the caveat to all of this is that you can still have an an ovulatory bleed. An ovulatory just means you didn't ovulate in that cycle, but you still had a bleed.

00:10:51
That's not a period, it's a bleed. And this bleed happens because your body is gearing up to ovulate, right? So we're primed to ovulate every single cycle. And if we don't ovulate, our body is still trying to ovulate. And in the process of trying to ovulate, our body is thickening, the lining of our uterus.

00:11:09
So just imagine that your uterus is getting thicker and thicker and thicker and then eventually your uterus is so thick it all comes FUDding out. But it's not a period because it hasn't been triggered by a drop in progesterone, which a period is triggered by before you have a true period. A really great analogy that I think I've talked about before on the podcast here is if you have a tree and it's got lots of snow on it and it keeps snowing and snowing and snowing and snowing and the snow is gathering up on the tree. Eventually, the tree is so full of snow that it can't hold it anymore. And all the snow comes rushing off.

00:11:39
And that's the same for your uterus. So if your uterus is lining up, and it's got lots of lining there. It's holding until one day it can't hold it anymore, and it all comes flooding out as what you might think is a period, but it's actually not a true period unless you have confirmed ovulation. So I want all of my clients and all of the people that I work with to track their ovulation. Okay, so let's talk about tracking your ovulation and what these signs are.

00:12:04
So the signs of ovulation is having egg white mucus. Okay? So, you know when you touch an egg white and it's, like, slippery and it's clear and it stretches out a really long way, that is the kind of fertile cervical mucus that we are looking for. That happens on ovulation. And then what happens after you've had that stretchy egg whitey mucus is then it should dry out.

00:12:25
Then you should not have anything or not have any stretchy egg white mucus. You might have a little bit of, like, vaginal slow, which is cells of our vagina coming out, and like a little bit of white in your undies, but you shouldn't have any more of that long stretchy mucus. You know, the stuff is it's really stuff free. I'm sure you've felt it. It feels a bit wet in your undies.

00:12:44
So that is what happens around ovulation. But you can't use just that to confirm ovulation, because that is a sign of ovulation, but it's not like your body can put that out, but still not actually have the event of ovulation. Okay, the second thing we need to check for is a rise in our basal body temperature. If you're taking your basal body temperature, you'll notice a rise in your temperature, okay? So it'll be significantly higher than what it was before.

00:13:12
In order to do this, you need to have a thermometer that takes it to two decimal points. And you need to take your temperature at the same time upon waking every morning and before you even get out of bed to change anyone's nappies or have a drink of water or coffee or anything like that. Okay. We need to make it a habit. Or you could use a device that I use called a temp drop, which I'll link below.

00:13:31
I literally wear it on my arm all night. I turn it on, put on my arm. It takes my temperature all night, and then I sync it with my phone in the morning. I actually just sync it every couple of days because it can hold up to three day, three nights worth of data. Sync it with my phone, it tells me what my temperature are.

00:13:45
I'm monitoring that so I know when I've ovulated, but I'm also comparing my temperature against my cervical fluid, okay. So that I know that both of when both of those things match up. So my temperature has risen, and my cervical fluid is like egg whitey and really stretchy then that's how I confirm ovulation. I then can count forward about two weeks. And I know that that's when I'm going to get my period.

00:14:09
I know that in a couple of days time I'm going to hit the onset of my wild woman season of my cycle and to look out for that and to pack that with some self care so that I'm not so mean and nasty and grumpy and resentful on that day. So knowing when you ovulate is going to give you so many insights into your daily life, your health. So keep an eye out for those signs of ovulation. The last thing we're going to talk about here is what can stop ovulation. So if you are not having a regular cycle or you haven't confirmed ovulation before, then something might be happening inside of you and not just inside your womb, but it might be all around and your body might be feeling one of these stresses on it.

00:14:52
And let me tell you, it's quite a long list. So don't be overwhelmed. Know that you probably haven't got all of them. You've just got one of them. And when we find the root causes of why this is happening and we start healing it from within, then you'll find that your hormones will balance themselves and you will begin to regularly ovulate.

00:15:09
So PCOS, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome, or you might have primary ovarian insufficiency, which is poi. You might have some kind of thyroid disorder. You might be undergoing some kind of excessive stress in your life at the moment. Like you're worrying a lot, you're not eating enough. You've got some kind of nutritional deficiencies, or you're exercising, like you're over exercising.

00:15:32
Or you might have some kind of hormonal imbalance that is related to your hypothalamus, which is an area in your brain. Your pituitary also dictates whether you ovulate or not. You might have some hormonal imbalance in your ovaries, your thyroid, or maybe in your adrenal glands as well. You might be obese, you might be underweight. You might be going through perimenopause, which is a natural decline in ovulation, which is that's okay too.

00:15:56
You might have hypoprolactinemia, which is where you have high levels of prolactin, which suppresses ovulation, which is why you generally don't have a period when you are breastfeeding because prolactin is a breastfeeding hormone. You might have excess melatonin because you are taking that as a supplement. You might have poor dental health. You might have certain medications like antidepressants can also stop ovulation, and so can Nsads. So like things like Ibuprofen and stuff that can also delay ovulation if you are taking those because it works in quite a deep way in your body.

00:16:28
So there you have it. I hope that is not too overwhelming. I hope you now know that ovulation is extremely important. We can fix the root cause of your ovulation. You can begin to understand the signs of ovulation and you now know why it's so important to Ovulate.

00:16:45
It's a long term health strategy to keep your body Ovulating for as long as possible because eventually we will stop Ovulating. When we hit menopause, it means we have had no Ovulation for an entire twelve months and we are in the new season of our life, which is also very exciting. So if you'd like to know more about Ovulation, then this week, which is Sunday the 23 July, I am running a free five day coaching week which is all about Ovulation. I've called it the ovulation conversation. We're going to go in depth into each area of Ovulation, how we can support our bodies to Ovulate, what happens after we Ovulate, why we need to Ovulate, confirming the signs of Ovulation.

00:17:26
So it's going to be some really powerful conversations. I'm packing it all inside a private Facebook group. So if you want to be a part of that, I'll drop the link below so you can sign up this week and come and join us inside the Ovulation conversation. To learn more about Ovulating and the signs that your body is giving you so we can truly begin to balance your hormones and live in alignment with your cycle. It's so exciting.

00:17:50
Thank you so much for being here.