How much sex is too much?

Don't laugh. If you are trying to make a baby, this is probably something you thought about, if not talked about with your DH!

If you read Taking Charge of Your Fertility, then you might have read that men with a low sperm count should aim to do the BD only every other day while those with a normal count should DTD every day that fertile CM is present (p. 164-165 in TCOYF).

OK, that's easy enough. Do it a lot, and if nothing happens in 6 months to a year, get tested.

But is once a day too much? Not enough? The Bible of pregnancy, What to Expect When You're Expecting, tackles that one. Under Common Misconceptions (p. 10), is listed the following:

Myth: Having sex every day will decrease sperm count, making conception more elusive.

Fact: Though this was once believed to be true, more recent research has shown that having sex every day around the time of ovulation is slightly more likely to end in pregnancy than having sex every other day. More, apparently, is more.

So there you have it. More is more. And if you need more proof, I offer you this:

Exhibit 1: My friend Kerry. She's 35 and had been trying for years to get pregnant, to no avail. She admitted that getting enough might have been an issue - until she and her DH came up with "The Plan."

She told me matter-of-factly over dinner one night, while her 6-month-old baby slept soundly in his baby carrier, that they just decided to hell with timing, they would do it every night for a WHOLE MONTH. Looks like it worked for them.

Exhibit 2: Right after learning this bit of information, I ran home to tell DH, who was immediately impressed and shocked at the stamina of Kerry's DH. But I wasn't suggesting that we try the same thing. Rather, that we use my past charts to predict the best possible week for us and then give it a whole week. Every night, for a week.

Looking at my past charts, I could see that I was ovulating between Day 16 and Day 18. I knew that "normal" ovulation supposedly took place on Day 14, which meant that Day 13 was possibly fertile as well. I then graphed out a week lasting from Day 13-19.

We didn't make it the whole week. We FWP on Day 12-13, skipped Day 14, back on for Day 15-16, skipped Day 17, and back on for Day 18-19. As it turned out, I ovulated on Day 16. And the rest, they say, is history.

So, in conclusion, if you are going to FWP, don't hold back. Seriously, go for it!