How To Get Pregnant...???

Is There something wrong with me?

Am I fertile?

Pregnancy (latin graviditas) is the carrying of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, inside the uterus of a female human. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets. Human pregnancy is the most studied of all mammalian pregnancies. Obstetrics is the medical field that studies and treats pregnant patients.

Childbirth usually occurs about 38 weeks from fertilization, i.e., approximately 40 weeks from the start of the last menstruation. Thus, pregnancy lasts about nine months, although the exact definition of the English word “pregnancy” is a subject of controversy.

These are questions that come up a lot with those of you who have been trying to figure out exactly how to get pregnant for several months now and have not yet had any success.

At first there is not much doubt, you stop using contraception and imagine that within a few months you will become pregnant and that's it. After three or four months of trying you will be faced with the reality of the situation that you are not pregnant yet and your mind will begin to ask if everything is ok with you and your partner.

To put your mind at rest, when you are trying for a baby it is quite normal to have to wait up to and beyond 12 months before finally becoming pregnant.

To be able to become pregnant there are certain facts that you should be aware of that when applied to your lifestyle and your lovemaking will dramatically increase your ability to become pregnant:

• You should be aware of how your body works and exactly what your body is doing at every step of your monthly cycle. Get to know the tell tale signs that you are about to ovulate. With a little practice you should be making love just as you ovulate.
  
  
• Know when to make love. You need to know about male ejaculation and about how sperm can become more or less active. Plan it so that you make love just as you ovulate with the highest quality sperm. Also you need to learn about how female orgasms can help in conception if timed right.
  
  
• Preparing your body with the correct minerals and vitamins is very important. Not only for trying to conceive but once conception has occurred then you will need to have prepared yourself to be able to nourish the unborn in the first few weeks. There is a lot to be said ion this subject.
  
  
• You should also be asking yourself if you are really prepared to bring a child into this world, do you have the means to support it and nurture it?... I personally believe that whatever our situation, as a survival instinct most of us will somehow be able to find all that we will need to bring up a healthy and happy baby but if you personally are not really that sure then this thinking will bear a direct influence on your physical body and will play tricks with your ovulation and menstrual cycle which will make it that much more difficult to become pregnant.

Getting pregnant is a gift, the fact is that some women are just not able to and that is sad. There are however many women who believe they cannot become pregnant when really all that they need is a little clarity and the explanation of certain facts and they will be able to become pregnant just as easily as anybody else.

Terminology

One scientific term for the state of pregnancy is gravid, and a pregnant female is sometimes referred to as a gravida. Both words are rarely used in common speech. Similarly, the term "parity" (abbreviated as "para") is used for the number of previous successful live births. Medically, women who have never been pregnant are referred to as "nulliparous" ("gravida 0, para 0"), during a first pregnancy as a "primigravida" ("gravida 1, para 0") and in subsequent pregnancies as "multigravida" or "multiparous". Hence during a second pregnancy a woman would be described as "gravida 2, para 1" and

upon delivery as "gravida 2, para 2". Incomplete pregnancies of abortions, miscarriages or stillbirths account for parity values being less than the gravida number, whereas a multiple birth will increase the parity

The term embryo is used to describe the developing offspring during the first eight weeks following conception, and the term foetus is used from about two months of development until birth.

In many societies' medical and legal definitions, human pregnancy is somewhat arbitrarily divided into three trimester periods, as a means to simplify reference to the different stages of prenatal development. The first trimester carries the highest risk of miscarriage (natural death of embryo or foetus). During the second trimester, the development of the foetus can be more easily monitored and diagnosed. The beginning of the third trimester often approximates the point of viability, or the ability of the foetus to survive, with or without medical help, outside of the uterus.

Characteristics

Pregnancy occurs as the result of the female gamete or oocyte (egg) being penetrated by the male gamete spermatozoon in a process referred to, in medicine, as "fertilization", or more commonly known as "conception". The fusion of male and female gametes usually occurs through the act of sexual intercourse. However, the advent of artificial insemination has also made achieving pregnancy possible in such cases where sexual intercourse is not potentially fertile (through choice or male/female infertility).

A number of medical signs are associated with pregnancy. These signs typically appear, if at all, within the first few weeks after conception. Although not all of these signs are universally present, nor are all of them diagnostic by themselves, taken together they make a presumptive diagnosis of pregnancy. These signs include the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the blood and urine, missed menstrual period, implantation bleeding that occurs at implantation of the embryo in the uterus during the third or fourth week after last menstrual period, increased basal body temperature sustained for over two weeks after ovulation, Chadwick's sign (darkening of the cervix, vagina, and vulva), Goodell's sign (softening of the vaginal portion of the cervix), Hegar's sign (softening of the Vaginal fornix), and Linea nigra, (darkening of the skin in a vertical line on the abdomen, caused by hyperpigmentation resulting from hormonal changes; it usually appears around the middle of pregnancy).

Duration

Though pregnancy begins at conception, it is more convenient to date from the first day of a woman's last menstrual period (acronym = LMP), or from the date of conception (if known). Starting from one of these dates, the expected date of delivery (acronym = EDD) can be calculated. Counting from the LMP, pregnancy usually lasts between 37 and 42 weeks, with the EDD at 40 weeks, 38 weeks after conception. 40 weeks is a little more than nine months and six days, which forms the basis of Naegele's rule for estimating date of delivery.

Pregnancy is considered 'at term' when gestation attains 37 complete weeks but is less than 42 (between 259 and 294 days since LMP). Events before completion of 37 weeks (259 days) are considered pre-term; from week 42 (294 days) events are considered post-term. When a pregnancy exceeds 42 weeks (294 days), the risk of complications for mother and fetus increases significantly. As such, obstetricians usually prefer to induce labour, in an uncomplicated pregnancy, at some stage between 41 and 42 weeks.

Recent medical literature prefers the terminology pre-term and post-term to premature and post-mature. Pre-term and post-term are unambiguously defined as above, whereas premature and postmature have historical meaning and relate more to the infant's size and state of development rather than to the stage of pregnancy.

Though these are the averages, the actual length of pregnancy depends on various factors. For example, the first pregnancy tends to last longer than subsequent pregnancies. Fewer than 10% of births occur on the due date; 50% of births are within a week of the due date, and almost 90% within two weeks.

Accurate dating of pregnancy is important, because it is used in calculating the results of various prenatal tests (for example, in the triple test). A decision may be made to induce labour if a fetus is perceived to be overdue. Due dates are only a rough estimate, and the process of accurately dating a pregnancy using the LMP method is complicated by the fact that not all women have 2

Diagnosis

Obstetrics (from the Latin obstare, "to stand by") is the surgical specialty dealing with the care of a woman and her offspring during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (the period shortly after birth). Midwifery is the equivalent non-surgical specialty. Most obstetricians are also gynaecologists. See Obstetrics and gynaecology.

The beginning of pregnancy may be detected in a number of ways, including various pregnancy tests which detect hormones generated by the newly-formed placenta. Clinical blood and urine tests can detect pregnancy soon after implantation, which is as early as 6-8 days after fertilization. Home pregnancy tests are personal urine tests, which normally cannot detect a pregnancy until at least 12-15 days after fertilization. Both clinical and home tests can only detect the state of pregnancy, and cannot detect its age.

In the post-implantation phase, the blastocyst secretes a hormone named human chorionic gonadotropin which in turn, stimulates the corpus luteum in the woman's ovary to continue producing progesterone. This acts to maintain the lining of the uterus so that the embryo will continue to be nourished. The glands in the lining of the uterus will swell in response to the blastocyst, and capillaries will be stimulated to grow in that region. This allows the blastocyst to receive vital nutrients from the woman.

An early sonograph can determine the age of the pregnancy fairly accurately. In practice, doctors typically express the age of a pregnancy (i.e. an "age" for an embryo) in terms of "menstrual date" based on the first day of a woman's last menstrual period, as the woman reports it. Unless a woman's recent sexual activity has been limited, or she has been charting her cycles, or the conception is as the result of some types of fertility treatment (such as IUI or IVF) the exact date of fertilization is unknown. Absent symptoms such as morning sickness, often the only visible sign of a pregnancy is an interruption of her normal monthly menstruation cycle, (i.e. a "late period"). Hence, the "menstrual date" is simply a common educated estimate for the age of a fetus, which is an average of two weeks later than the first day of the woman's last menstrual period. The term "conception date" may sometimes be used when that date is more certain, though even medical professionals can be imprecise with their use of the two distinct terms. The due date can be calculated by using Naegele's rule. The expected date of delivery may also be calculated from sonogram measurement of the fetus. This method is slightly more accurate than methods based on LMP. The beginning of labour, which is variously called confinement or childbed, begins on the day predicted by LMP 3.6% of the time and on the day predicted by sonography 4.3% of the time

Diagnostic criteria are: Women who have menstrual cycles and are sexually active, a period delayed by a few days or weeks is suggestive of pregnancy; elevated B-hcG to around 100,000 mIU/mL by 10 weeks of gestation. (wikipedia.com)

authorship: wikipedia/pregnataid