Hi!

I am Mei, 26 year old, a mom of two kids (1, 3 in about 3 months). We live
in Oslo in Norway (I'm originally from Finland).

I am still nursing and got my periods back after quitting to nurse at
nights. After the return of the periods I've got pretty normal cycles, which
have surprised me -cycles seemed to have got shorter too (I used to have
long ones 36-40 days, now the last ones have been 31 and 29 days), anyone
experienced shorter cycles after child births??

Anyway, I've been interested in natural family planning already for awhile.
I started charting after starting to bleed after my first birth, but the
charting ended soon, because we got pregnant ;-) We took it quite relaxed
and were sort of prepared for a suprise. The fault wasn't in the method but
in our lack of knowledge. Now looking back to my charts I know that we did
the "mistake" by not waiting for three days after the "peak symptoms".

Now while breast feeding our second child I started seriously reading about
the method and wanted to know all about. The site of "Family of the
Americas"
http://www.familyplanning.net/ and the site of the Billings gave me the
information I needed and I ordered the book "Love and Fertility" from the
"Family of the Americas" and it's been helpful in learning about the method.
I recommend it, it has clear and simple language and very clear pictures of
the different types of mucus (method is based only on mucus) and chart maps
and neat stickers to it!

Now I've had four normal cycles (and am fertile right now!) after I started
bleeding and I think I've got pretty good hang of my mucus patterns. During
the first cycles I was quite nervous and didn't feel confident at all
learning about this, but the carefulness and patience we practised in the
beginning has been worth it, as we feel much more confident in recognizing
and using the "free" days now -each mentrsuation feels like an
accomplishment! ;-)

Since the cycles got shorter I've been a bit extra careful in interpeting
the BIP (basic infertile pattern) before the ovulation, because after
periods there hasn't been many (if at all!) dry days and the peak day seems
to be coming closer towards the periods. In general I seem to have quite
continues discharge (due to the nursing probably), but the mucus comes
clearly more clearer and stretchy closer to ovulation and then turns bak to
sticky and cloudy.

Anyone else who's been struggling with continuous discharge and recognizing
repeated strechiness? I notice there is that highly stretchy and clearer
mucus closer to the peak, and then later in the cycle there appears this
thick, cloudy but also quite stretchy mucus. This mucus however seem to
brake easily after stretching it a couple of times whereas the fertile mucus
doesn't brake after repeated stretching . I think I read about this in the
Billings site, and this has been the way to distinguish the fertile stretchy
mucus.

Ok, maybe this will do for the introduction :-)

I am also with Fertility Awareness (quite active list, but not perhaps so
much discussion on the mucus?) and NFPMoms lists (very quiet). After reading
the archives of this list I was happy to realise that this seems to be a
place to discuss mucus widely and openly! ;-)

Looking forward to fruitfull mucus discussions! ;-)

Cheers,
Mei, one of the "mucus" friends

--
meikku@...
http://home.chello.no/~meikku