Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Can one get pregnant after ovulation?

Dear Agatha, 

Please I need your help. I want to know if I can get pregnant after ovulation. 

Apprehensive Woman


Dear Apprehensive Woman, 

According to my investigations on this subject, yes you can get pregnant after ovulation. It depends on when the egg was released. Ovulation is the release of the mature ovum from the follicle into the fallopian tubes. Ovulation occurs around the 14th day of a regular 28-day menstrual cycle.  Once released, it becomes available to a matured sperm for fertilisation for 12 to 24 hours before it begins to disintegrate. This is the most fertile period of a woman’s cycle and during ovulation her chances of conception are highest.

The time of ovulation is determined by the luteal phase, which is usually between 12 to 16 days in most women. Calculate the time of ovulation within your cycle by subtracting the length of your luteal phase from the length of your cycle. For example, if your cycle is 28 days long and your luteal phase is 12 days long, the ovulation will occur on the 16th day of your cycle. The exact time of ovulation may vary within your cycle even if you have religiously regular menstrual cycles. This is because ovulation can be delayed by a number of factors such as stress, illness, diet, or increased physical activity.

For women who are trying to get pregnant, it is often advised that they should have intercourse before ovulation. This helps in conception since the sperm from the man is deposited into the cervix and as soon as the ovum is released, it has the opportunity to be fertilised but doesn’t limit the woman’s ability to get pregnant after ovulation. However her chances of getting pregnant depend on when she ovulates as well as when she sleeps with her man. Considering the fact that the egg starts to fall to pieces 12 to 24 hours, there is a small chance that sperm can fertilise the egg for a short time after the egg has been released into the fallopian tubes.  Have it in mind that the chances of getting pregnant this way decreases the further away from ovulation a woman is.

Therefore, if you are trying to get pregnant, try to have intercourse anytime near ovulation to increase your chances of getting pregnant. 

It is in your interest to chart your ovulation pattern and monitor your cervical mucus. When it is like pap, you aren’t fertile, but when it has the stretchy-mucus appearance, you are fertile. The mucus presentation of the discharge helps the sperm make the journey quicker to the waiting fertile egg before it begins to expire. It is nature’s way of aiding conception.

To help you under this better, do see your doctor since you would be able to ask him questions on issues you don’t understand or that are clear to you in this write up.

Good luck

Re: My husband can’t get me on for sex

Dear Agatha, 

I am a keen reader of your column and on the above issue. Have you ever heard of the saying that it takes two to tangle? That is what sex is. Unlike all other race and ethnics, African women have allowed our frightening sexual culture to put them in sexual bondage whereby it is believed that it is the duty of man to do all the sexual foreplay while their contribution is to lie back on the bed. 

Most African women are scared to express their sexual desires or even needs to their husbands or boyfriends even in the bedroom. This is an old school (primitive) approach to sex. 

This is why most African women especially the religious ones will live their lives in abject sexual agony, which affects their marriages/relationships. When some consult their pastors or imam or even their trusted friends on their relationships, often than not, these people refuse to give them the right counsel the reality of the matter is that good sex is important in marriages. Some women have been told to pray and fast for a change of heart for their partners. It is a known fact that men, especially African men like sex and only mutual sexual performances can bring happiness to the couple. 

After good food, the other way for a woman to gain straight access into her partner’s heart is good sexual performance. No man appreciates a woman who is dormant in bed. Unfortunately most women down here are no better than logs of wood in the bedroom. Please conduct your research to confirm or refute this observation of mine.

This is just my opinion and I know everyone is entitled to one.                      

Gabriel 



My husband doesn’t grace my bed again…

Dear Agatha,

I am a regular reader of your column, and must start by commending you on the way you proffer detailed solutions to people’s problems.

I am a 35-year-old lady, and married for 10 years. My husband is in his late 40s. The problem I have is that I am not getting sex from my husband. Initially it was erectile dysfunction he had, but later got it corrected with medications and prayers. Now he appears to have lost interest in sex completely. His reasons have always being pressure of work and tiredness. Sometimes, we can go as far as three months without sex. I am a very attractive woman, and I have really worked so hard to maintain my figure and looks even after four children, but still not getting the required attention from my spouse. 

Several times, I have been tempted to seek sexual satisfaction outside my marriage, but the fear of God has always held me back. I do all I am supposed to do as a woman, including initiating sex on several occasions, but I feel cheapened after every episode. On such occasions, he just gets up and tries to penetrate my dry body without the usual foreplay. I have tried to talk with him, but he said I should give him time to get over a lot of pressure from work, and actually gave me the permission to have an affair outside our marriage if I cannot wait.  

Most times I patronise adult film materials and masturbate while watching these films. What do I do to get my man back on track again? I love and enjoy sex, but I am currently not getting it from my marriage. Even the intimacy as man and wife is no more in my marriage all because of work. What should I do Agatha? Should I continue masturbating even when I am married?

Worried Woman.


Dear Worried Woman, 

Are you sure this isn’t a reaction to a problem that has existed between the two of you? Something you both refused to talk about let alone tackle with all the seriousness it deserves? Can you think of anything he has kept complaining about you? That particular thing he has kept hammering on since you both got married? How much interest do you have in his work and welfare as his wife? If he says it is his workload that is making him abdicate his responsibility to you as your man, do you think he is telling the truth? Do you in all sincerity have no clue into why he is reacting this way?

You are at the bus stop of telling yourself some basic truth about your relationship with your husband. The solution to this problem isn’t trading of blames, but a wholesome approach.

Giving you the liberty to go outside your home to source of a lover isn’t a position a man who loves and respects the wife would propose or approve. Telling you that is a declaration of his lack of interest in you or the marriage again, which means the issue has gone beyond his refusal to sleep with you.

His declaration points at a very serious and fundamental problem; one which if not tackled first cannot give him in particular the enticement to grace your bed. 

You would therefore be making a very unfortunate mistake by limiting the problem in your marriage to starvation of sex alone. Something must have led both of you to this point. That is what you should try to find out by answering the questions I asked. There is an adage that says for smoke to be visible there must be a fire.

For now, drop the issue of your sexless marriage and concentrate on how to remedy the situation. You are trivialising the issue in this marriage, the reason he says you are free to go for sex elsewhere if that is what you think is the problem. Telling you that is his way of telling you the issue between the two of you transcends the jacket you have given to it. 

This is the time for you to go back in time. What was it like between the two of you in your early years of marriage? Can you in all honestly say you know the man you married? His likes and dislikes; his mental frame of mind as well as his extreme? Do you think he can forgive you anything as well as that which he cannot let go? Is he your friend, the kind that would give the marriage the room to mend its broken walls?

Since marrying how much of your time have you devoted into helping him realise his dream as a man? Beyond trying to look good for him, what kind of support have you given to the growth of the marriage as well as the two of you?

What kind of respect is he getting from you? Do you make him feel like a man or are you more concerned about your looks than the kind of home you have? And what do you know of his past, his taste in women then as well as what matters now to him in a relationship? 

Besides, did you at anytime use the children as excuse to deny him of his rights and closeness to you? Often than not, when we women become mothers, we elevate our children to that special place where our husband ought to occupy. Think deeply, did you make that mistake? If you did, he could be repaying you in your own coins.

It is essential for the complaining party to begin with self-appraisal of his or her contribution to the issue in the marriage when this kind of situation occurs in a marriage. If you have done your best to look trim, beautiful for him and he is still not interested, it means only one thing, what you are concentrating your efforts on isn’t what he is interested in.

You just have to go to him first to apologise for putting extra pressure on him to have sex with you. No matter how much his attitude hurts you, put it aside, there is plenty of time to lovingly reprimand him over his coldness towards you. 

Ask him about his job and how you can help minimise the pressure on him. You may not be able to help him with the work, but you can by giving him the conducive environment at home to relax. Make him his favourite meal and take the extra time to stay up with him while he does the work. You don’t have to talk to him but quietly sit by and watch him work. It is a gradual way of building companionship and friendship into your relationship. It is called a selfless gesture. This time, it won’t be what you want but what makes him happy.

Sincerely, you must strive to bury the “I” mode in your marriage and move to the “we” mode. When you try to live in the shoes of your partner, it is then you can feel what he or she feels. This way, you are able to understand better his or her reasons as well as reactions to a particular issue. If you had tried to put yourself in the shoes of your partner, you would understand his reactions to your constant demands for sex. You would understand that sometimes, there are more important issues in a marriage than sex.

You must also be prepared to bring back some of the memories of your early years, the ones he particularly likes about you. It would help remind him of how important you are to him as well as his responsibilities to you as his woman. 

Buy him gifts to give him that sense of importance as well as the assurance that he is more than a sex machine to you. Even if you suspect him to be having an affair outside the home, still be patient because that is the only way you can win him back and keep your home intact. 

There is always a time of drought in every marriage; when the man or woman experiences middle age crisis. For some men, their sexual drive simply nose-dives. As his wife, you need to be very supportive of him. Sometimes you don’t have to understand what is going on through the mind of your husband to offer the much-needed support to bounce back. 

I appreciate your frustration as well as effects of your sexual hunger, but until you are able to bring your man out of his shell, you simply must learn to be patient. 

Furthermore, there is no issue prayers cannot resolve in a marriage or relationship. No matter how knotty the issue or difficult your husband could be, just go on your knees and pray. God answers! Wise women fight their marital battles on their knees, and not on their knuckles. You won’t win that way.

Don’t go outside your home for sex. It isn’t worth it. Learn to exercise self-control. Won’t you cope if he isn’t in the country? Would you because you crave for sex go outside to have it? Don’t make it appear as if sex is the only reason you got married to this man. Look out for his other qualities; it is the only way to appreciate him and stabilise your home.

Good luck.