Hellobee Boards

I was just wondering the same thing myself yesterday!

I use the Creighton method which has specific instructions for this situation. I'm not an instructor, and I don't think you can really mix methods. That said, they instruct that after sex you use the bathroom, bear down, then do kegels. Wipe until everything is gone. After that, observe whatever you see on its merits. One way you can tell EWCM from arousal fluid is that while both are stretchy at first, only the former stays that way if you stretch it a few times. The latter stretches but becomes less stretchy and more sticky as you keep doing it. That doesn't quite answer your question, but hopefully it's at least sort of helpful!

I never could figure it out and just felt yucky about the whole thing, so I mostly relied on temping. But I was using charting pretty much just to confirm ovulation- we avoided unprotected sex before o while tta, then of course had a lot of it when ttc.

TCOYF says that CM the day after BDing is not reliable because of the presence of semen.

Here are some excerpts from the book regarding the difference between CM and semen. Hope it helps!

Make sure not to confuse semen with cervical fluid. They look and feel very similar. Semen will dry up very quickly upon your fingertips and is more rubbery is consistency. It may also tend to be foamy. Semen is little more white in color rather than clear like eggwhite fluid. To help you identify the difference, when urinating eggwhite cervical fluid will often hit the water and form into a ball while it sinks to the bottom .

If you find that you have more watery or eggwhite days than you would expect and that these often follow days or nights that you had intercourse, then you may be mistaking seminal and cervical fluid. They are quite similar but you will find that fertile cervical fluid (eggwhite) is clear and stretchy and shiny. It will stretch a couple of inches without breaking. Semen may be more whitish and will break when pulled.

@pui: I cant tell the difference! Ive read every trick, and i still feel unsure. We bd a lot, so I feel like I never can tell...I thought cm would be the easiest to track, but it turns out I find it the hardest!

So if you have CM, does that mean you're ovulating?

I always had EWCM for a few days mid-cycle, however once we started TTC I couldn't see I had any at all. I just relied on opks and made sure we BD'd every couple days around mid-cycle.