(Please note these photos are not necessarily in order of a woman's cycle... and no this is not MY cervix - credit goes to www.sisterzeus.com)
Note #2- you may not want to let your boyfriend see these... mine just freaked out a little when I sent him the link. His reaction was like, "UGH!!!! I'm never putting my dick in a vagina again! I'm joining the priesthood..." I guess there's a good reason our cervixes can't normally be seen on our bodies. But whatever. It's a part of the female body. I'll give the bf another 48 hours to forget about the priesthood : D.
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For a few months now I've been trying to figure out where my cervix is. This may sound silly to someone who already knows, but i've been pretty clueless. Even if I stick my finger up there in the shower, I'm never quite sure if I'm feeling the right thing.
The thing that gets me is, the thing that I keep THINKING is my cervix just seems waaay too far up there for any sperm to actually want to head that way. If I were a sperm, I think I would be a lot more inclined to head left or right - not directly into the tiny little hole that's at the top of the cervix. I'm not sure if I think that way because I'm a little ADD, bad with directions and tend to get lost easily(therefore I think that's what the sperm will do once they're on my turf), or if I just have a negative attitude, but... with all the different curves and crevices in a vagina, it's just hard for me to imagine them going to the right place. I think the sperm will feel like I did on my last trip to IKEA - totally lost and unsure of which direction to go.
The thing I don't understand is... with all that space all around the cervix (on the sides, etc), why would the sperm go into that tiny little hole. I'm trying to think of an analogy... it's like... say your cervix was a lightbulb (with a small hole in the bottom) screwed into a light fixture at the top of a ceiling, and you were a firefly. If you were continuously trying to move in an upward direction, would you be inclined to fly directly into that tiny little hole, or move to the side of the bulb and just head straight to the top of the light fixture? I imagine like 99% of the fireflies would rather move to the side and head for the top of the fixture, going around the bulb completely and getting stuck in the sides, and only like one percent, IF that, would figure out that they're supposed to be actually going INTO the bulb.
In videos like these, they make it look like all the sperm know exactly which way to go and what to do, and I just don't see it really happening like this (yes i do realize it's a cartoon, but... still...)
Sometimes I feel like, in order to get pregnant, I'd be much better off doing "backwards visualizations." Rather than WANTING the sperm to find my cervix, I have to practically think of my cervix as being this precious, sacred thing that I'm actually hoping the sperm will stay far, far away from - this way, I could practically guarantee at least a few of those buggers would somehow find their way in there - just to trip me up.
Another visualization that could work better might be something like this:
My sister has this theory that there's a correlation between erratic lifestyles and pregnancy. Mind you, this is not the same thing as a stressful life and pregnancy. I think it's like this. If your life is really erratic and you're all over the place, the last thing you want is a pregnancy... but then whoop, there it is. Meanwhile, there are other people in this world who want everything to be perfect and they stress out about little things like - namely - getting pregnant. Those are the people who find it just about impossible to get knocked up, because they're focusing way too hard on it and are trying way too hard to control the situation, rather than letting nature take it's course.
Anyway - I digress. I actually started this entry to focus on the cervix.
I thought this article (where I got the cervix pictures from) was just great. It shows pictures of the cervix in the "proper order." I had to look up the definition of an "OS" - that just means the opening of your cervix.
Here's the article: http://www.sisterzeus.com/cervob.htm
And the online definition of an OS: http://pregnancy.about.com/od/laborbasics/g/cervicalos.htm
This is also a great site: "My beautiful cervix." It's awesome, this woman took some great photos (again - may not want to show em to your partner, but... an interesting fact: the gal who posted these actually got her BOYFRIEND to take the photos. So if my honey happens to be reading this: hey babe at least I didn't ask you to go there).http://mybeautifulcervix.googlepages.com/
And this site shows some good drawings of changes in cervical mucus, and how sperm can either be helped or hurt by different types of mucus.
http://www.sisterzeus.com/mucob.htm
I still don't really understand why it is that your cervix would be HIGHER when you're most fertile (you'd think it would be lower so the sperm would have an easier time reaching it) but I guess that's just another one of the mysteries of life.
