Thinking about Raising a Family

Most adults consciously or subconsciously start planning their families in their minds way before they even enter into a serious relationship.  We dream of the size of the family; how many kids we would have, even the sex of each of them, as though it would act out like a script!

Happily, we finally settle into a relationship and then immediately wish our dreams to materialise as in yesterday. Expectations from every angle become daunting and while the issue of having and raising a family acts out like a script for most, a little more effort are needed to achieve this for others. This however does not necessarily mean that the later has some kind of problems. However since the African concept or understanding of marriage is majorly to have children; the expectation of getting pregnant after marriage is truly immense; this expectation is not limited to the married couples, but those of the extended families, friends and even foes.

Planning a family requires maturity in all aspects as well as commitment from both parties. It also involves our understanding the basic workings of our reproductive system; knowing if we have a regular monthly cycle or not in other to be able to determine when our possible ovulation period would be and ultimately when to step up sex if we have not been paying enough attention to that aspect! Yes, having sex at the right time is mostly at the root of getting pregnant.

Once ovulation occurs the egg is available for fertilization and its fertilizable life span is about 24hrs, however the fertilizable life span of a sperm can be up to 72hrs; hence the need to know when we are ovulating in other not to miss out on it.