Here goes..

[Smudgelicious]

Hi

I've wandered in here from the miscarriage thread. I m/c'd on April 21 and decided I wasn't going to do anything about trying to get pregnant again except let it happen. That idea lasted a good day or so.......

So now I've been playing with opk's (because I like peeing on things) and I'm a bit confused. I know it's supposed to be dark, but how dark ? Like definitely darker than the control ? Or can it be a little lighter ? I got one really dark one on Friday afternoon, so I peed on another 3 in the next 24 hours and they weren't that dark. What does that mean ??? It's a little too soon to be o'ing isn't it ?

Anway, G'days all round, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for any advice !

 

[lynne192]

with OPK you have to use first morning urine and only do one a day hun, if the test was really dark on friday but light on sat then that means you ovulated on friday roughly with the LH surge dropping on sat then that means its likely it happened on friday. also the test line is meant to be darker than the control line, this is what i have been told by my RE. i am soooo deeply sorry for your loss we lost our angel Casey in Feb to ectopic pregnancy, i have also suffered other losses so can relate, my thoughts and prayers are with you. it is advised though that after a miscarriage you wait 3-6months before TTC because if you get pregnant too soon your risks of miscarrying again increase (don't mean to scare you) are you taking anything like vitamins, herbs etc? might be an idea...??? how long you been TTC for a baby? i hope you get your little joyous bundle soon

sending you much baby dust

Lynne x

 

[heart tree]

Hi Smudge, I'm so very sorry for your loss. It was so recent. How are you doing? I understand the desire to try right away. Have you gotten your period yet? You can ovulate before your period, but your hormones are also just trying to settle back to normal, so the OPK's might mislead you to thinking you are ovulating. Things can be a bit out of whack for a cycle.

That being said, your OPK line should be as dark or darker than the control line. From what I've read FMU isn't the best because it takes some time for LH to synthesize in your system. If you test only once a day, you may actually miss your surge. It can happen that quickly. Usually I test at 11am and 5pm around the time I think I'll ovulate. We have LH in our systems all the time. The fainter lines mean that you have some in your system, you just aren't surging.

I found this website to be very helpful: https://www.peeonastick.com/opkfaq.html

I hope this helps!

xoxo

 

[Smudgelicious]

I'm sorry for your losses Lynne192. This is just such a terrible ordeal I never imagined would happen to me, let alone twice.

I was wondering about the lines because you get about a paragraph of info on the box and searching the net yields so many different answers.

I haven't been TTC at all, really. My history in a nutshell: my first pregnancy conceived via fertility treatment resulted in my sons death 2 days after his full term birth (a long horrible story suffice to say it was malpractice). He would be 12 in August. My next pregnancy took 10 rounds of treatment and resulted in my oldest daughter who is now 10. Then, my 7 year old daughter was a surprise pregnancy. I had a Mirena IUD until December 09 at which time, I had to have it removed because it had a negative effect on a chronic condition I have. We weren't too concerned about falling pregnant because a) I have PCOS and don't ovulate regularly or have regular periods and b) if it happened, we would be very happy. Fast forward to April this year - I've not had any periods or any symptoms but I fall pregnant and m/c on the 21st. And here I am.

My DR told me I did not need to wait for anything, certainly not 3-6 months !In my previous pregnancies, OPK's didn't exist. I had blood tests and US's to see if and when I was ovulating. I thought that once the OPK was dark, ovulation happened 24 hours later, not the same day ?? friday was only 9 days since the m/c, is that possible ? I have been taking pre-natal vitamins (again, a new thing ! I used to just take folic acid). I guess I'm in a 2WW. Arrrgh

 

[hb1]

Hi Smudge

I wouldn't completely judge by opk for the 1st couple of cycles, also - depending on how pcos affects your hormones opk's can be difficult - more if you get long cycles which a lot of pcos'ers do. But after mc- particularly the 1st cycle - hormones can be a little mad - so yes you could be ov'ing but on the other hand it could be kooky hormones. All you can do is get bding

As to when to try again - if your dr has given no medical reason for not ttc straight away then there is no real reason to wait. If you did have a problem that caused mc then a wait, most likely, wouldn't change anything. I found this site handy :

https://pregnancyloss.info/

Sorry for your loss Smudge

hx

 

[Ten]

So sorry for your loss. Wish I could give you hugs in person.

As for the OPK's - as I understand it, they're most likely to be accurate around 2 PM if you haven't had anything to drink or taken a pee for a couple hours. However, the surge doesn't last long, so if you're not "textbook" you might miss it entirely.... I think this is why some women pee on two or three of them a day.

I wound up going with a Fertile Focus saliva microscope instead because I got tired of dealing with the stupid OPK's in the bathroom at work. The saliva microscope is pretty cheap and they're reusable, which is another big plus. Money's a tight, and those OPK things are expensive!