TTC #1- Looking for buddies!

[jmack54]

Positive OPK today!?? YAY!! SO excited for you! That is awesome. Have fun BD'ing a little early!! Can't wait for your 9 month long LP!

Yeah I think after taking a month off of temping and OPKs I am in a good place to do them again just for confirmation!

 

[steph1607]

How are you feeling today jmack? Will you be doing anything different this month?

Any signs of O Steph?

Babylights, Amber, where are you ladies!

I'm still waiting on that + OPK, hopefully this weekend!

Sunny, I went against my word and used an OPK on Thursday evening (2 in fact!!) but they didn't seem very clear to me and all I could think of was that they don't always work with women PCOS anyway so I quickly binned them before I could think too much But I have been trying to monitor any changes to my cervix and I have noticed it's got higher so who knows! We'll just crack on with BDing every other day for now I guess!
Happy Easter weekend to everyone

 

[AmberR]

Yay for earlier + OPK sunnybe! Nothing to exciting going on for me. AF is due Monday so just playing the waiting game now!

 

[SunnyBe]

Thanks ladies

Steph, women with PCOS sometimes have a higher LH pulse throughout their cycle. So some women (not all) will have days of positive OPK's which makes it less reliable. Have you had lots of positive OPK's in the past? If not, I would just test all the way through your surge. It's most reliable when used together with measuring BBT to confirm if the surge was actually followed by O of course. That being said... you're going in for a CD21 draw anyway and if you don't want to get too obsessed TTC, I wouldn't even worry about it

Amber, just two more days!! Are you going to be testing at all or are you going to wait until AF shows up. I'm keeping my FX for you!

p.s. I just noticed that there's no BD row in my chart. It shows up just fine on my app so not sure if it's always been like that or if it's something new. I'll see if there is something I can change.

Hope y'all have a nice weekend

 

[AmberR]

If AF doesn't show by Monday then I will test... anxious to see what happens, but I am not feeling very confident about this month!
On another note I have a friend who is due in a week and I can't wait to snuggle her sweet baby boy! I finally got over the being jealous part and am now just feeling excited for her!
Plus I got to snuggle another friends 17 month old today who is such a cutie! Finally feeling more positive about everything and wanting to stick to the thought that it will happen for us when it's meant to be!

 

[AmberR]

I hope you ladies had a wonderful Easter weekend. AF started today unfortunately so onto the next cycle for me! Thinking we will still stick to the relaxed method for now. Going to try to make an appt with the midwives as I am overdue for my annual exam.
Sunnybe your temps are looking good!

 

[SunnyBe]

So sorry Amber! I really hope you'll soon get your BFP.

 

[jmack54]

Sorry to hear that Amber, hang in there. We will all be celebrating soon

 

[babylights]

Hiiii everyone! Ok I just went back to read and thank you so much for your sweet messages, you girls are seriously the best!!! 💕

jmack what is going on??!? I know you've done a test but your lp is never this long right?? ahhh!! I know what you're gonna say but temps are meaningless when your af is so late ahhhhh!!!!

sunny YAY for a nice dark opk, and early at that!!! So exciting!

amber sorry about af hon

steph gl this month!

afm so obvi I got af, she came during one of our flights home and it sucked so bad!!! We finally got home and I just went into hibernation. Luckily I was able to do the Day 3 testing and I just heard back from my dr. and it's not the worst news but def not the best. My FSH levels are a little higher than ideal (12.5 versus under 10), but my AMH levels are super encouraging. She said considering my age and the FSH levels, she recommends an appointment with an RE and I totally agree. She said a lot of women in my position opt to go straight to IVF and after doing some reading I def see the logic of that. But for the financial aspect we'd be starting tomorrow, most likely. DH is super on board with moving forward with an RE and is very reassuring. These test results have quite the way of making you feel like there's something crazy wrong with your body! My dr. did say that plenty of her patients get pregnant naturally with these kinds of numbers so I'm just trying not to fall into the black vortex of worst case scenarios.

Wow sorry for my novel of an update! I'm happy to be back and chatting with everyone, I need to do some serious catching up! ❤

 

[jmack54]

Yayyyyyyyy babylights I am so happy to hear from you!!! Sorry to hear that AF came on your plane! What a bitch. Your doctor sounds helpful and your DH is super encouraging. I'm sure IVF is a really hard decision to make especially because it is so costly. You know we will be here supporting you through whatever you end up doing! Can't wait to hear more about your journey

Sorry to fake you out, I was just messing with my Fertility Friend today. So last Thursday (12 DPO), I got what was like a super super light period starting at about noon. It lasted into the next day, again just still super light. There was bright red and some flow, so I'm sure it was AF. But then it just stopped completely. It was only like a day and a half long period and never heavy. I was just kind of confused so I was messing with my chart today to see what it would look like if I didn't mark those two light days because I still feel kind of off...

But between my temperatures and having some bright red flow I'm sure it was AF. I might test tomorrow morning again just to be safe

 

[babylights]

ahhh jmack that sounds so super out of the ordinary for you!! I mean even the 12dpo is late for you right?? I'm not counting you out yet missy!

Thanks for your encouragement, it feels so weird to suddenly be in the land of IVF. I think a part of me is trying to rush to that because I don't want to go through the heartache of ttc while rushing against the clock, which isn't very wise, so I'm trying to reign myself in. I'm kinda just gonna rely on DH so that cooler heads will prevail 🙂 And the top rated clinics all have waitlists anyway, because, of course. I feel super dazed and weird 😶

 

[jmack54]

Definitely unusual for me. My periods are usually short but at least 3 days and def heavier than this one was... but beteeen getting a negative FRER on 12 DPO and my temps being low it's just hard to imagine it wasn't AF. I think I've decided I'll take a test with FMU tomorrow just to be safe since I'm still having some preggo symptoms. Thanks for your optimism!!

Yes the land of IVF is definitely foreign to me as well so I can imagine how you must be feeling! I think this is a perfect time to rely on cool DH to help make logical decisions because even the most relaxed of us can get a little overwhelmed with this ttc journey. Are you guys trying again naturally this cycle?

 

[babylights]

omg jmack...
everything crossed for you!!!!

Yup trying naturally this cycle, and my dr. said we can do Clomid the next few cycles, prob while we wait to get an appointment with an RE. Hopefully all of this fretting will be over nothing and I'll have a bfp soon!

Is it weird that the only thing I can think through this current haze is "well shoot this all kinda sucks - I'm gonna eat that pad thai I've been trying to avoid!" ??

 

[jmack54]

Omg you are so funny and you just made me SO hungry for some pad Thai!!! Hahaha

 

[SunnyBe]

Hi babylights!! Glad to have you back

Did they just test FSH and AMH or did you also get your estradiol measured? I'm asking because FSH and estradiol are highly correlated (thinking about your low estrogen/estrogen medication). AMH is a much better predictor of ovarian reserve than FSH though. FSH really fluctuates from cycle to cycle. I've seen studies showing no difference at all between <5, <10 and <15 FSH levels leading the researchers to combine the groups together to form the "low FSH" group to compare them with medium (15-25) or high (>25) to investigate (IVF) pregnancy rates.

Any test updates jmack? It definitely seems like an unusual cycle for you!

 

[jmack54]

Hey girls- I tested today with FMU and got a BFN. Not surprising and I'm not bummed or anything. Just helpful to put my mind at ease for now (and so I can stop endlessly googling the not so pretty topic of potentially heavy implantation bleeding haha)

I'm already coming up on O this weekend for this cycle! I love when my fertile window falls on the weekend. So this will be a good one!

I'm a little concerned about how light my period was that my uterine lining wasn't thick enough to implant. Any suggestions on how to thicken that or increase it naturally?

How are you feeling sunny?? It's that post-O no symptom spotting time for you!! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!!

Babylights- how are you feeling today?

 

[steph1607]

Hey girls- I tested today with FMU and got a BFN. Not surprising and I'm not bummed or anything. Just helpful to put my mind at ease for now (and so I can stop endlessly googling the not so pretty topic of potentially heavy implantation bleeding haha)

I'm already coming up on O this weekend for this cycle! I love when my fertile window falls on the weekend. So this will be a good one!

I'm a little concerned about how light my period was that my uterine lining wasn't thick enough to implant. Any suggestions on how to thicken that or increase it naturally?

How are you feeling sunny?? It's that post-O no symptom spotting time for you!! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!!

Babylights- how are you feeling today?

Afternoon! I'm also interested to hear anyone's suggestion with regards to lining thickness. My periods have to be triggered by Norethisterone (three times since January) and are always so light, as in a couple of days of spotting and that's it. I asked my fertility doctor if I should be concerned and he did say no, but obviously that never stops us worrying! When he did an ultrasound in January, I remember he said 'your lining looks good', but I didn't ask any questions annoyingly so not sure what he really meant

 

[babylights]

Hey sunny!! It's nice to be back How are you doing?? They did check my estradiol and while it was low considering I was only CD3 (still well within range), she didn't mention it so I'm assuming it was fine. I did read that AMH is a better indicator, and thinking back on our conversation, she brought up IVF because of the combination of age/FSH + my anxiousness to get pregnant right away + family planning purposes/freezing embryos. So DH and I are def going to put ourselves on some waiting lists, but I don't think we're quite in IVF land yet.

jmack I'm glad you're not left wondering anymore, and you're already almost back in your fertile window!! I feel like our bodies start doing really strange things once you start ttc, so frustrating! I wouldn't worry unless it becomes a chronic thing though.

 

[jmack54]

Thanks for the reassurance!! Going to get ready to O again and have fun with it and try to stay relaxed about it

Our cycles may be pretty close again this time so we can live through the TWW together!

 

[SunnyBe]

Jmack: O-weekend is the best How long and heavy are your periods usually? With you O-ing that early, it could be that the lining doesn't have long enough to fully develop. There's a well proven solution though; vaginal Viagra. If this is a frequent thing I would do some research about it.

Steph; how did the CD21 blood draw go? I hope it shows you O'd!

Babylights: I completely understand. We already decided that if we can't get pregnant within a reasonable time, we'd go for IVF, skipping IUI. We're not going to spend 20-30k (or move to Illinois with their fertility-friendly health insurance plans) on treatments though so I looked at alternatives. One of the most attractive options so far seems going to the Czech Republic for IVF. The costs average around $2500 and they have great success rates. Lots of US/UK ladies are going the fertility tourism- route so there's plenty of information out there. I had a colleague from the Czech Republic and he always bragged about the health care there. He's a doctor and was shocked to see the state of some of our hospitals.