Christmas with the Family

To those of you who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas!

The past couple of days were spent with family, and while I fully enjoyed being around loved ones, I could have done with out the numerous questions about when we would start a family, or bring a cousin into the family, or have a baby. In one night I was asked the same kind of question 5 times. It was a little much. Throughout the days spent with family we also found out one of our cousins is expecting. It made me feel sad about the fact that we didn't have exciting news to share with everyone like we had thought we might.

I am excited about the fact that my husband and I have a few days off together around the time that I'll be ovulating. Here is hoping that 2010 isn't a complete bust for us!

Well that nightmare is over... almost

I am CD15 today and I believe I have officially O'd... I think. LOL! FF hasn't agreed yet, but I'm pretty sure.

I have taken my supplements. I have used Pre-seed. I have BD till I'm blue in the face.. and I plan on getting one round in tonight for good measure.

I have dipped a "few" sticks.. and gotten several positive including some smiley faces on digis...

Now I get to sit around and wait on FF to catch up with me and debate on when to test... I'm a POAS addict, so You can bet it won't be long LOL!

Lose the Weight, Gain a Baby

My story is really pretty simple! Girl meets boy, they fall in love, get married, have a baby, buy a house, move to the country... and spend over a year TTC a second child! I guess that last part is where things get complicated!

Our first pregnancy wasn't planned, infact, we were on BC at the time! I always thought that avoiding pregnancy would be more of an issue for us than TTC. Boy was I wrong! After our son was born we immediately got back on the pill and about a year later went off again. I have had some problems with blood clots and my Dr. thought it was in my best interest NOT to be on the pill anymore.

For the first year we explored other options of BC but when our son turned two we decided it was time to start trying for a second child... he will be four in October! We have had some "success", (I guess you could call it). Last January we discovered that we were expecting and two days later, we weren't expecting anymore! In March we decided to try again but again at seven weeks we were no longer pregnant!

In July I made an appointment to see my doctor. I decided at that point that maybe it would be a good idea to have some blood work done. Everything came back normal and we were told to start trying over the counter ovulation kits. We did this for awhile with no success so we stopped spending the extra money and started using an online ovulation calculator.

In January (of this year), I decided that instead of calling a specialist (like my friends had all suggested we do), I would go on a diet. I have been watching what I eat and working out for the past two months and have lost over 30 pounds. I truly believe that my weight has affected our chances at conceiving and I hope that with losing the weight, we'll gain a baby!

Ovulation Time I Think?

Being diagnosed with PCOS makes sense. My cycles jump all over the place. Last time I went from 63 days to 28 days and today is day 29. I was supposed to go to the RE's office last Monday to see if I had ovulated but I wanted to wait and see if AF came on her own. I was getting the right CM around day 14 which would be on par for course for a 28 day cycle. My CM even dried up for a few days but then it started getting creamy. Monday the Mister and I went and saw a movie at lunch time and when I went to the bathroom I checked the t.p. (because that is what people who are trying do) and saw EWCM. I thought maybe it was a fluke. After the movie I of course had to go again and there it was again. So I told the hubs to get ready for baby dancing tonight.

Although I thought I may have ovulated earlier I never felt ovulation pains which is weird for me. This time I felt it last night so I am pretty sure I ovulated last night plus my EWCM continued big time yesterday, it was the most I have seen yet. So hopefully that is a great sign and we have been baby dancing every day since Monday and will continue until Friday.

Mr. Relaxasaur and I have been talking about fertility treatments or the possibility of just waiting. Some people say to just wait because our insurance wont cover fertility treatments. Humana said they would cover diagnosing but now I am getting billed $764 because they are denying the claims. We have been torn but sitting and waiting for my ovulation is exhausting because you never know when its going to come. We decided that we were going to wait this cycle and if it doesn't happen then we will go in for the clomid treatment.

Weird Symptoms

Monday marks day 13 of my cycle. I am not sure if I am having a 28 day cycle or longer so everyday I have been taking ovulation tests and so far no positive but it is still early and if it is a 28 day cycle then ovulation should be coming somewhere around Tuesday. I was at work all day today so I haven't tested yet so I may have missed my surge. We started baby dancing on Friday we decided on every other day but have been doing everyday since then. It shouldn't be a problem because Mr. Relaxasaur doesn't have any issues with sperm count.

Source

This cycle has brought some different symptoms or at least brought them early and harder. Warning these nexts paragraphs will contain too much TMI. For example, my left ovary has felt fuller since I ovulated last cycle. Me being able to feel it never really went away. For the last couple of days I have also felt twinges near my right ovary as well so I think ovulation is near. I have been feeling lower back pains, and tenderness in my breasts. Sometimes it hurts to lay on them or even touch them and then other times they are fine but for the last couple of days they have been tender the whole time. Then today at work I was feeling "wet" down there but I am on my feet moving for 11 hours so its not abnormal to feel that way at work. On my first trip to the bathroom I wiped before I even went to the bathroom to check my CM and there way traces of blood. I looked in my underwear and saw spots of blood. It wasn't heavy and every trip to the bathroom after that it was ever so lightly present. I have never had mid-cycle bleeding so I was wondering what was up. I took a pregnancy test a few days ago and it came up negative so I don't think its that.

I consulted Dr. Google tonight and found that ovulation can cause light spotting so I am leaning towards that. I don't know if it had anything to do with this but last night I did drink quite a bit and did have sex so it could be from that but our sex wasn't rough. It is probably just me over analyzing but I don't have any friends TTC so its hard to talk to my friends about this because they don't get the way I feel. I do have one pregnant friend but she got pregnant by accident and doesn't enjoy it so we don't talk about our trying. So thanks for reading and never making me feel crazy for all my over analyzing. If you have any comments I would love to read them.

I am a "cup is half full" kind of girl

So...I think I actually ovulated on a normal day this month. FF hasn't registered it yet, but my temperature spiked on day 18, which means I most likely O'd on day 17. That is pretty normal for me, so I'm thankful that my body is adjusting to being on clomid. After Oing on day 22 last month, I didn't know what to expect! I actually had a promising OPK on day 17 as well, so DH and I were sure to BD that night. This is the first time I've actually had an OPK that looked positive...so I was encouraged.

I'm feeling slightly different this month about ttc. I'm feeling a bit more at peace now and I think I'm okay with having a "whatever happens, happens" attitude. I'm so blessed by my little girl and very occupied with her, so it keeps my mind off having another one most of the time. Now I'm focusing on being content with my life as it is. If another little one finally comes along I will be overjoyed, but not having that happen yet doesn't take away from the joy I experience daily. Optimism is a great tool to have in your bag while ttc. I tell ya...

I'm also getting ready to embark on another semi-adventure that may be a little difficult considering what I've been experiencing with ttc. My sister-in-law is getting ready to have her 3rd child, (which I'll admit has been pretty difficult for me in and of itself) and I have offered to assist her in the birthing process. We have similar philosophies on labor and delivery and she feels she needs an advocate to help her. Her first two experiences were pretty standard; laying on her back, hooked up to machines and getting the epidural. She wants this experience to be different, so I agreed to assist her in a more natural birth. The catch is that the hospital wants to hook her up to a fetal monitor as soon as she arrives, which would require her to be laying on her back. Her solution is to wait until she's really in full blown labor and getting ready to have the baby before she checks into the hospital. It's all very unpredictable, so hopefully I can just be a voice of support and a hand to hold through the whole process.

At least I'll have something interesting to blog about come mid-March.

And maybe, just maybe sometime soon I'll have equally interesting news from my own life to report. I can always hope.

RE Appointment

Happy Holidays to all! I just wanted to send a quick update of my reproductive endocrinologist (RE) appointment I had today. I went in and had my consultation and I like everyone who works there. Dr F sat down with me and talked about my history and what is currently happening (my long cycles). They took blood from me to find out if I ovulated (more on that later) and I will get the results on Monday. They also will let me know if I have to pick up a prescription to make my period come so I can get more testing because my period was just brown spotting and they want to see full flow.

They want me to come in on my 3rd day of my cycle to get more blood work and then sometime on cycle day 6-10 for a saline ultrasound which involves a catheter so that sounds a little scary. Dr. F also went over my husbands sperm analysis. She explained that teratospermia means sperm are deformed which I knew. She said that 100% of the sperm were deformed but that could just be the sample they took from and it doesn't mean that we cannot conceive on our own but 70% of them are mobile so that is good. She wants Josh to bring a new sample in as well as get a blood test for HIV, hepatitis, and syphilis. She did say that she has seen samples in men that are very similar to Mr. Relaxasaur and they have conceived on their own. So right now we are keeping hope.

Source

As to my ovulation I was due to ovulate on or around New Years but Monday I felt a few pains near my left ovary they didn't last long so I brushed them off because it was too early and I didn't see any signs pointing to ovulation. Then on Tuesday I had a crazy amount of egg white cervical mucus and more ovulation pains. Of course I was already at work and didn't get home until 2 am after the hubby was already sleeping. I did take an OPK just to know and it was positive. Awesome. We also had not had sex since Thursday because we didn't see each other this past weekend. I took another test Wednesday morning just to be sure and yep it turned positive again. I had to work that day and didn't get home until 11 that night and we baby danced because you never know and also because it had been a while. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Good because I ovulated a week to 10 days earlier so my cycle is getting shorter, but bad because we had not been intimate on my supposed fertile days. Oh well there is always February.

I will post my results when I find out if in fact I have been ovulating or not.

Again Happy Holidays to all!!!!!!!!!

When will Aunt Flo come to visit?

I really don't have much of an idea!

image source

Originally, on this cycle #4, I wasn't going to use any OPKs. Shortly after AF ended last time, I thought I had some signals of ovulation. So I did do a few OPK tests this month. And I think(hope!) I ovulated around CD9 or 10. The test line got the darkest I've ever seen it on CD9 and then went back to a faint line the next day. However, it was not equal to or darker than the control line. I have seen several women reporting online that their tests don't get that dark either. I have my fingers crossed that I actually did ovulate this cycle. I think that would be the first time since my miscarriage in July.

I'm not sure how long my luteal phase is though. Which means AF could really come anytime between tomorrow and Christmas Day. My last 3 cycles were 27, 32 and 21 days long. TTC is such a waiting game isn't it?

Ovulation

I am pretty sure that I ovulated on Tuesday. I had the same ovulation pains as last time but this time on the other side of the body. Now my lower abs feel a little bloated and my chest is full and a little sore. After I felt the pains we did the BD at night but come Wed morning I didn't want to try again. I am not sure that I am 100% percent ready. I waver all the time. It is such a big life changing experience and it scares me a little bit. If it didn't happen this time I have about another 70 days before I ovulate again so hopefully I can figure out what I want. I mean if it weren't for my cervix being a little messed up I wouldn't even be thinking about kids right now.


With all that said I have become really excited for my good friend who is recently pregnant. She doesn't know that my husband and I know. She was supposed to come and celebrate my birthday last night but they canceled last minute which is no big deal but she is going out of town so I think she is planning on telling us next weekend. I can't wait to be there for her and plan a shower and be supportive for her. Now my other friend who is unexpectedly pregnant is drinking. We haven't had an opportunity to sit down and talk but I have found out she went to the doctor and confirmed her pregnancy. With that being said I have seen her drink a few times in the last two weeks but she says told our other friend she wants to keep the baby. She also came out last night to celebrate and I saw her have at least two beers. I didn't want to say anything to her because I had been drinking and I didn't want to say anything I would regret. I did call her today to find out when she can get together because I want her to know that I support her but if she is going to keep the baby she shouldn't be drinking and should get on a prenatal vitamin. As her good friend is this my place to say anything? Any suggestions on how I should go about talking to her once she is tells me the news?

2WW - Cycle #1

We have officially made it through our first cycle's ovulation period!!

While BD was exciting because of the possibility of making a baby, at times it felt like we HAD to BD. Neither of us really liked that feeling.

And now, we wait.

While I don't expect us to get a BFP on our first try... I do hope we did everything we could. We both ate healthy, got pleanty of rest, BD many times, used Pre-Seed, and I took a pre-natal vitamin.

The rest is up to powers beyond my control.

But while I wait... I found this list, and can see myself doing many of these things.

50 Things To Do In The 2WW
You have done everything trying to get pregnant. You made love regularly, enough and at the right time. But now you are facing the dreaded 2ww. The 2ww stands for "the 2 weeks wait", the time between ovulation and your menstrual period. Hopefully your menstrual period won't come and you will be rewarded with a positive pregnancy test.

But what are you going to do while you wait these 14 days before you know if you have succeeded in getting pregnant?

Here are 50 things to do in the 2ww:
Take your daily prenatal vitamins including folic acid
Write a daily journal
Update your facebook page
Don't smoke
Don't drink alcohol
Set some goals and write them down
Make a new budget
Write down babynames
Make your home green
Organize your home
Treat yourself to facials and bubble baths
Eat healthy - leafy vegetables contain a lot of folic acid
Go out and have good food - Once you are pregnant you may not geel like it
Drink pineapple juice or fresh pineapple slices - contains selenium which aids with implantation
Eat walnuts
Use loose clothes : nothing that fits too tight
Don't lift anything too heavy
Exercise - but in moderation
Take long walks
Hydrate well - Drink 1 or 2 liters of water each day
Enjoy making love - at this point it's for pure fun not baby making
If you have to, drink coffee but limit it to 2 cups a day
Go out
Try to stay busy so you do not obsess too much
Find a good obstetrician
Investigate good hospitals
Calculate the exact day when your pregnancy test should be positive
Watch one dvd a day
Send your husband a love letter each day
Clean up the refrigerator
Get rid of toxic chemicals in your house
Take a regular nap - Naps are God's gift to the impatient.
Meditate - Do Yoga
Spend more time talking to your husband
Go out with a girlfriend for some tea
Ask your husband to do the vacuuming, dishwasher, laundry, and garbage disposal
Practice peeing on a stick - with a Q tip
Investigate life insurance
Paint your rooms - During pregnancy the smells may drive you crazy
Reorganize the kitchen
Do some gardening
Repot your plants
Take the dog for long walks
Check the medicine cabinet and throw out old medications
Wash the dog
Go to a museum - each day a different one
Cut coupons
Watch for maternity clothes sales
Read a good book, or two, or three..
Reorganize your closets

Positive OPK?

So I tested with an OPK today because my temps started to rise again and it's definitely the darkest that I've seen so far, but I'm not sure if I would count it as a positive or not. What do you all think?


It kind of seems to be darker on the left side of the test line, and I've seen some places online that say it would be counted as a positive. Considering that all of the other tests were a lot lighter, I'm thinking that I should just go ahead and count it anyway. Honestly, I'm just ready to ovulate and get this cycle over with whether I end up KU or not!

Psychic Predictions

Source

My mom and I and a few other ladies went a saw a psychic. She says she can talk to your angels and guides. I don't think she read me very well. She said I would be ready to have children in a year (I am ready now) and she didn't say anything about the situation going on with my body. She told me my husband steals my energy and asked if I was happy with my marriage my response was something like are you kidding me I have one of the greatest most supportive husbands ever. She did touch on a few things but it was pretty much a waste of my money.

Today was great DH and I took our 3 year old niece to the Brookfield Zoo. It was a fun but a tiring experience. Everyone there was either pushing a stroller or was pregnant it was crazy. They had a dinosaur exhibit going on and had the names of the dinosaurs on a plaque and all I could think of was this site and all the women and their names because the dinosaurs had names like Allosaurus and the gift shop was named Shopasaur. At one point our niece was looking a little bored so when the dinosaurs would roar and move I would run and tell her they were chasing us and she got a kick out that. She was standing near one trying to get my attention to play the "run away" game and the dinosaur which was about 3 feet away from the fence roared and moved and she screamed (a real scream) and ran towards the hubby and I. The adults including us were laughing it was too cute. I imagine in her mind she saw something like this.


Source

Anyway, it was great to see DH interacting with our niece holding her on his shoulders and holding her hand as we walked around. I can't wait to see him as a father. Speaking of I am coming on my fertile days according to my chart. It says they started Sat but I think it was more like yesterday (Sunday) according to my CM. I took a OPK but it was negative but looks more dark than it did a couple of days ago so it might be this Tuesday. I can't seem to wake up the same time everyday though to take my temp. This morning I woke up in the middle of a nightmare and took my temp which said 97.9 which was way too high for what its been so I waited ten minutes just laying there and it went down back to 97.1. So we have been doing the baby dance the last few days and will continue for the next few so we'll see what happens.

And the 2WW begins...possibly!

It's funny how ambiguous everything is about TTC. You can chart your temperatures, test with OPKs, check your cervix position and cervical fluid and so on, but some of the signs still might be inconclusive.

I finally got crosshairs on my chart, but they are dashed lines because my OPKs were all negative around the possible ovulation date. However, the other signs were indicating ovulation, so FF is guessing that it happened on Day 14. I wasn't really good about using the OPKs at the same time each day. I had pretty dramatic differences, like 11 pm one night and 2 pm the next day. It's possible that I might have just missed the LH surge, but there's really no way to know for sure.

It's definitely helpful to chart and learn more about ovulation signs, but it's somewhat frustrating that I'm still not really sure if I have ovulated or not, so we just have to keep doing the BD to make sure!

I'm going to try to add my chart onto this post. I didn't start temping until after my period since I had to wait for the BBT to arrive, so that's why the temps don't start on day 1. What do you guys think? Should we keep trying just in case or does it look like I've ovulated?



In other news, my FF free VIP trial is ending in 14 days. I'm trying to decide if I should pay for it or not. Hopefully we'll have success this month and I won't need to. Not to mention, I'll be glad to stop waking up at the same time each day to temp! Also, if I did ovulate on Day 14 and it was successful, then the baby would have been conceived on my birthday! :)

Here goes the 2WW!

Birth Control

Birth control was such a big part of my life from 19 up until this past May which comes to about 6 1/2 years. I have tried them all well maybe not all but I have tried quite a few of them. First, I used birth control pills which lasted all of two months because three days would go by and I would not take a single pill. Yep I am that spacey sometimes. Then I tried the patch. I stuck it right above my butt and it I wore it for 2 weeks before I noticed I had developed a fun rash back there. Next, I tried the shots (depo provera). I actually liked this one and used it for a few years. It took away my periods so I liked that aspect of it. I also liked that I only had to think about it every three months. After a while though I noticed it made me super emotional which I am already and when added to it I cried at the most ridiculous things included commercials and no not the sad hallmark commercials. Then I discovered the ring. I fell in love. It was easy (I made my husband take it out and put it in) it went in for three weeks and then out for a week when my period would come.

I only had one problem for the three years I was on it but this problem landed me in the ER on the day we were celebrating Thanksgiving with DH's family. I woke up one morning and I was bleeding and heavy not just spotting. It wasn't near my time of the month so I woke up Mr Relaxasaur and we went to the ER. After being there for about an hour the doc informed me that the bleeding seemed to be menstrual. I didn't even ask him to check for my ring although he should have knowing I was using it. Anyway, after we got home I asked DH to check for it and he couldn't find it so I realized I must have lost it somewhere a few days earlier hence bringing on my period. Then the hubb has this OMG moment he tells me he had found my Nuva Ring in his car (don't ask) and had thrown it away not realizing what it was. Good times. When it came to start TTC I took the ring out and had not given any thought to side effects. I should have though because they hit me like a ton of bricks.

- I had constant cramping in my uterus for 3 weeks.

- I was bloated

- I felt exhausted

- I had the most sensitive nipples

- my period was delayed for over 3 months

Some of these sound like pregnancy symptoms so I started doing some research and found over 100 threads from women all going through the same thing. I had felt better knowing I wasn't alone but at the same time I was a little nervous because some of those women had not started any new cycles for 6 to 9 months. I was lucky and ovulated on August 4. I just happened to buy some pregnancy and ovulation tests from the dollar store. I was down to one of each test and I figured why not test because my period still hadn't shown up. So I set the tests down and walked away knowing the pregnancy test would come back negative. But the ovulation test came back positive. I was very excited and in shock so I ran to the store and bought a pack of 7.

I came home to test again and sure enough it was positive. So I began running/dancing around the house in excitement. One problem though the DH was at work and by the time he would have been home I would be at work. So I called him to see if I could get him to come home for a bit and turns out he was right down the road! Later that night at work I knew I was ovulating because my ovary felt as it was going to burst through my skin. I am on my feet all night walking around (I bartend) and I must have looked so funny because at some points I was half hunched over and still trying to walk. We continued to the baby dance as often as we could the next few of days. The 2 week wait was terrible. I analyzed every little cramp and feeling my body had. When it came time I tested and sure enough a BFN. A day later my period came and now I am back in the game. My chart says my predicted fertile days are this weekend which sucks because DH and I are both so busy. I told him we will just have to find time whether we stay up late or get up early. I will pee more OPKs in the next couple of days and see what happens. I do have a question though maybe some of you may know the answer. I read that short periods can be a problem for ovulation. Is that true? I had my period for only about 2 full days and 1 day spotting I wasn't sure if that was something to be worried about because on B.C. they usually lasted a little longer.

Have a great weekend!

So about those magic opks...

Remember the new OPKs I bought that turned out to be not so magical after all? Here's how that worked out...

Since I've been getting positives on CD10 lately, I started testing on CD9:

Honestly, this one confused the hell out of me. It's mostly lighter than the control line, but there is a dark shade on the left of the test line, and that's the same shade as the control. I'd read conflicting opinions on this - some say to count it as a negative, others to count it as a positive. Eventually I just marked it as a negative - since I knew it was unlikely that I'd be ovulating this early anyway, I figured it wasn't a big deal.

CD10 was more solid, but I still wasn't sure about this one - the contrast is clearer in the photo, but in person it was hard to tell if it was the same shade or not:

I decided to confirm with the last digital OPK I had in the house, too. And voila! Confirmed positive!

On CD11 I didn't expect to get a positive at all - for the last couple of cycles, it's been a +OPK on CD10 and then nothing for the next several tests before I finally ovulate on CD13. But look!

The test line was waaaaaaay darker than the control! That meant I had two positive OPKs in a row for the first time EVER! There was a lot of happy dancing around the Bibliosaur house that day, believe me!

And then on CD12...

ANOTHER positive OPK! I was in so much shock over this that I actually called Mr Bibliosaur to the bathroom to ask him whether he thought the first line was darker or not.

I have to say, three positives in a row have severely shaken my confidence in my beloved digitals - they're obviously waaaaay less sensitive than the regular strips if they've been returning negatives this whole time when my surge has actually lasted for far longer.

That said, although I think I might go with the regular double line OPK again next cycle, I'm not sure I'd buy this brand again - gotta love the pink holder, but the control line is so light that it's sometimes hard to tell if the test line is dark enough to be a positive or not (these were much fainter in person than they look in these photos).

So where am I now? It's cycle day 14, and it looks like I ovulated a day earlier than expected, on CD12 instead of the usual 13:

I'm expecting to see this confirmed with a third high temp and crosshairs tomorrow morning, so wish me luck for this cycle - I'm two days past ovulation and officially in the two week wait!

"Are you Ovulating or Something?"

This is what Mr. Bakersaur asked me yesterday. Since I don't chart or temp, I have to guess and my best guess would be this week or next week. So that is 2 weeks of FWP!! As a result of me now jumping on Mr. Bakersaur every chance I get, he finally asked... "Are you ovulating or something?" I couldn't help but laugh!
He decided a long time ago that he wanted absolutely no knowledge of how that whole process worked. Since then, he's gotten a general idea, but he mostly just doesn't want to know when I'm ovulating. He doesn't want to feel pressured :-) He usually stays pretty clueless...but this month he seemed to catch on pretty fast so I had to confess.

I don't mind him not wanting to know. Actually it makes it easier for me too because it takes a lot of the pressure off of me too. We both want this baby so bad. And after the miscarriage, we only want it more. We both tend to a lot of pressure on ourselves and I know it's not helping anything so we've made it our mission this week to quit stressing about it and just let it happen.

Here we go again...

So, today I finally got crosshairs on my Fertility Friend chart. But they're not the ones I want. Here's what my chart looked like right after I added in the high temp this morning:

The problem is that I am 99.99999999% positive that I ovulated two days later, on CD13. This is based on my cervical mucus and lack of a temperature rise until CD14 (yes I know there's a random high temp on CD10, but based on my CM and temps after that, I'm convinced it's an abberation and not really indicative of anything).

The thing that's messing up Fertility Friend is the postive OPK on CD10. Normally, you'll ovulate 24-48 hours after a +OPK, but we all know what happened to me last time: the big O showed up a full 72 hours after I got a positive, and it looks like the same thing is happening this time around (24-48 hours is only the average, and there are always exceptions - so for my last cycle and this one, I just seem to be outside of the usual curve).

The first thing I tried to get Fertility Friend to switch the date was to remove the +OPK on CD10. This worked, but I ended up with dashed crosshairs instead of solid ones:

Yet again, the problem is due to OPKs. I took one on CD13 for no real reason, just out of curiosity since it didn't look like I'd O'd yet and I wanted to see if the surge was building up again. Obviously not! So I didn't feel any real compuction about removing it, since it was really pretty meaningless and of no charting value.

And voila! Solid crosshairs!

I was 99.99999999% positive that the other chart was wrong, and I am 99.99999999% positive that this one is right.

Of course, instead of doing all of that, I can just manually set the ovulation date and coverline, so now that's what I've gone back and done (which probably makes this entire post kind of useless, but oh well - some people collect stamps, other people watch birds, I play with Fertility Friend). I prefer to leave the OPKs in because I like to add my completed charts to Fertility Friend's chart gallery so other women can see them - this way, just in case there's another woman who is having the same problem with ovulating later than usual after a +OPK, she can see that she's not the only one.

It might not make a lot of sense to go to all of this trouble, especially since we're covered with FWPing either way. But I don't want a repeat of the confusion and disappointment with the negative HPTs last cycle, when I thought Aunt Flo was several days late because Fertility Friend estimated my ovulation date way too early - so if there's any question about the matter, I'd rather err on the side of later.

Worst case scenario, AF shows up a few days earlier than I think she should - if that happens, I'll just go back into my chart and change the O-date back to CD11, like Fertility Friend thought it should be. If she shows up on the date that I think she should, then I'll know I'm right and I'll leave it as is. And if she doesn't show up at all, well...that would be the best!

P.S. I feel like I should add that Fertility Friend is normally pretty good at what it does...but on the other hand, it is still just a computer program, not an intuitive human being, so it just doesn't deal very well with unusual situations - and I seem to be presenting it with a lot of those lately, haha!

Bibliosaur and the Great OPK Experiment

For the past couple of days, I've been running a bit of an experiment with my OPKs - and now it's time to reveal the results!

I got the impression from using OPKs during previous cycles that I seem to have an unusually short LH surge - a lot of women can get a positive OPK for two days in a row, but I never have. In fact, even when testing precisely every 24 hours as recommended, I've still managed to miss the surge completely. So this time around, I thought I'd try ramping things up a little and taking an OPK not once, not twice, but THREE times a day: morning, afternoon and night.

There were three things I wanted to try to determine with the Great OPK Experiment:
1. Exactly how long my peak LH surge is;
2. What time of day is best to catch it (most OPKs recommend testing at around 2pm, but the digitals say that although afternoon is best, you can test any time of day, as long as you test the same time of day each time);
3. As a sort of secondary test, I wanted to try to see exactly how the digital tests work. No real reason - I was just curious. I'd noticed during my previous cycles that the second blue line got darker as the test became closer to positive, just like a regular OPK strip, and I was curious to see if the digital interpreted the second line the same way I would. (Note: I tried googling, but couldn't find any official info about the digitals actually work - is it simply a digital "eye" that interprets how close the lines are in color/shade to each other, or do they test for the surge in some other way as well?)

So, I donned my sexy scientist outfit and went to work!

Experiment Day #1 - Cycle Day 9
I took the first two tests on CD9 - there was a second blue line on the afternoon test, but it was so faint that it barely shows in photos. I added arrows in the second image to try to make it more visible, and then polarized the third in Photoshop so that the line really shows up:

It's probably hard to see here, but at 8pm the second line was actually slightly darker in color than it was earlier in the day - but only very slightly:


Experiment Day #2 - Cycle Day 10
When I took the test first thing in the morning on CD10, the line was a bit darker than the previous day, although still pretty light - so far, the digital test seems to work the same as the traditional ones, maybe with some kind of digital eye comparing the blue lines and reporting back with a negative if they're not the same shade (or close to it):

But that afternoon - tada! A smiley face and two solid blue lines! The second line is lighter than what I'd interpret as positive on a traditional OPK - I'd probably have called this a negative if I was using a regular strip:

By 8pm that night, just 6.5 hours after the positive, the test was negative again - I was actually pretty surprised when I ejected the test to take a look at the lines, because they were more or less identical to the positive test I'd taken in the afternoon - this makes me think that instead of my digital eye theory, maybe there's a secondary way that the digital tests for the hormone (like how with digital HPTs, a negative test can still show two lines).


Experiment Day #3 - Cycle Day 11
At this point I figured that the surge had probably peaked and I wouldn't get another positive, but I decided to keep testing the next day anyway, just out of curiosity. The morning test was negative again and the second blue line very faint:

By the afternoon, it had gotten even lighter:

And by the evening, the second line had nearly faded away altogether and I resorted to polarizing the image in Photoshop again - the surge has definitely passed:


So, what answers did I get out of this?

1. Exactly how long is my peak LH surge? This completely confirms my suspicion that I seem to have an unusually short LH surge: less than 12 hours long, and probably even shorter than that (note: this doesn't affect ovulation, just my ability to get a positive OPK). This explains why I've managed to completely miss it during past cycles - I probably just tested a couple hours too early or too late.

2. What time of day is best to catch my surge? I don't care what the digitals say in the instructions about testing any time of day - the afternoon was clearly the best for me, and I'll be sticking to that in the future.

3. How exactly do digital tests work? A digital eye that compares the shades of the blue lines, or something else as well? I'm still not sure. The second line is definitely at its darkest when the surge peaks, but it's still lighter than what I'd call a positive on a regular OPK - plus it was just as dark on a negative as it was on a positive. This leads me to believe that there must be some kind of secondary test...or maybe the digital eye is just more sensitive than my human one and it distinguished a difference between the shades on the negative and positive that I couldn't. The moral of the story? If you're using a digital, trust the expensive smiley test, and don't worry about the lines!

It's a beautiful morning...

Why you ask? Because yesterday, I got my first + OPK this cycle!! I really was starting to give up hope (as you can tell from my previous posts) that I would O this cycle, but I am really hoping this is it! I think our timing is good, and hopefully, DH is producing good sperm now! 2 WW here I come!

Dear body,

Dear body,

I give you exhibit A:




WTF??? You have been doing so well and responding to acupuncture treatments. Why are you doing this to me? I need you to effing ovulate already. Enough is enough. It is CD 23 and it is time to get a move on here.

I have had waterey CM for what seems like years, and I am ready to ovulate! I realize I had food poisoning last week, but that is behind us now, and I need you to give me a + OPK now! Mr. Bellesaur and I are getting tired and need a bit of a break for the 2 WW already!!


With anger,

Bellesaur