Cycles messed up after coming off the pill- How do I work out my fertile window?

[HighHopes16]

I came off the pill in December, had a withdrawal bleed then two AF since then (60 days, 47 days.)

I've been tracking my cycles/stats on the Ovia app but I'm concerned its incorrectly predicting my fertile window & ovulation as my cycles are so irregular at the moment. It is constantly saying I should take a pregnancy test because AF is late- but when I do I always get a BFN.

How am I meant to get pregnant if I can't work out when I ovulate (If I even am ovulating?) or when my fertile window is?

How long does it take for your cycles to regulate after coming off the pill?

[Adventuregame]

Mine took quite a while but then I had always been irregular. I used the Period Tracker lite app to get an idea of a pattern but the only way to really work out when you ovulate is by doing opk tests. You can work it out backwards as you get AF 2 weeks after ovulation but obviously that's no good if you're actually trying to conceive. My cycles have settled down to about 35 but have been anywhere between that and 65 !

[HighHopes16]

Thanks for your help. I think I might give it 6 months of dtd as much as we can and if we don't get lucky i'll start using opk's.

[BoBo90]

It can take months for some peoples cycles to return to normal and others it happens straight away. I used Agnus Castus to get mine back on track.
Feel free to join 'the craziness that is trying to concieve...' Thread for ttc after the pill! We just had some new people join with long cycles. You can ask any questions and we should be able to help 😊 X

[HighHopes16]

Thanks BoBo - I think i'll do that

[hanflan]

Do you ever notice that you get a sort of egg white cervical mucus for a couple of days in your cycle? If you do then that usually leads up to ovulation so will give you a rough idea if you don't want to go down the route of opks!

[HighHopes16]

Hi han I did get that a few days last week but as I thought I was due AF I didn't think anything of it. If that's a sign of ovulation then my Ovia app is totally wrong!! I might have to go down the opk route after all, I'm just trying not to obsess over it all.

[hanflan]

The Ovia app (at least to start with) will assume you have a regular 28 day cycle which clearly you don't at the mo. Ov is usually around 14-16 days before your period. So make a little note of when you get the ewcm. If your period starts around two weeks after the end of the mucus, then that was probably ovulation! :)

[HighHopes16]

Thanks for your help han !
It makes sense when you track it backwards but I don't want to miss ovulation - would you recommend the opk's?

[hanflan]

I have used them in the past when I want to know my exact day(ish) of ovulation, but have found that the day of ovulation is usually the last day of ewcm, so if you keep dtd every day or every other day around then, you should have all your bases covered.
So you can just look out for ewcm and dtd then, in which case you won't miss ovulation, or you can use opks but I've found I get a little bit obsessive when it comes to peeing on sticks hahaha

[hanflan]

Orrrrr, use opks as soon as you notice any ewcm? that way you won't waste loads of them doing them all month if you see what I mean! See how that goes :)

[HighHopes16]

Yeah I think I will just use an opk when I notice ewcm again, I don't want to get obsessed with peeing on sticks! lol Thanks!