Pre-conception, planning and trying!

All the best for the first cycle TTC @gems05! There is a few of us making the leap this month!

It could still happen @TheNewMrsW 10 dpo is still early! Fingers crossed for you!

I had a shock on the scales this morning - a bit of Christmas weight has crept on- now decided to lose that small gain and stay the same over Christmas! I really do not want to be gaining weight before I even get pregnant! Such a tricky time of the year though, luckily this year not much social stuff to get in the way!

Happy Monday all! Well I POAS yesterday at 10DPO and obviously it was a BFN! I'm not hopeful for this cycle given it's our first one, going to try to hold out till Friday now and see if AF arrives when due instead of (literally) pissing money away 😂

@gems05 Hahaha 😁 hopefully everything evens out for you now. ☺️ Fingers crossed for you for the coming month.

omg *luteal phase 🤨

Panic over, the bitch AF has finally arrived today 🙄
Think hubby will be glad my moods will return to normal (so am I 😂)
Think I'm still normalising after years of contraception, most recently being the implant. But 38 days cycle! My Femometer app now says I ovulated nov 21 according to my bbt chart... comparing the last 3 mths measuring bbt, I have a dip after ovulation before it rises for the literal phase.

Planning to ttc after this AF, using bbt and clearblue digital opks 😬

Now where's the wine 🍷
😁

@wrensandrobins Haha, I know exactly what you mean! Its daunting and exciting in equal measure. Fingers crossed for you! ☺️

My natural cycles says the 18th now but it was two days early this month so could also be around the 16th! Will be using ovulation tests to see from the 10th!

This time next week we will be trying to make a baby. Its terrifying 🤣

It will be my first unprotected sex since I was 18 and lost my virginity on Christmas Eve Eve and spent Christmas Eve desperate to keep the morning after pill in my stomach after being warned if I was sick it wouldn't work! My mum dragged me around about 10 different houses and everyone fed me a mince pie!

Ahhhh memories 🤣

@wrensandrobins New predicted ovulation date is 22nd of December 😮 so we'll have to see nearer the time of we're still on the same cycle dates or not 😁. I'll start OPKs around CD12 or first sign of EWCM. Whichever comes first.

Morning all!

AF arrived this morning. Never been so happy for it to arrive 😁. 14DPO on the dot and noticeably heavier than usual. It's almost certainly due to the thyroid medication and is a positive change going from around an 11 day to a 14 day luteal phase.

It's so interesting cause my hormone levels were technically in the normal range and I would've said I didn't have any symptoms of hypothyroidism. But it looks like perhaps my levels definitely were low for me. Who knows... Either way I'm CD1 and at my pre pregnancy weight so I'm ready to get going ☺️.

Hope everyone else is having a good weekend so far.

@CookieMonster3001 Wow, you definitely won the McDonalds lottery! I love McFlurries, especially Oreo.

And yes, perhaps. However, my FIL will be in the adjoining room and my BIL will be in the room below :/ I'm definitely going to stick to hoping dates just line up.

@Curiosity101 you can make it part of the fun!! When I lived with my in laws for a short period of time, it was so hard to be quiet and actually it made it more exciting! I am actually surprised I managed to lose anything this week as we had maccies on Sunday, and they gave us an extra 3 portions of large chips and 2 mcflurries. Not sure if we just won the maccies lottery or if someone royally effed up but we weren't complaining!

@CookieMonster3001 You're going to be too small for the dress if you're not careful! Awesome work. The scales confirmed I ate lots of takeaway 🙈🙉. It should be mostly water retention though.

And yeah, fingers crossed ovulation ends up on roughly the same date even if it technically ends up on a different CD. We'll see 🤷. DH said the same as you about just being quiet. I was a bit like..maybe but it doesn't sound like much fun if we're focusing more on being quiet.

@CookieMonster3001 of course my mind jumped straight to IB but trying not to read too much into and get my hopes up! As you say so many of the "symptoms" is stuff that could easily just happen anyway, it's torture!

@sunflowersaremyfav93 yep fingers crossed she can have a big celebration next year! Its been scheduled in for November so hopefully things will be back to some sort of normal then! My other sisters is still TTC as far as I am aware, but then again, she might not tell anyone till 3 months so who knows! I am sure we will have beady eyes on each other at the wedding to see who drinks lol

@Curiosity101 I bought it probably about 3 months ago!! So defo glad I still fit, and I am another 0.5lbs down today! Woohoo! Oh that's really interesting about your thyroid, but good its showing signs of improvement and lengthening your cycle! Hopefully once AF shows up, your new cycle length will stay somewhat the same? You can still BD with them around? Just be REALLLYYYY quiet lol

@TheNewMrsW oh not good with the headache, I always find a nice hot cup of tea helps with headaches. My sister says its because it bathes the brain lol. Is it possible that it could be implantation bleeding? I am trying to stay well away from google this TWW. If the last two cycles have taught me anything, is that my symptoms are the same all the time and it doesn't mean much lol. Today I have horrible back ache.. blergh!! One thing I am doing though is keeping my legs and feet warm. I read somewhere that keeping your feet and lower body warm helps to keep your blood thin or something like that?!

I have a horrid headache today and the teensiest teensiest bit of brown spotting when I wiped just now - 8DPO. Desperately trying not to symptom spot and Google but our bodies don't help matters sometimes do they?!

@MayDay27 I had a placental abruption in my first pregnancy so I started researching risk factors. I didn't have any symptoms but when I saw hypothyroidism listed in a number of research papers I figured it'd be worth a check.

Just to let you know, the progesterone test is used to confirm ovulation if you do it 7 days after ovulation day. It's not normally a test for checking if your progesterone is high enough for sustaining a pregnancy. When you're looking at the results it'll be important to already know if you've ovulated (confirmed by OPKs and BBTs). Otherwise it could come back suggesting you haven't ovulated even if you have but are suffering from low progesterone.

TSH is Thyroid stimulating hormone. It's the hormone that tells your thyroid to produce more hormones and will be raised if your thyroid is struggling to produce enough to keep you at whatever your natural level is.

@Curiosity101 what was it that got you thinking of testing? I'm hoping to get my progesterone test done this week but if that comes back clear I'll definitely look into others. What is TSH sorry I'm new to a lot of this!

@MayDay27 That's a pretty clear peak so if you've had consistent cycles for a year then it's definitely possible you have a consistent ovulation date and luteal length.

And yes I have had my thyroid tested. I got it tested privately a month or so ago as I'd read some research that said Hypothyroidism is linked to placental abruption. I got it done privately as I didn't have any symptoms so it was completely speculative based on the research I'd read. The results came back and showed I have Hashimoto's disease and subclinical hypothyroidism. I've started thyroid hormone medication now as my TSH level was 6 and for TTC it's meant to below 2.5.

I would recommend the extended test that checks for antibodies just to make sure it's got everything covered.

Sorry here they are!

@Curiosity101 I've logged periods for a year and they are pretty reliably 30/31 days. I have only logged ovulation for two cycles so far, the first cycle (last month) I starting testing at CD20 which was logged as my peak as CD21 was lower. This cycle I got my peak this morning at CD21 it's dropped afternoon so I'm assuming ovulation will be tomorrow CD22. It's not a lot of data I'm just quite a control freak and although we haven't started ttc we've been building up to it for around a year now, I think I'll feel better once we've actually started and doing something productive! That's interesting about the thyroid test have you done one? I'm just attaching photos of my testing only because if there's anything I've missed it would be good to know 😂

@MayDay27 How many months of data do you have? I wouldn't panic too much yet as there's still the chance an egg could implant and provide enough hormones to maintain a pregnancy. But I understand how you must be feeling right now.

If you're wanting to go down the testing route I would also recommend a full thyroid function test. I ordered mine from letsgetchecked.com and can give you a referral code that gives £30 off your first order if you'd like.

@Curiosity101 I've just realised through monitoring my ovulation that for a 30/31 day cycle I ovulate on day 21/22 so 9/10 days luteal phase not great length 😧 now panicking slightly about it! We're not trying until next month but literally stayed up all night googling LPD and then went crazy and ordered myself a home progesterone test! It's something I wasn't even aware of being a problem before, I think I've just ovulated today so really hoping my period holds off longer than 10 days!

I had a bit of a weird day today. AF is MIA and I'm 12DPO. My luteal phase is always 11-12 days but there's normally some sign of it by 11DPO and it's never MIA at the end of day 12. Cue slightly worried but slightly excited HPT.

It was negative, which is sort of a good thing in my situation cause I wasn't TTC yet. I definitely wasn't disappointed and rewarded myself with a G&T cause I have tomorrow off work so it's basically Friday .

I turned to google as I thought it could be as a result of the thyroid hormones I'm taking and it turns out it's likely that it is. It's actually a really good sign that the hormones are having a positive effect and extending my luteal phase. Apparently, thyroid hormones are important in producing/metabolising a number of reproductive/sex hormones and for people who have hypothyroidism it often fixes short luteal phases and brings them into the normal range!

Downside... who knows when my next cycle will start, and more importantly when my ovulation date will be. From what I've read it may also improve the egg maturation/release process so I may ovulate sooner than my usual CD17-18. But I literally don't have a clue. I just hope it's on or before December the 22nd as we're having my FIL and BIL come and stay with us so there will be absolutely no attempts at baby-making from the 23rd until the 27th.

@TheNewMrsW Sounds like great news. How many DPO are you now then?

@CookieMonster3001 Well done! You executed your plan seamlessly . It really is a shame about all the wedding troubles , at least it's definitely (hopefully) happening this time . Did you buy your dress a long time ago?

@sunflowersaremyfav93 That is interesting. It's funny how much it varies from person to person too. Mine is consistently 3-4 days before my peak and has normally stopped before my peak OPK. I think so long as you know what's normal for you that's the main thing.