9DPO Symptom Spotting

I got good news this morning. HPV letter arrived!! The spotting made me start googling 'signs of cervical cancer' because at this point, my body may just straight-up hate me but at least I'm infection free. Yay! The spotting is settling down now anyway and should hopefully stop tomorrow so we can start with DTD. I also booked an appointment at the fertility clinic for DH and I. We'll be going next Tuesday! Wish us luck!! Have you started looking into fertility checks?

I haven't changed my vitamins but maybe I need to stop or cut back? I could take the B-complex for now and stop everything else. But I don't really think it's the vitamins. It's defo hormonal and it's semen or conception or failed-implantation induced - just not sure which one.

I'm right here with you with all the alcohol drinking. I've had a drink everyday since Xmas. We've also been sleeping and waking up late - only God (and DH) knows what my temps are doing. Hopefully you're able to see a clear temp shift despite it all. I'm still a week away from ovulation!

Haha I ordered these for him as well as the ones for sperm count and motility (just in case). They have really good reviews but I only thought he'd need to take three separate pills, not 3 of one, 2 of another and 2 of another. Oh well! The things we do to keep the wife happy.

Haha I can imagine your DP begrudgingly wearing the PJs. But like I said... The things we do to keep the wife (or fiancee) happy 😂 Me too! PJs all day everyday. I actually ordered five more so that I had a nice rotation available.

A maxi dress would definitely be what I'd go for too with that fabric - so pretty! I think you should leave it baggy and create a waist belt for it. That way you can tighten it around your waist but have the loose, flowy look too.

I've started using visualisers to see what rugs and tiles would look like in the new house. I really like this beige rug. I think it suits the floorboards and the fireplace. And the bathroom currently has blue floor tiles which I want to paint a dark grey/slate colour. But I still don't like the blue trim on the walls so might replace them. What do you think?

I wish I was tracking! I want to know what my temps are doing and DH won't tell me 😭 I've been spotting non-stop for four days since AF stopped! It's dark brown and there's so much of it. I usually have a very small amount/single day of spotting when AF ends but it's so strange what is happening! It's all weird gooey. I just don't understand what's going on in my body anymore! How long after AF do you usually spot for? Might need to see a doctor to rule out an infection.

Ooo the fun begins! Glad to hear you're DTD right through ovulation! I'm not sure I want to DTD until this spotting stops, it's not very nice. So I'll give it a few days before we start.

Haha my DH knows he has no choice! But he is very willing. He'll have to swallow 7 pills a day! Hehe poor guy! I also ordered some agnus castus for myself. I've never tried dissolvables, all the ones I take are proper solid pills. It wouldn't hurt if your DP took some but you're right, it does usually feel like our responsibility but infertility is just as much a man's issue as it is a woman's. What pills do you think you'd put him on? A general fertility multivitamin?

I'm not sure, I think if I couldn't conceive my own children I wouldn't be thinking about adoption. I'd be doing all I could to have my own baby. But I guess I'd eventually have to think about adoption if all options had been exhausted or if my body got too old.

DH would not wear PJs haha! But I would be happy to make one for myself and eventually a little bubba.

Hahaha! You should tell him to join too! As there are many dads and dads to be here! 😂

Haha that's a fair enough assumption. I guess it's a nice vegetarian alternative if you have non-meat eaters.

I'm on CD 6, so 4 days behind. There may be little chance of catching up this cycle but since I'm not using OPKs or tracking temps myself, I won't know what DPO I am anyway. I think I'll live vicariously through you! Let me know EVERYTHING that you're feeling!

I've just ordered a whole bunch of fertility vitamins for DH. Is your DP taking anything? I think it's only fair we both sort out our reproductive health as the baby is still half of him, regardless of me only being the vessel and the fuel tank (what....?)

But what about the emotional and mental and physical and financial toll it'll take on you? The first three embryo transfers may be fine but after that I think I'd bury myself under my covers and never come out again. Would you ever consider adoption? I'd love to adopt after having at least two biological children.

Lounge clothes is an idea. I'm sure if I start thinking hard enough, I'll find some inspiration somewhere. Maybe I'll name my first collection "unFertility" so not exactly infertile but not fertile either.

@ButterscotchBabe I suppose Reading can be viewed as a local area of London? 😂 I'm just popping down the road and it won't take any more than 1.5 hours. Pretty reasonable I say 😉 I'm jealous you're in Tier 2! We jumped from Tier 2 to Tier 4 overnight!

Oh I never knew cauliflower cheese was a Christmas dish? At least you have 12 whole months to learn and perfect the recipe now.

Yeah, AF ended on Christmas eve. I remember the good old days of five day periods. It only started getting shorter the second half of this year and the only thing I changed is me TTC! I've just done a quick search and other ladies experience the same so my only theories are 1) because we're so hyper-focused on our bodies, our menstrual cycle absolutely loves the attention and starts misbehaving, 2) the sperm is invoking some sort of hormonal reaction 3) sperm meets egg and that releases hormones which affects subsequent cycles.

Or it could be the vitamins.

You're so calm about the whole IVF thing. Aren't you scared about how invasive it is and all the poking and prodding you'll have to go through?

I don't really go out, and when I do, it's usually t-shirt and jeans appropriate so I don't have any need for anything else in particular. Hehe let me know how your jumper goes. Have you bought stretch needles?

@1littlewren Glad you feel better! If there's one thing I've learnt while TTC, our bodies will always find new ways to keep us on our toes. If you're getting BFNs then AF is probably just late. But hopefully that's not the case! Good luck 😊

Growing up there, we've never had issues with our neighbours and the ones on the left are always so lovely so I'm not really worried about them. I'm more worried about getting stopped by the police. Hopefully nothing happens! I'm not sure what the rules are on travelling from Tier 4 to Tier 4. But I suppose since we're all highly diseased together, it shouldn't make a huge difference.

Will you be Christmas Chef going forward? It wasn't actually so stressful. Everything was ready the day before and all we had to do was put the foods in the oven on the day.

Nah, I think I've learnt enough about my body to generally know when I ovulate but I probably won't be checking CM either so I'll be in the dark. The only thing I'm sure of is that I do ovulate, so as long as we DTD every other day, or whatever DH plans, we'll be fine. I really hope relinquishing control helps although I've pretty much accepted my fate of AF showing up every cycle so I don't really care anymore 🤷‍♀️ I'm letting goooooo ❄️

I think the rabbits will really enjoy running around the house. I'll probably lock them away in the kitchen before bed as there's less things they can destroy in there.

Ah congratulations on your dress debut! Sounds like it went really well! It's definitely a nice feeling to feel accomplished! I've ordered my air mesh fabric from China, so it should be here in a few weeks. Not sure what to make in the meantime though. I also need to do the photoshoot for the other outfit. Have you decided on a design for that lovely fabric you showed me?

Better photo of the garden.

Christmas was actually quite nice. We invited friends over as they also couldn't spend Christmas was their family. We cooked so much food! And played games too 😁 glad you made the most of the alcohol drinking. Codenames is such a good name, I'm not surprised you all enjoyed it. Do you have anything planned for New Year's? I may go and spend it with my family and just risk getting caught.

Haha that's a cute little arrangement. DH and I both did the cooking and we've just been loading the dishwasher because today is not the day for manual labour 😂😂 we ate a mixtures of dishes and cuisines. Our guests brought a Chinese soup too which was very fruity and lovely. We had the tradional Christmas foods as well as a Greek potato salad and a West African rice dish. How did you find cooking for your whole family? Did you enjoy it?

Hmm well cutting the dosage down won't hurt. I've forgotten to take my vitamins on two occasions and I think it's because I'm no longer tracking my temps since handling my fertility is no longer the first thing I do each morning. I'll probably ditch the OPKs too and put all my faith in DH getting it right.

I was hoping to give them free reign of the house to be honest but the new garden is spacious. Only issue it DH doesn't want me to erect their enclosure and make the space ugly so they'll be nowhere suitable for them to live. Worse comes to worse, we'll give them away 💔

How did it feel wearing something you made??

Merry Christmas Eve! 🎄

Ooo that looks really good and seems quite easy to make too. Maybe I'll have a go at it! Do you do most of the cooking in your home?

It's never too late to get a degree in medicine 😉

I'm hoping it'll help with the anxiety. The worst thing is seeing my temps come crashing down and knowing AF is coming. Maybe I'll be able to relax through the process too. Hehe I guess you're not ready to give your DP that level of control but maybe DTD daily isn't a bad idea.

Oh why'd you cut it down? That's the amount of Vit C I'm currently taking and haven't seen any adverse affects.

They're not caged rabbits. They live outside in a huge walk-in enclosure and rarely enter their hutch so I'd rather they become house rabbits because they're my babies and I want them close to me. You're right about cats, my neighbours cats kill all sorts of birds, mice, etc. I'd want a warm, cuddly kitty who'd follow me around everywhere. I've never considered a rat before! I never knew they could be so loving. That's exactly how I want my rabbits to be with me but I know they'd make it a mission to be on the opposite side of the room to me - meanies.

Just spent the whole day doing Christmas food prep. I wish I was travelling to my parents instead but it's fine. Better safe than sorry!

Yeah we used to do that too! We did IIFYM. So we could only have x amount of carbs, fat and protein. My Fitness Pal really helped with that. It was great but the diet was very simplistic and we were eating the same thing day in and day out. I do look on websites but nothing ever catches my fancy. I'm just not a huge foodie and would honestly prefer eating the same thing everyday to avoid thinking about food. What has been your favourite recipe you've found? Maybe I'll give it a go.

I'm the type of person who would learn everything there is to know about something so I can make an informed decision. Plus, there's isn't anyone I trust more than myself, so best believe I will be asking for copies of whatever they recorded off the microscope so I can do my own analysis.

Actually, my fertility is completely out of my hands now. I've deleted all the apps off my phone and given DH complete control. So he'll call all the shots. Every morning, I'll give him my fertility bracelet so he can sync my data onto his phone and enter my temps into FF. Then I'll give him my OPKs before the lines start showing and he'll take the pics and put it in the premom app and update FF. When he feels it's best to DTD, then we DTD. Wish me luck!

Are you trying anything different this cycle?

The house has a garage and two cellars but I'd hate locking them somewhere that's just concrete. Or I could just give them away and get cats instead 🐱 Do you have any pets?

Girl, as an experienced seamstress, even I'm against it. It's really tricky and you can't use a straight stitch to join seams. All the hemming I've done the stitches always rip out. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid - That is my advice.

Or buy an overlocker - that's pretty much the easiest way around it. I've never used my overlocker with stretch fabric but I think I'll give it a go... one day... in the far away future.

But the pockets on your dress definitely add a nice touch. I hope you're proud of yourself, I think for one of your first projects, you've done really well. Round of applause

I wish our bodies would just do one thing and stick to it. New symptoms are confusing. Maybe in your case it could be the foods you're eating causing spots. Any changes to your diet?

With your diet, do you have a meal plan that you stick to? I'm really bad at coming up with new things to eat. Cooking for kids is going to be a nightmare for me because I'm so uninspired when it comes to food.

My DH is fine as well. He believes it will happen but because this isn't something that calls into question his womanhood, he has no reason to worry. If he suffered from erectile disfunction then maybe he'd get how I feel. He is happy to take tests but I like being in control so I'm in half a mind to buy a microscope and have a look at his semen myself.

The few times we've brought the rabbits inside, they've been very well behaved and pooped in the right places, but it's the chewing of cables and curtains and furniture that I'm worried about! DH would kill me!

I feel sad. I know 3 months isn't a long time but I just have this unshakable belief that I'll never conceive. My friend got pregnant 3 months after coming off the pill. I've never taken hormonal contraceptives so I thought my cycles might be fine but I'm not so sure anymore. I don't even understand what happened this cycle. Are the vitamins doing their job now? Does the sore nipples and higher temps and longer LP = more progesterone? Who knows!

Lucky you for finishing AF! Time to fish the OPKs out. Where are your temps now?

I don't think the diet is the issue. We both had a workout and meal plan created for us. We weighed our foods, recorded our calories. We stuck to it and lost some weight. I continued working hard but he stopped. I think it's a motivation thing. He needs to want to lose weight - There's not much else I can do. You can lead a horse to a river blah blah blah. Will you be going back to tracking everything you eat?

Ugh who even does that? What a strange and almost selfish thing to do. I don't think people understand how hard some women have it. Lucky for her, her ignorance is bliss. Terrible. I hope you're feeling a little less annoyed now! How is your DP finding everything. I don't know if men ever understand the impact a failed cycle has on us.

Yes, after my first cycle tracking temps and seeing my LP was 9 days, I registered at a fertility clinic. Now we're going to book some fertility tests. £500-something for all the tests for both of us. Yeah, we have a few clinics within the Berkshire area but we're not too far from London either so we'll easily find somewhere. Sucks that your nearest clinic could be overcapacity.

We're aiming for March but any time before then would be perfect! I need to figure out how to house train my rabbits or else DH will banish them to the garden 😭

Yeah the spotting stopped before I went to bed last night but I've woken up to a full flow AF so I've definitely, 100%, no doubt about it, started! What a strange cycle. I wonder what happened?? Is your AF finished? I think this cycle we may be out of sync.

28 day cycle and 12 day LP. With spotting on 10dpo and 12dpo. Strange!

He just likes food and wine too much. I'm not sure what to do. I have tried but it's always a short lived effort then the weight goes straight back on. We'll probably go private, whatever we do. I think first steps will be to do tests for both of us. Already sent an email enquiring. There's no point wasting time if his sperm aren't going anywhere or my hormones aren't doing what they're supposed to. I agree about going on a diet, I might join you, well I won't eat different, I'll just get back to weight training.

I did have concerns about never being accidentally pregnant as I was never on birth control but I was also actively trying to avoid my fertile days (which I now know was calculated all wrong) and I think my partners were good at the pull out method. But with how hard it is to get pregnant on purpose, you can't be surprised that getting accidentally pregnant hasn't happened. But it doesn't mean you're infertile. It clearly just takes a lot of luck to get pregnant.

I think it'll show if it's per m or per 0.5m. If you scroll down to the info box and look for quantity, it should say 'per meter' or something.

We got our mortgage offer for the new house, which is amazing. Back to focusing on house stuff now.

Midnight! Looks like it's actually CD29 as AF didn't actually start 😱 tomorrow, I test!

It'll probably start in my sleep but I'll let you know how I get on anyway. Goodnight!