Length of Ovulation/ fertility window

[Daydreamer78]

Hi. I am new to this so I apologise in advance if I have posted anything wrong. I am 36, have been on the pill for 20 years and came off in September to try get pregnant. My periods have stayed regular and I have been using a Clearblue ovulation test kit each month, last month having high and peak days on predicted dates. But this month I have had 5 consecutive high days so far and no peak day, is this normal? Is it possible to miss ovulation one month? Should I keep doing the test each morning or write this month off? Also, my predicted peak day was day 15 of my cycle, I didn't get my first high until day 16 and it is now day 20 and still no peak. Should I be concerned? Thank you.

I would keep testing. There's two possibilities - either you are going to ovulate late this cycle or you are not going to ovulate. Both can and do happen (infrequently) for people with normal cycles and as an occasional happening should be nothing to worry about. Late ovulation can be caused by stress or illness.
However this may also be caused by recently coming off the pill, whilst it seemed your cycles had settled immediately it may be that they are not quite back to normal yet. It happened to me that my cycles seemed fine for a few months after coming off the pill and then were all over the place for 6 months before properly settling down.

Thanks for that. I will keep testing for now then. Thanks for your help.

I got 9 days of flashing smileys this month before getting my solid one. It's made for a short LP this month but hoping it'll be ok! I'd keep going...

Mssleepyhead late ovulation should not make your LP shorter, your LP simply starts after O and should stay thereabouts the same length regardless of when you O

I've had eight days of high now, still no peak and I'm due to start my period in 6 days, can you ovulate that close to your period?

Daydreamer your period will only start when you are expecting it if you are having a cycle where you don't O at all. If you O late your period will start later.
From day 1 of your period until the day you O you are in the follicular phase of your cycle. This phase is normally the same length from cycle to cycle, however illness, stress and other factors can cause ovulation to be late and therefore the follicular phase to be longer. After ovulation you are in the luteal phase, the time between ovulation and the start of your next period. Again this phase is normally the same length from cycle to cycle (may vary by a day or so each way).
So if you have a 13 day luteal phase (for example) and you ovulate on day 12 (for example) then your next period will start on day 26 (14 days after you ovulated). If you ovulated on day 16 and had a 14 day luteal phase then your next period would start on day 30, 15 days after you ovulated.
The only exception to this as a rule is if you have a cycle where you don't ovulate (annovulatory) in which case it is difficult/impossible to calculate when your period will arrive. Note that coming off hormonal contraception can also make your cycles very irregular for a time.
Does this make sense?

Yes, thank you, that does make sense. Thanks for your feedback.

This is bizarre, I have this morning started my period, four days earlier than expected on day 26. I ovulation tested this morning and the result was high, again, for the 12th day running. I am now assuming I must have missed my peak day and it came earlier in my cycle this month but it is possible for it to come as early as day 10? I'm so frustrated right now :(

Ovulation is not an exact science and a woman can ovulate earlier, later or not at all in ANY given cycle. Generally speaking you are more likely to ovulate if your cycle is regular in nature but again even normally fertile women have the occasional anovulatory cycle.

I would throw out the OPKs as of now as they can add more stress and confusion overall as has happened here. The surest way to know whether you have ovulated or otherwise is to have blood tests done. These kits are certainly not infallible at all and operate on two misleading principles; namely that there is only one rise in LH every month and that such a rise is followed by ovulation, both are simply not true.

Daydreamer it sounds as though you ovulated early or not at all this month - as I said earlier both of these can happen occasionally without the need to worry - put this cycle behind you and start on a new one.

Whilst Attila is right that OPKs can not 100% tell you whether you have ovulated, I disagree about throwing them out.
A combination of OPKs and BBT can tell you, with a good probability of accuracy, if and when you are ovulating. If BBTs and OPKs suggest you are regularly not ovulating then a doctor should investigate further, but without BBT and OPKs this may not be discovered in the first place until much later. Furthermore these home tests can help you learn an awful lot about your cycle, helping to ensure sex is best timed around ovulation, thereby increasing the changes of conception. There is no alternative to this... It is not possible to get a blood test each and every month.
I would suggest that for many people, having an understanding and insight into their cycle is much less stressful than TTC 'blind' ie without the information provided by these tests.
For everybody it is a choice whether to use any sort of tests or not when TTC, but for me the information provided by OPKs and BBT was invaluable; I learnt that I ovulated much much later than I would have expected, and it was this information that led me to go on to get my BFP. I would gently suggest that if somebody is asking for advice on how to read the results of OPKs that it would be more helpful to support and provide that info instead of simply suggesting she throws them out