TTC, cycle chaos. Advice please.

[Tulpabean]

Hi everyone.
Looking for some advice before I book a GP appointment. I'll try and keep this concise.

I'm 28. Came off the pill in February 2018 after 12 years to start TTC. Have been trying ever since. Had a withdrawal bleed as usual then 32 days later got a period, so was quite happy and thinking all looked promising. My cycles since I came off the pill have been:

Feb - 32 days
March - 26 days
April - 28 days
May - 34 days
June - 25 days
July - 42 days
August - 39 days
September/Oct - 35 days and counting.

During this current cycle, I had 8 days of spotting that started on calender day 15. I don't usually get any spotting.

I have been using cheap OPKS on and off, and this month have had 3 peaks, on CD12, CD22 and CD30. Usually I stop testing after my peak but this month I continued testing due to the long cycles I've been having recently. So that threw me right off and makes me worry I'm not ovulating.

Fast forward to today, went for my routine smear test and the nurse asked about bleeding. I explained about the spotting this month and long cycles the last 2 cycles. She's advised I see a GP. She's saying she'd expect my cycles to have regulated within 3 to 6 months after the pill. I didn't imagine anyone would entertain me at my GP until I'd been off the pill for longer.

I've got bad anxiety and going to the doctor is horrendous for me. I always talk myself out of needing to go. So what I'm asking is... Do I need to go at this stage? Am I talking myself out of going by blaming the pill? Should my cycles have settled by now if they were going to? If I'm having 3 peak LH surges in a cycle am I not ovulating? I can't trust my own opinion coz I always try not to go to the Dr, so I need people to tell me if it sounds like I definitely need to.

Ok so that wasn't concise... Thanks in advance for any advice.

Can't advise regards the ovulation sticks as never used them but my cycles have been crazy since coming off the pill in April and I was told it could take a year for them to become normal again. My first cycle after withdrawal bleed was about 101 then 51 now I am on Day 47, due AF on Saturday. We only started trying this cycle though so I am still learning about everything. My point is that your cycles seem more regular than mine but still may take another few months to become "regular".

@cherrylo86 that's what I thought about it taking a year, but had only ever heard that in unofficial terms, not from anyone medical. So when the nurse said that today I was taken aback.
My frustrstion at the moment is that my cycles seem to be getting worse instead of better, which seems the opposite of where they should be going.
Hopefully yours are coming down in length and will even out soon. It's so frustrating waiting and never knowing when AF is going to appear.

Hiya

I came off the pill 4 years ago and my periods are still all over the place although I suspect it has nothing to do with stopping the pill.

A few years ago I had a very traumatic couple of months with lasting side effects which has left me feeling rather stressed and anxious about every day events that I have no control over. On the months where I have been over stressed etc I can go 70 odd days between and on a good run it’s 35.

I have seen a dr not much use however from a bit of online reading when your stressed your hormone levels change and over a long period of time your body can go into survival mode which is what I think happens to me 🤦🏼‍♀️

I think what the nurse meant is that usually when there is unscheduled bleeding the GP does tests to work out why (swabs, examination, check smear up to date etc) - id go for this.
Don't think they will be too interested in 6 months of TTC at present but it's the bleeding they need to check isn't an infection etc