Post Pill TTC Party

[TheDaydreamBelievers]

Come one, come all ! A thread for those TTC after coming off hormonal contraceptive pills.

Discussions typically include:

• Baffling temp charts
• Absent or oddly timed EWCM
• Whacky cycle lengths
• AF gone AWOL (current high score is 141 days post pill)

Hi @MintGreenLife,

Not sure it will be much help as I'm clearly no expert but today I have found that my temp has gone up again (however it did go up a bit yest and the low was the day before) my opk is back to showing 0 again after all the excitement yesterday! What are your OPKs saying? Hopefully you will see the rise tomorrow

@CharWils think in my five months of charting BBT and using OPKs I've never seen a positive OPK AND a temp rise 🤦🏻‍♀️ So not sure what to expect. I haven't done another OPK yet since the last at 4pm yesterday. Will do today's in an hour or so. Really hope I get a temp rise tomorrow 😕 That's great you've seen a rise x

@CharWils my Premom app has put today as ovulation day after my positive OPK yesterday, here's hoping it's right 🤞🏼

@MintGreenLife all the signs are definitely looking more positive for you this cycle which is really great!

I've had stomach aches for a few days and really painful nipples today, but no BBY rise. I'm tempted to try an OPK. Clearly I havent been charting at all so can't see a build up, but wondering if it is still worth trying a couple of times today until I hopefully get a BBT rise. More out of curiosity than anything!

@AMS19 why not, may as well as might help you understand where you're at a bit better ☺️

Well now I'm really confused - just had an even darker/more positive OPK than yesterday's, despite it going back fainter at 4pm. Anyone have any experience with this? Not really sure what to think in terms of when I'm going to ovulate now, today, tomorrow? What does everyone think? We DTD yesterday, and every other day before that for the last couple of weeks, but wondering if we should try again later. DH isn't a fan of every day 😆 So don't want to waste it and then he won't want to go again tomorrow, trying to work out when is best and when I'm likely to ovulate?!

Forgot to attach the images...

Urgh no I didn't, for some reason the images I'm adding aren't displaying 🤦🏻‍♀️

Still no luck, anyway, yesterday's OPK was 1.06 and today's is 1.47 after going back down to 0.47 yesterday afternoon. I seem to have less EWCM today, but cervix is definitely high and is higher than it was yesterday x

@MintGreenLife I had that one two cycles ago, and it really stressed me out; which is why I decided to not do opks this cycle. Hard as it is, try and listen to your body rather than the opks! Also if it helps, it just indicates a possible peak, not instant ovulation; so you could skip today and then dtd again tomorrow for good measure : )

@AnonymousXXIX I think we may do that, as in a book I read I think it stated around 30% chance of conception two days before ovulation, and up to 35% the day before, so not a huge difference, and then like 20% the day of ovulation, so we're I to ovulate tomorrow in the end we would have done two days before and the day of, so that'll probably be OK. I was reading this morning about the different LH surges, and apparently an initial surge followed by a second stronger surge is quite common, so hopefully I'll ovulate tomorrow 🤞🏼 Not going to lie it's making me quite nervy after all this time of negative OPKs! X

1.47 seems pretty good @MintGreenLife hopefully it’s all a good sign, fingers crossed! I agree with @AnonymousXXIX and think it’s a good idea to listen to your body too. I had lost the will the day I first posted and was almost about to stop checking until my body started feeling different, and then I started getting cramps!

Thanks @PumpkinEverything fingers crossed I see a temp rise tomorrow or Monday. I can't say I recal ever feeling ovulation, do not sure cramps are a good indicator for me, but will keep an eye on CM and cervical position of course. Will do another OPK this afternoon also x

@MintGreenLife to be honest, I’ve never really felt cramps the same way I have this month before. I try to update my ‘symptoms’ every day from about 7-10 after AF ends so that I can compare previous months to see if there’s any indication. Normally I break out with one or two spots in the same place under my mouth, and sometimes I also get a headache too!

@PumpkinEverything I don't think cramps can be a bad thing as think it can mean a 'stronger' ovulation ☺️ Interesting you say that as I have a headache today and feel quite tired after feeling really energised yesterday! Hopefully in a day or two my temp will rise and the mystery of when I will ovulate will be over 😆 X

I've had really bad cramps for about 2/3 days, particularly today. Very bloated and really sore nipples. But I clearly am no where near ovulating according to this OPK. So no idea what is causing it at all! I feel absolutely exhausted too 😴😴

@AMS19 in my first 2-3 cycles off the pill I had days where I felt terrible, like could barely function kind of tired. I think it's the haywire hormones. I also think possibly for me on a few occasions my body tried to ovulate and then gave up, so think your high estrogen drops away suddenly and then there's no progesterone to take over so makes you feel crap!

I've just done another OPK and got another strong positive! Think this is definitely my surge now 😀 X

Hi all, I hope you don’t mind me joining. I’ve been reading through this thread and the previous one. @Mintgreenlife I think we’ve a similar enough situation! I came off the pill in April and got married in August but postponed our ‘big’ wedding until next August. We didn’t want to put ttc on hold but thinking about the timing of being pregnant and the wedding etc is tricky but we just want to keep trying.

This is my six month off the pill and I’m worrying something is wrong. I’ve been on and off, but mostly on, the pill for the last 11 years. I got a lot of break through bleeding on it and tried a lot of different ones and got checked a few years ago with a scan etc in case there were fibroids or something. Thankfully everything was ok but not sure if my hormones are. I pushed for a blood test last week and they said everything was satisfactory but I don’t actually know what the numbers were or what they tested for. I think I might phone the doctor next week and ask for more detail.

I know it can take a year but I have long periods - last cycle was 12 days - it’s very stop/start which I never had before the pill. And then I have a short LP - 9 days this week. I can’t help but worry and feel frustrated 😞

I’m currently taking pregnacare conception and seed cycling. For anyone else seed cycling, I find it difficult to know when to change seeds. I seem to ovulate quite late (if I am definitely ovulating. Just using OPKS at the moment and think I am but not sure) and have a short lp but don’t want to change seeds until I’ve ovulated so I’m taking like 19 days of the first seeds and then 9 days of the second seeds. Anyone else find this tricky?

I’m thinking about starting b complex. Is it ok to take this in addition to the pregnacare? I hope it might help with the lp. I think il start EPO this cycle too.

Thanks and sorry about the long post!!

@Cams50 awh how funny, basically the exact same situation! Congrats on the wedding ☺️ How did you find it having a more intimate day? What are your plans re TTC and your 'wedding' next year? We've just decided to power through and see what happens 🤷🏻‍♀️

We're at the same point post-pill also then! What have your cycles been like? I too have just caved and gone for bloods also! With seed cycling, so far I've only managed to switch to sunflower seeds once as I've only been able to confirm ovulation once, I have so many bags of sunflower seeds in my kitchen 😆 I chart BBT, so that's how I know when to switch - when my temp rises. Have you thought about trying using BBT to help you figure out what's going on? I've actually just switched from a prenatal to trying a few separate supplements including a b vitamin complex and EPO, also trying Angus castus. I expect it's probably fine to take Pregnacare as well as extra b-vits, but maybe see what others say ☺️ X

@MintGreenLife aw thank you! Congrats to you too! I actually loved the intimate wedding. We had a lovely day but it was hard as we had to have my parents and one of my sisters on zoom as they live in Ireland but I’m glad we got married. It was still such a special day and lovely to be married and I know I’d hate the uncertainty if we didn’t. And I guess there are no guarantees for next year either. How did you find it? We’re going to power through with the ttc too as we don’t know how long it will take and don’t want to wait anymore. If it does happen and I was due right around the wedding then we’d postpone again I think. What about you?

Haha yeah I’ve so many seeds too! I also considered Agnus castus and might add that in a couple of cycles if nothing changes. Hope you get some reassurance or answers from your blood tests.

I haven’t used BBT but think I might start as I’d like to know if I’ve actually ovulated. My cycles have been 29 days ish so regular but really long stop start periods - like 12 days which is so annoying - and then a short LP 🤷🏼‍♀️ Have you found the baby comments have already started now that you’re married? If only they knew I’m trying 😭🤣

@Cams50 thanks ☺️ Like you I just wanted to get married really, and ideally on the day we originally planned to get married, which we were able to do in the end. Ah that's tough that your parents and sister couldn't be there, glad you enjoyed it though. I loved it also - I didn't get nervous at all and just had so much fun. I think I just felt to relieved that it was actually going ahead after all those months of feeling pretty low and uncertain about it all. I know had we had the 100 guests planned I would have been so nervous and probably wouldn't have relaxed into it, so maybe it worked out for the best in the end. We're the same - we're just going to postpone again if we end up with a due date too close to the wedding.

Thanks, and I'll let you know how I get on with Angus Castus, I had been looking at it for a few months and finally gave in to it.

I would reccomend BBT if you're using things you need to stop or change once you've ovulated - I.e seeds and EPO. It can seem like it'll be a lot of hassle before you do it, but it's just become part of my routine and tbh I like that it helps me understand what's going on with my body! Actually we haven't had any of that, but that's probably because I've told my closest friends that we are TTC, and we've both told our families too. I get that's not conventional, but I felt like I needed a lot of support when we were trying to work out what to do re the possibility of cancelling/postponing the wedding, and what our families wanted was important to us too, so we told those closest to us what we were thinking to try and get to grips with what we should do and what was best. I don't know about you, but in those first few months when it wasn't clear what was going to happen I felt like I needed to talk through every possibility over and over to try and come to a conclusion as to how best to move forward, and so being able to talk to family and friends about it helped ☺️ X

@MintGreenLife you’re totally right! I would’ve been so much more nervous. It was a really relaxing day. Glad you enjoyed yours. We also got to marry on our original day so that was lovely. I think I will start to track BBT. Do you track it on the fertility friend app? I’m using Flo at the moment to track my periods but I don’t think it’s accurate for predicting ovulation at all but I use the OPKS for that. Yeah I completely understand why you told them and how much it affected our decision about the wedding. I don’t know why there is a taboo around telling people. People might be more understanding if they actually knew!

@Cams50 I started using flo when I came off the pill back in March and I liked it until a month or two ago when I’ve realised it’s actually not that great at guessing my ovulation date and AF date. I’ve since kept updating it, but also now using ovia (which actually is very detailed when it comes to tracking symptoms, far far more choice) and I’m also using the premom app as that’s what I’m using to scan my OPK. Maybe worth a look at the two to see how you get on. I feel like a crazy person using the 3 right now, but I’m trying to see which one suits me best!

I use Clue + PreMom but neither of them predict at all accurately when I ovulate. I really just use it to track dtd & symptoms like cm, cramps & acne.

@PumpkinEverything oh thank you! I might try those then. Just ordered a BBT thermometer so want to keep track of that.