First period after the pill & TTC

[Chloerobinson97]

Hi,

I came off the pill in September 2020 and started my first period since coming off yesterday (04/02/2021). My period seems quite light but heavy enough that I need a tampon if that makes sense? Just wondered how long other women’s first period lasted after quitting birth control? I’m hoping it’s not going to just last for a couple of days as I’m not sure that’s normal? And I also need some advice on tracking ovulation! Any advise or experiences will be appreciated :)

Hey @Chloerobinson97 it must vary between pills but I finished Cerelle on 7th Dec and have had 2 periods since then, first was after 28 days and was light-normal over 5ish days, the second was after another 30 days was light again and only 3.5 days which was odd - cramps have been minimal both times as well which is good!
I'm not an expert on ovulation but I have been tracking the last couple months, just using Premom app and easy@home sticks and found them really useful 🙂🙂.

@glow92 thank you for your advice! Hopefully things will sort themselves out soon :)

@Chloerobinson97 so happy for you that it finally came back! I remember you from a thread the other day. Isn't it the biggest relief ever. I had a 90 day wait for mine so you must've been even more frustrated than me.

I'd bought some of those cheap OPKs off Amazon and I have to say I never noticed a peak, the tests were either really faint or just blank, which leaves me me wondering if I actually ovulated and whether that's something that will take time in itself to return.

I'd been on the pill for over a decade and can't remember my previous cycle length. I'm on CD31 now and no sign of my period so just praying I have a 'normal' long cycle rather than about to head into another agonising 90 days. I was dying for it to turn up bang on 28 days so I could be 'average'!

Hope yours settles really quickly for you. The best advice I saw on here was just keep having sex every other day up til your period because some people ovulate really late and you don't want to miss it. I was going off my app which of course had no previous data to go off and so assumed it would be CD14 but actually I could even have ovulated in the last week if I have a long cycle (didn't notice that though). So focus on DTD! :)

@Chloerobinson97 forgot to say my first period was 5 days. But it did take a bit of time to get going so don't worry

@moomalade89 thank you fir your advice! My cycle ended up being 151 days! It went painfully slow, I’m just relieved that I’ve finally had a period. Currently on day 3 and it’s pretty light which i hope doesn’t mean anything worrying. I’ve ordered some OPK’s from Amazon and if they don’t seem to work I might buy the clear blue fertility monitor which is meant to be really good so fingers crossed! Fingers crossed you will conceive soon :)

Same to you! :)

Deffo agree with the above, even though I found a peak on the cheap OPK's it was later than expected so dtd every other day if possible so you don't miss! I'm trying to take that approach this cycle so I don't get too wrapped up in testing (even though I'll for sure keep testing).

I too had something very similar. I finished the pill at the end of April last year, then had my usual withdrawal bleed the first week of May. I then had a 30 day cycle followed by a 32 day cycle in July. Then nothing until January this year, no positive opk thought but I've got PCOS and I've read they don't always work with PCOS. Got my fingers crossed for this to be a more usual cycle