AF super late - what could it mean?

[confuseddddmum]

so a bit of background.. i've always had irregular AF but never thought much of it, just assumed some people are as every body is different. after i stopped breastfeeding dc2, my AF would come back to back 7 days then 7 days straight after. I decided to get it checked out and was diagnosed with PCOS (this was earlier this year, maybe March time, so then my irregular AF made total sense to me!). Since then it's calmed down and my cycle is usually c.14 days or c.21 days. The longest cycle I've had this year was 31 days. I'm currently on day 38 and still no show of AF. Any ideas why? I've never skipped/missed a period before so very unlike me. I've been getting daily cramping and lower back pains in the mornings from 15th Sept and then it seems to pass throughout the day. Occasionally I would feel nauseous which I never do as a AF symptom.

just for reference my last AF was 24th Aug. i had ewcm (sorry tmi) 31st Aug to 4th sept and we DTD 1st and 3rd Sept as we're trying for our 3rd. unfortunately i got UTI on 4th sept turned kidney infection and was on antibiotics for 7 days from 7th sept so we didnt get to DTD during that time. I've taken 3 pregnancy tests (latest one was this morning) and all stark white so i definitely don't think i'm pregnant as it would definitely show some line by now.

i've sent a query request to my GP this morning so waiting to hear back but google says they tend to not see you until you've missed 3 cycles so hoping anyone that has had similar experiences could help a girl out. i don't have any other symptoms, no cm at all atm and i don't think i'm currently stressed.. any ideas? thank you if you've managed to read to the end.

Hi lovely, idk if it helps but there are no “ late “ periods per se, only late ovulation. So you might have ovulated later than you think, I have pcos and I usually ovulate day 21/22 but this month I ovulated day 30 of my cycle so my cycle is 40 days long with a luteal phase of 10 days. I hope it helps x

if i had ewcm 31st aug to 4th sept (sorry tmi), wouldnt i have ovulated 24-48hrs after that? say the 6th for example... and google says luteal phase doesnt go past 17 days so surely i would have got my af last tues. does that mean i didn't ovulate?

EWCM is a good indicator that ovulation could be near but sometimes it happens days before ovulation so if you didn’t track temperature or LH surge via OPK it might be that you ovulated later or maybe tried to ovulate but didn’t succeed. Do you know how long your luteal phase is usually ?

no i dont track ovulation via temperature or opk as i dont like the added stress. because my AF varies i havent really tracked my luteal phase either. i just want AF to start so i can move onto the next cycle and try again. being in limbo is confusing haha. i'm just hoping the antibiotics didn't mess up my cycles/ttc so just want some clarification from the doctors (who still haven't come back to me yet!)

it's weird for me not to have AF for this long. usually i would be on my 2nd or 3rd cycle by now lol. i conceived pretty quickly with dc1 and dc2 despite having pcos so just hoping we're lucky it happens again quickly this time. i do get that i'm a few years older now though!

I have pcos and with pcos your ovulation can vary so much, luteal phase is always the same :) maybe your body tried to ovulate and didn’t manage ! Good luck 🤞🏼!!

Could be conception, but for me, AF conspicuously late unfortunately often means a kidney infection or (rarely) a side effect of being unwell. The PMT beforehand is also ramped up to crazy levels.

(Edit - sorry, didn't spot the kidney problem in your post - but this certainly rings true for my experience, about 3x now between mid 30s to 40s).

thank you! maybe i should start tracking ovulation!!

EWCM isn’t the most reliable way to track ovulation. You need to start temping using a BBT.

And yes, I know it’s more faff, but I actually found it was actually less stressful having some kind of handle of where I was in my cycle and whether I was actually in the TWW or not. OPKs also super helpful in the run up to ovulation to ensure you know you’ve caught your fertile period (although I know they’re not always accurate for PCOS, but BBT should help confirm if they are any use or not!). During my last 3 year stint of TTC (I’m now 23 weeks pregnant) my cycles were generally fairly predictable, but my body threw a handful of curveballs at me. I usually ovulated on CD 15 or 16, but had a few cycles where I ovulated on CD11 (even CD8 one month!!) and the latest I ovulated was CD20. There seems to be no way of knowing far in advance whether it’s going to be an oddball cycle of not….

My EWCM comes 5+ days before I was getting peak.

Your body can also have more than once surge and attempt at ovulation per month. And actually, I think some women have even ovulated twice a month and conceived both eggs!

But yeah, as PP say, it sounds like ovulation is later than expected.