Ovulation help?... avoiding conception board!

[closephine85]

I should be old hat at this now as we are into year 3 ttc no2 but I need some help on whether to trust my body or the ovulation tests? I know this is technically a 'conception' test but if I post on there I will get drawn into reading the 'my husband looked at me... Could I be pregnant?' Posts. Plus the chance of this actually leading to a conception are about as likely as winning a rollover euromillions jackpot and you can't even buy tickets where I live.

DH had a semen analysis yesterday am which had meant abstaining for a few days and I hadn't bothered with ovulation tests. We were going to DTD from yesterday evening anyway but then I started getting strong ovulation pains early evening, which then got stronger over the next few hours. I used the clearblue sticks you buy in boots and put into a monitor to get either a flashing smiley for high fertility, static smiley for peak and empty circle for low fertility. I got an empty circle despite the pains and despite being pretty sure it was ovulation last night. I got an empty circle again this morning.

why would I be ovulating and yet get a totally negative test? I'm cd15 today but usually ovulate between 14-17.

Supposed to start using progesterone 2 days after ovulation. Meh. Got myself in a bit of a middle here! Probably should have actually bothered to test a bit sooner but you know... you get a bit lazy after 32 cycles.

Personally I'd trust a combination of sticks and subsequent temperature rise more than any sensations - my ovaries tend to twinge on and off over several days pre- and post-ovulation, so feeling something doesn't necessarily mean anything, for me. I also do a combination of the Clearblue test in the morning, and a normal (cheap) OPK in the evening, because I find I can sort of see ovulation coming better, that way.

I think, though, that the Clearblue ones maybe do a sort of cumulative check (i.e. looking for more hormones than in the last test)? So, if you hadn't been doing them but jumped right in when you were having an LH surge, I'm not sure what it would do. If you still have the test strip, does it have two dark lines on it like you'd see on a normal OPK? Because, although they say you can't read the test in that way, I've certainly noticed that my peak results always coincide with the strip looking like this...

Hi Perispan, thank you for your reply. I probably shouldn't have jumped straight into testing at suspected ovulation you're right. I'm a bit irritated with myself, I was trying to trust my body but had a wobble at the last minute and now I'm just confused. I'll attach a pic of what the tests look like. The top one was last night and the bottom this morning. What do you think?

Hi closephine, if it's the dual hormone test you should still get a solid smiley face, just not the flashing one as it needs two cycles to track the estrogen. It could be because your gearing up for ovulation, but it's not quite happend yet and that's why your test looks positive. Might be worth doing one later and seeing if you get a smiley ? It might of missed your surge because of possible early ovulation and gone back to the circle?

Those look a lot like my tests heading into ovulation (although obviously you aren't supposed to read them like that...). Have you got/can you get a normal OPK to see what that comes out like?

Thanks ladies. I never managed a flashing smiley last month either, it just went straight to peak (cue automatic thought that perhaps there's something wrong with my estrogen levels!).

I can get to the shops this afternoon so I'll buy some different ones and retest later.

Thanks for your help