'Day 21 bloods' with irregular cycles

[London1066]

Husband and I have recently spoken to the doctor about our struggle to conceive for a while. Doctor said we meet criteria for investigation and first steps would be husband's semen analysis and bloods for me.

He mentioned most women go on day 21 for these tests but as I have such irregular cycles, we would need to think more carefully about when I should go.

If you have irregular cycles, did you go 7 days after you think you ovulated? Ive been using opks for a while and checking cervical mucus. I think I might be ovulating every other month as I sometimes get a surge. However, I may be surging and not ovulation at all.

Thanks in advance - I'd really appreciate any advice as I'm a little overwhelmed with it all to be honest.

So it should be 7 days before your period is due (day 21 for a 28 day cycle but could be earlier or later for other cycle lengths). But that’s not so helpful with irregular cycles! I’d go for the test 7 days after ovulation if you can reliably track it. My cycles were irregular (and I wasn’t able to track LH surge on OPKs) so GP told me to just get it done at day 21 anyway as it was a tick box that needed to be done to be able to send the fertility referral which we would need regardless. It just so happened that on that cycle I did have my period after 28 days and it did catch ovulation. But really all it’s telling you is whether you so happened to ovulate or not on that one cycle. Good luck x

Thank you for responding. This is super helpful.

Hi @London1066 - hope you don’t mind me jumping on! I’ve been getting bloods done for 3 months now. They’ve all come back negative/too much progesterone and the doctor has told me she doesn’t think I’m ovulating. There’s been a lot of tears this morning already.

The thing is, I don’t think they’re testing on the right days, as my cycles are all over the place, very irregular. I can go from having 32 day cycles to 20 day cycles. If I could I’d get my bloods done every week, but they don’t offer that as an option.

But as I came off the depo injection September 2019, they’ve now asked me to wait until Dec 2020 to go back to them for more bloods, semen sample from my Husband, and for us to get referred to the fertility clinic. We’ve been trying every month, sex every other day, and it’s really getting me down now.

Wishing you the best of luck. I’d do what @Lemongrass1 has suggested, track your ovulation and go from there. Xxx

Ovulation predictor kits however, are useless when it comes to irregular cycles so should not be used. These kits too are beset with problems and work on two misleading principles namely that a rise in LH is immediately followed by ovulation and that there is only one rise in LH every month. Both are not true.

If they are irregular such tests can actually be done according to calendar days so the 21st of the month. This works well.

Refrain from cervical mucus checking as this is really a poor indicator of ovulation too.

The day 21 test is only part of it, you should also have a day 2 test done to compare your LH level against FSH. These two levels should be the same, an elevation of LH to FSH could be indicative of polycystic ovaries.

Blood tests for hormone levels done on the wrong days can give meaningless results too. The day 2 and day 21 tests are standard tests.

I also have irregular cycles and I had mine 8 days after a positive ovulation test

Hi everyone. Thanks for all your replies and sorry for being so late to respond. I took a bit of a break from mumsnet as it's all getting a bit much. I'm currently on cycle day 90 and just so over it all. Some tests have already been done but as a previous poster said, it's pointless if they're not on the right days. Was basically a guess. It did show up some abnormalities so now being referred to fertility clinic. Hopefully they'll be able to help a little more as I doubt I'm even ovulating at all.

Thanks for all of your help :)