O and withdrawl questions

[sgharrison]

Hi,
I am excited and awaiting my personalized plan. I realized that I might have left out some important details….
My periods have been regular since I was 12 years old and they always start between the 20th -24th of EVERY month. I chart everything and I record what day AF starts as well as O symptoms and which days DH and I have BD. As well, DH and I only BD once or twice a month so its easy to remember when conception would have occurred.
DS#1 was conceived on the 7th of the month when I KNEW I was O (had all the symptoms).
Now DS #2 was conceived on the 19th of the month and AF was due any time. This was the ONLY day during the month we BD! OBGYN said it was impossible to conceive on this date but unless I conceived from the toilet seat we made DS #2 right when AF was due.
DS #3 was conceived during AF about 3 days in, on the 23rd of the month. AND DH withdrew so I have no idea how he was conceived!
Since we are considering TTC I have used OPK for the past two months to see when exactly I might be ovulating. Sure enough my O symptoms are coordinating with my pos result. However, I’m getting 2 pos results during each month. The Ist positive result midcycle when I SHOULD be O and second pos O result is 7-8 days later. How’s this possible? What could be going on?
I know for a FACT that I have conceived DS #1 during the earlier O(midcycle as expected) and
DS #2 and #3 were conceived a little over a week later than they should have and during a (when I’m not getting my second positive O result while testing now).
Is it possible to O twice a month?
AND VERY IMPORTANT….. DS # 3 was conceived even after my DH withdrew and was careful not to get any sperm inside and I always use the bathroom right after.

[atomic sagebrush]

1) Ok regarding DS2, you have no way of knowing that AF would have come if you hadn't gotten pregnant, if that makes any sense. Your ovulation can sometimes come later than normal and this can happen even if you almost always have very regular cycles, so my guess is that you ovulated late that month and if you hadn't gotten pregnant, you would have found that your AF came late as well and your entire cycle would have just been longer than normal.

2)With DS 3, it's likely that you ovulated early that month. Semen can live for several days in your reproductive tract and still make a baby and it has been proven that yes, it is possible to get pregnant from sex during menstruation if you are making CM at the same time (and most of us would never know that was the case because the blood is mixed in there). I got my first son from intercourse right after I got off AF and I have pretty short AF's so I thought I was way too early to get pg. No, because I probably both ovulated early and then some sperm had stayed alive for several days (we were young and super human then)

Or, you may have had bleeding that was not actually AF. It is possible that your ovulation may have been delayed again, but for some reason your body did some bleeding at that same time you ovulated (which does happen sometimes, usually not enough to mistake for AF but it can happen) and so when you had sex thinking you were having AF, it was actually bleeding from some other reason entirely and you managed to catch the egg.

3)It is totally normal to get a positive OPK midcycle and then again 7 days later. What happens is, about 7 days after you ovulate, the corpus luteum (which is the empty hole your egg came out of and it makes progesterone in the second part of your menstrual cycle) begins to break down and is no longer making enough progesterone to maintain a lush uterine lining. So your body releases a burst of estrogen at this point and it can be enough to register on an OPK for some people. If you are temping it can show up as a dip in your temperature and some people call it "implantation dip" even tho this is actually a misnomer. Some ladies will have a little EWCM at this point too. This estrogen helps to keep your lining going for another few days to enable a baby to be well implanted before AF arrives.

You are not ovulating twice or anything like that.

4)RE withdrawal, this is a pretty reliable form of birth control, however it's not 100% and sometimes there is a user error factor that comes into play. He may have had some living sperm in his preejaculate, altho this is a very unusual set of circumstances and quite difficult to the point of impossible to get pg that way. OR, more likely, sometimes when a man is a bit "pent up" while he is having intercourse some semen can just come out without an actual orgasm and then he can go onto have an orgasm even right afterwards and perhaps without really noticing. This has happened to my husband and I about 3 times during our marriage but he was always able to get out in time. I have just interrogated my husband about this (the things I do for you guys LOL)and he says that he can def. feel it but it doesn't feel like a normal ejaculation and he thought it could be possible that someone who wasn't paying that much attention and caught up in the moment, could accidentally not pull out thinking that it wasn't "the grand finale" and then even go onto withdraw and finish right after that without realizing that he'd not withdrawn successfully.

It is always possible to get pg even with jump and dump, that is in no way reliable form of birth control as many teenagers have learned to their dismay.

[sgharrison]

All of that is such good info. Thanks so much. Now,I should always trust the 1st pos OPK right? Because I've have the EWCM with both the 1st and 2nd pos OPK which really confuses me. It's like things dry up for a few days then it's right back just like the week before.

[atomic sagebrush]

Well, that depends. There are two things that can happen:

1)you have a pos OPK when you are ovulating and then get another pos OPK 7 days later when you have a secondary estrogen surge. In that case, the first one was the real deal and the second one was not ovulation but was the SES. (and this seems to be what you are describing)

2)you can also have a pos OPK where your body starts to ovulate, then for some reason decides "no not quite yet" and holds off for a few days/week(s) before finally ovulating. In this case, the first positive would be a faker and the second is accurate.

You can have identical symptoms because it is the presence of estrogen that causes the symptoms and not ovulating in and of itself.

The good news is, we don't need to know if it's real or fake, just have one attempt when you get a pos OPK and you will be covered either way.

[carmella_marie]

Only tracking your bbt temp will let you know you have O'ed for sure. My body often gears up to O with +OPK and EWCM but then no temp shift. Then another +OPK and EWCM a few days later with a clear to rise so I know that was O.