Preparing to TTC girl, history of HG

[MommaW]

Okay. Regarding lubrication, is there anything I should go for/avoid? I prefer organic, natural lubricants, like aloe vera based ones but wasn't sure if it was "girl friendly".

[atomic sagebrush]

The only ones to avoid for pink sways are "sperm safe, conception friendly" ones.

If you give me a brand name Il'll look it up for you to be sure it's ok.

[MommaW]

Aloe Cadabra, Good Clean Love, Sliquid, and Organic Glide are the ones I was looking at.

Regarding frequency of release: my husband is a more of an every day kind of release fella (himself or with me). Is this "okay" alongside the one attempt at positive opk? I don't want to demand too much of him in terms of a "schedule" or "rules" since it took a lot of convincing to try again.

Edited to add:
If we are hoping to conceive as quickly as possible (if blessed with another, obviously----it took 5 months for DD2,11 months DD1 after a miscarriage a few months prior, 12 months with DS2, and DS1 was a complete surprise), when would you suggest to add more attempts and/or possibly preseed? With my daughters, we added many more attempts and preseed as well as fertilitea for 2-3 months before getting a bfp after previously trying without those. I only do LE diet + folate. I unfortunately don't follow the exercise recommendation. We do the one attempt (not shallow release) and J&D after 5-15 minutes, and whatever release flow my husband decides prior to that. I am breastfeeding my two year old. My husband also smokes 10-15 cigarettes a week, and MJ once an evening. We don't do the jellies or dh supplements, etc just LE diet and one attempt.

I had a positive opk 7pm CD15 and DTD 9am CD16. Today's CD17 and though my ovulation tests were both negative yesterday and very negative today, I feel my cervix is higher and I'm a bit crampy.

I also wanted to ask about eating sugary snacks (candy, mostly, and ice cream). Are these "allowed" as long as eaten with a meal and within the calorie/fat/protein limit?

Edited to add: today is CD18. I'm feeling much more crampy and cervix is very high. Were my opks off? Should we DTD again to catch ovulation, or would I be swaying blue? My opks yesterday were all negative, but my body feels like it's ovulating or really close to.

[atomic sagebrush]

Any of those lubes are fine if you like them.

Yes, daily release is fine with the one attempt. just let him "do what he does" as none of the frequency stuff has worked anyway.

Just because you took a while in the past, doesn't mean it will again this time. Again and again I have people who are so sure they'll take forever to get pregnant they end up shooting themselves in the foot, not swaying as hard as they might have otherwise. So you may end up surprised if it happens fast!

I would have you do 1 attempt for 2 months, e4d (in the 72hour pattern for two months) and then go to e4d plus one more attempt at positive OPK from there on in. Re the Preseed, I'd wait and see if you need it before adding it. Generally I'd have people drop the harsher lubes, then use the barest minimum of Preseed for a lube instead, but I think you mean "using Preseed to conceive" and I generally don't do that for at least the first 6-9 months.

You can't tell when specifically you ovulate based on when your OPK go negative. You can have ovulated while the test is still positive, or it can go negative before you have ovulated. having attempt at the first positive ensures you're in with an attempt before o no matter what.

Sugar with meals. Unless you're on the alternate diet, in which case you should avoid or limit sugar as much as possible.

If your last attempt was CD 15 and it's CD 18 now I'd have another attempt. That still counts as one attempt because they're far enough apart.

[MommaW]

Thank you for all the info!

Our last attempt was CD16 at 9 am, so should we go for CD19 at 9 am? I got confused on e4d whether it was one day, then skip three, then attempt again on the fourth, then skip three again, etc. So if it takes longer than the two months, you want us to do e4d from AF, then once opk positive have one attempt even if it's before 72hrs and resume with e4d?

Regarding the lube, the ones I listed aren't considered "harsh", correct? If I don't have a lot of cm, would a smidge of preseed or any of these be helpful for conceiving, but not sway boy?

Ideally we'd conceive within the next six months (including this month) due to my husband's work demands.


Edited to add: we had an attempt this morning 9am, cd19. My opk was negative last night and at 3pm this afternoon. Just had an obviously positive opk at 640pm. Our attempt this morning okay, or would you say try again tonight/tomorrow since just received positive opk a full half day after attempt? (My kit says 24-48 hours will be ovulation.)

[atomic sagebrush]

"e4d" just means the idea of having regular unprotected attempts far enough out so they qualify as one attempt (about every 4 days). Most people do this in the "every 72 hour" pattern meaning 1 (attempt) 2 (skip) 3 (skip) 4 attempt but some stretch this to "every 96" instead. There is nothing special about the number of hours, that is just how you count the days. I want you to have your next attempt CD 19 and it does not matter what time of day it is.

RE e4d plus one, yes exactly. Have the e4d pattern going (and don't deviate from it) then have an additional attempt at pos OPK whenever that may fall. But KEEP GOING with the e4d even after that. Don't start a new pattern based on the pos OPK attempt, just carry on with the e4d 7you were already doing.

The lubes you listed would kill sperm. (even saliva kills sperm) I don't know if that's how you're defining harsh, but they aren't made to allow sperm to swim through. Only lubes marked "conception safe, sperm friendly" (or vice versa, sperm safe, conception friendly) are not going to kill sperm. To start with, use those lubes and see if you can get pregnant. If not, then we'll switch to a small amount of Preseed or similar product.

I would have your next attempt CD 22. I wouldn't add the pos OPK attempt yet.

[MommaW]

Thank you for clearing that up, I'm much less confused by the "e4d" term!

I know they say fertility is best when you're eating a nutritious diet and that improves implantation odds as well. Do you feel the LE diet isn't as beneficial for implantation, perhaps makes it harder, or am I just overthinking this like everything else, lol.

[atomic sagebrush]

We have the same amount of time to conception as people who are not swaying - about 3 months. So no, I don't think LE Diet harms chances of implantation in any way.

the LE Diet is still normal range of nutrient intake as recommended by reproductive endocrinologists and the World Health Organization. It is a balanced diet and safe for women in childbearing age, it's just the lower range of normal. So I do not think it's an unsafe diet in any way (and if I did, trust me, I'd not be recommending it. )

[MommaW]

I'm so confused. Today is cd22, and tonight I got another positive opk. I'm attaching my opk stats from the past week. I'd love any insight. Screenshot_20200915-192318.jpg

[atomic sagebrush]

I can't see the pic very clearly, but there are two things that could be happening. One is that the first positive oPK was a false positive and you're now about to ovulate. BUT it can also be that you ovulated already and this positive OPK is indicating the secondary estrogen surge - which is when your body releases a burst of estrogen (very similar hormonal profile to ovulation) to maintain the uterine lining a bit longer to give a fertilized egg time to implant. So sometimes people end up getting a pos OPK at that point in time, about a week after they'd actually ovulated.

Have attempt just to hedge your best and then see what happens!!