LE Standard or PCOS?

First let's talk about the bleeding - I agree with your doctor that's from irritation caused by the cyst and not implantation. We hardly ever see real implantation bleeding, it is nearly always from something around the cervix or the VJ. The increased bleeding after the doctor's visit indicates that it was something vaginal that was aggravated in the exam and then resolved over time. I really do not believe that this had anything to do with the Clomid (though Clomid can cause midcycle spotting, I don't think that's what was happening here.)

I suspect based on temps your period will come later today or tomorrow. It is also possible that your temp today is a one off, and you might see it go back up, but I agree we shoudl be seeing positive tests in that case. It is also possible that you actually have only just now ovulated and youll see a big rise tomorrow that makes the last rise look like small potatoes. We sometimes see this sort of "stairstep" pattern where people think they ovulated but didn't, and then they'll have another dip (which makes them think AF is on the rise) and then another rise and it's only after 2 or even 3 of these "steps" that we see ovulation has actually happened. (my money is on AF coming, though).

Yes, your weight can absolutely be a problem. The Clomid may be keeping you ovulating even at too low a weight. You MUST eat more to stop losing weight. Meat is not a good way to keep weight on as it's pretty low cal and high protein, so you quickly go over on protein and have eaten barely any cals. I would advise you to choose other options instead of meat to add nutrients - things with both protein and calories like beans, nuts, grains, and dairy foods are going to be more cals for less protein.

We were only doing the alternate diet as a preemptive strike, so if you need to increase calories to compensate for that please do so. Would I load up on sugar? No, but there are many many foods you could eat instead of a bunch of sugar and white carbs to keep weight on.

Omg omg i think i got a suuuuuuper faint line this morning. My temp is still low this morning so I thought af is def on the way but when i checked my cervix it is still super high and tightly closed so i thought why not test again. It came up within minutes. My jaws dropped literally. This is about the same color I got 8dpo with my son and now i am 14dpo with out of the norm bbt…mixed feeling now super thrilled to the idea of “maybe i am actually pregnant” but more scared and worried. I have sent the pic to my dr and she asked me to go for a follow up checkup on sunday. I guess we will know for sure by then!! Praying for a sticky bean…

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We have had a lot of very faint positives that are actually negatives over the past couple years. I think they changed something about the process of making the tests to make negatives have these darn ghost lines. I'm hoping it darkens up, but unless you ovulated later than you think I would not have much expectation that you're actually pregnant this month. FXFXFX!

I think you are right. I started bleeding mid morning and I believe period is on the way. I never got any sort of indent or evap line on this before and I got these lines on two tests! These false positives are cruel. But I knew down there that something is not right because the temp is off. At least no more guessing and waiting here. Was super devastated but now ready to move on.

I need to get my weight up i think it really is a problem. I’ll try to eat more brown rice and dairy and stay away from sugar and white carbs as much as possible. I did pretty well last month but it was my son's bday last week so I did have quite some junk food and cakes after ovulation...will do my best! I have clomid for another cycle left, do you think i should use it or take a break and try without it? I didn't experience much side effects from clomid last month and since my lining looks ok, I am comfortable to take it again but would like to hear what you think?

There is nothing else I can do or change right? Just try to gain some weight at least back to bmi 18.5 and continue what I am doing: the ed4+1, coffee, alcohol, folic acid 1600mcg and 6x cardio/week?

Because your weight is so low you have more leeway with the sugar and white carbs than if you were heavier. Your body actually can handle them better. So if you need those things now and then to help keep weight on that's fine. I just don't want you to do a 180 and start stuffing yourself with gummy worms or whatever (I have seen so many people do this, and it is a mistake.)

Yes it appears to be happenign across several different brands and in some cases, these faint seeming-positives have gone on for weeks. For now, it's best for everyone to wait till there is a CLEAR positive and not go off faint lines because something is up with the tests.

I'm fine with you taking Clomid if you'd like, just want to be sure you're having 50-60 g fat a day (not counting pro and fat in fruit and veg) and also not taking fiber.

You may want to cut back on exercise to five days a week.

Ok great to hear! I don't eat candies or have sugary drinks anyway so that's a lot easier to follow. My sugar and white carbs usually come from occasional cakes, bread, pasta, noodle, pizza that sort of stuff. We don’t have much options with whole grain so occasionally i would have those. I tried to put my "base meal plan" in my fitness pal to see how much i've been eating and i am actually eating quite alot. Not counting fruit and veggies, I am eating about 55g protein and 62g of fat and with fruit and veg its about 58g protein and 65g fat. Approximately 1700cal a day at least, if my weight is dropping I eat more on top of that. Here is what my day usually looks like

breakfast at 7-8am : whole grain bread with peanut butter + 2 egg whites (sometimes whole egg) with a slice of cheese + 1 portion of fruit
lunch at 11 and dinner before 6pm: 1/2 cup of brown rice, lots of veggies with green peas, small portion of chicken or fish, greek yoghurt with frozen berries, 1 portion of fruit

2-3 cups of coffee with almond milk and a glass of wine before bed. Does that look OK? Should I switch my almond milk to 2 cups of whole fat milk for more nutrition and calories? I used to drink quite a lot of milk but I have cut it out entirely since I started the diet in July. I am not sure how the hormones in the fresh milk impact swaying, or is it ok within limit?

:agree: will cut down exercise to 5 days and will take my last cycle of Clomid day 3-7. My temp is low like last few days and bleeding like normal period with clots yet i still got 2 pos tests in the afternoon. It is unbelievable!!!

And another question, can too much alcohol and coffee be a problem? and how much would be too much? Before I started diet, I drank at most 1 cup of coffee a day and rarely any alcohol. Now 3 cups of coffee and 1-2 glasses wine/shot of rum. This is still within safe limits right?

:agree: occasionally all that stuff is fine for you.

I am slightly confused where all the fat is coming from but I'll assume it's portion sizes and cooking fats.

Let's go to whole eggs 4-6 per week and one serving of full fat dairy daily above and beyond what you're having. You can compensate by dropping the almond milk if you like or just add it on the top of it. This will probably bump up your fat intake over the limits but it seems to me that you need an extra bit of fat. You may want to cut portion size somewhat on the peanut butter and then whatever cooking fats you're using to compensate. Something about the type of fat in milk and eggs is really good at boosting fertility.

All that having been said do use your judgement here and aim at small, gradual changes rather than now adding in a LOT of white carbs plus all the extra fat without compensating for it elsewhere. You do still want to aim at the general ballpark of 60-65 g fat even with the whole eggs and the full fat dairy, so you will prbably need to make slight cutbacks elsewhere so you don't go too far the other direction.

Milk and other dairy is fine within limits. The most important thing is the limits, but some people just have higher needs for fat and calories than others do and so in those cases we need to move beyond the limits (slightly!) to keep things working as they should be.

I was surprised too...here is the breakdown of the 60+ grams of fat

1tbsp olive oil 13.5g fat (for cooking so just estimation)
200g greek yoghurt 18g fat
30g 1 slice of cheese 11g fat
1tbsp unsweetened peanut butter 16g
80g chicken thigh/fish 3g
600ml almond milk 6g

That's about 50g of protein. If I add whole eggs and milk the fat will shoot up to 80g of fat and 63g of protein so I think i'll drop almond milk entirely, cut out PB when I am having the whole egg and cut down the portion size of PB on the days when I have egg whites only. That will give me about 65g of fat and 55g of protein per day, sounds good?

We are in the middle of raining season now so hubby cannot cycle as often or even not at all. Abit sad that we can't have this strong sway factor but I am not stressing too much since there is nothing I can do and hopefully it will give us a bit more healthy sperms to conceive.

Those false positives really hit me hard. At one point I just wanted to give up everything and go back to what I normally do just to get pregnant. Now I have a clearer direction as to how to continue I will pull myself together and try my best. Thank you for your support as always, couldn't have done it without you.

Ok, what are you using to determine these fat intakes? Because something about this is not adding up. I went to my cupboard and got out the similar products and here's what I have, the measurements are ballpark based on the package but are close enough so we can see your nutrient data is VERY skewed and you are probably not getting anywhere near that much fat:

Olive oil - same, but do be aware that this could be something to cut back on without compromising much, if you need to get less fat from someplace you can use half that amount in most cases
greek yogurt- 170 g greek yogurt only has 6 g of fat, if yours really has that much try a different brand
1 28 g slice of cheese - 9 g fat
1 T peanut butter, I have two different brands here and both of them have only 8 g fat per T
I don't have chicken or fish with nutrient data on it

I suspect you have more fat to work with than you think. If you're using My fitness Pal to track your nutrients instead of what is on the package then I think you're getting some sort of misinformation on the results in the app. (Like, possibly you're using the 2T peanut butter serving data when you're having only 1 T that sort of thing)

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I looked for the exact products and they match the nutrition facts on the label. These are the data for my yoghurt, cheese and peanut butter. You are right about PB I got the unit wrong! So 1Tbsp is about 22g and thats about 12g fat instead of 16g. But the other two looks right? or maybe these types got higher fat content? I am confused too. Should I then add more fat? like putting butter on my bread and keep my PB portion on top of adding the milk and the whole eggs?

If that's really what is on the label, then I trust it. I know there are a couple brands of the Greek yogurt that seem "denser" than others so you might want to look into some other ones, and the same with cheese, to see if there's one where you can pick up a few grams of fat here and a few there to give you some wiggle room.

Or, if you like those particular products stick with them and then just up the fat intake slightly, but I'd not go beyond 65 g.

Ok I will monitor my fat intake and make sure it hits 60-65g a day.

Something totally irrelevant...and not sure if I can post the question here. Last night the idea of going HT popped up in my mind. When I started swaying I was told that PGD is not available here and so I thought I'd do my best to sway naturally. Then yesterday I was quite down and I thought I'd ask myself. They said that they can do the IVF procedure here but not the PGD, so they would need to send the frozen embryo to another city for PGD. Have you heard of this kind of procedure? Does it have good success rate? I am not convinced that I need to go down that road yet but I also don't know if I get another girl would I regret the rest of my life not doing HT.

Yes of course you can ask that here - we don't worry too much about where people post.

My thinking is, if HT is an option, do it sooner rather than later. Too many people decide to sway, end up with an opposite, then do IVF. It's better to just do IVF because odds of success depend so dramatically on age.

Now, as for sending the embryo to a different city to test, I do think people do that sometimes. I can't say about the success rates, if you're in the US you should check the SART website and they'll have more info about the various clinics.

The truth is, I have almost no confidence in my sway now...apart from my super low weight everything else looks more and more like how I got my boys. I know there is no way to tell whether a sway is good or not and I know these are the necessary changes to get pregnant but after knowing that HT is perhaps an option, I think I went from ok with another boy to I really just want a girl because there is a way to get one, if you know what I mean…

At the moment I am looking into the cost and browsing the HT board to learn more about the and will talk to hubby later to see if he is open to the idea. We don't have options here as there is only 1 IVF clinic here locally. It is a national one but I have no clue how good they are and with covid traveling abroad is out of the question. What if they cannot yield good embryos...what if the embryos are damaged during the transportation...what if we don't get any female embryos at all...a lot of question marks and concerns that I don't know where to begin. I guess I'll talk to hubby first and if he is onboard I will ask around for more info.

As to this cycle, I think I will give it one last shot since I started taking clomid already. The one thing that I am having a hard time to decide is whether I should do the more girl friendly e4d or the more pregnant friendly e4d+1. I am leaning towards e4d+1 since we have not decided whether we will do ivf? So hard.

What you need to understand about swaying though is that a) what you DON'T see is bigger than what you do see, and this misleads people into feeling like they're not doing anything when they're in fact doing a lot, and b) you don't know why you got boys in the first place. It very well may have been the case that you got boys when you were fairly likely to get girls - imagine a 60-40 breakdown - and then you just fell into the 40% range. Or maybe it was 50-50, or even 40-60%. (This is, of course, the range where most people naturally fall anyway, which is why most people have both boys and girls without thinking about it, without even making any obvious changes.) This doesn't mean you should then take everything to the absolute limit because then we'll see you unable to conceive. It is entirely, entirely likely that you were pretty pink-friendly

(some of us have boy after boy for 20+ years - WE are more set for boys. A person who has two boys in two years doesn't know that they are set for boys or for girls, and if their lifestyle is already quite pink friendly then it may be that small changes are truly all that's needed!)

What we need to do is look at what has worked for most people, most of the time, and do that. You have gone too far in terms of weight loss and so we need to turn the dial back a little the opposite direction, but doing that doesn't make you immediately blue friendly. There is a LOT of wiggle room between being unable to conceive due to low weight and swaying blue. Try to keep in mind that this is what I have everyone do, 60-65 g fat is still very much in the range of what I consider a fine LE Diet, and if I saw people getting boys doing what I'm suggesting you do, I wouldn't be suggesting it. (The truth is, I see far more people who insist on staying uberstrict on diet getting boys, because they are invariably such control freaks, and also because when they don't up protein and fat intake, they end up eating gobs of carbs instead which can raise their blood sugar over the course of time).

But yes, absolutely as long as IVF is an option do look into that. I agree that there are some very serious logistical issues doing IVF in the time of Covid (and honestly, even NOT in the time of Covid - IVF is a grueling process that requires a lot of scheduling and micromanaging of lots of details)

I would talk to your husband first. If he is on board, you may want to do e4d again because there's a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of not conceiving and you'd probably want to have the best chance of a girl. If not, go to e4d plus one.

I think I understand what you are trying to say. The fact that I am always full, never starving and eating a good portion of healthy food and yet still loosing weight should indicate that at least something has changed in my body. I added back of things to help me to conceive so I am alot alot alot more laid back towards the whole diet thing and that makes me a little nervous. But maybe that's good a thing in the end because I don't sweat the small stuff anymore. I think we will still aim at getting pregnant this month because this will be my absolute last cycle of Clomid and we don't know what the future will look like with covid. From what you have said, I think my sway is not that bad and deserves a shot after all these months of hard work.

My doctor suggested me to take a supplement called OVACARE to boost my fertility 1 tab a day. What do you think? Do I need it and does it sway blue?

Inositol (Myo-Inositol) 100mg
Para Aminobenzoic Acid (PABA) 12.5mg
Vitamin E (Acetate) 12.5mg
Elemental Zinc – 10mg
Elemental Iron – 9mg
Vitamin B1 Nitrate – 5mg
Vitamin B6 – 5mg
Vitamin B2– 2.5mg
Elemental Manganese – 1.5mg
Elemental Copper – 750mcg
Vitamin B12– 500mcg
Vitamin A -375mcg (1250 I.U.)
Elemental Selenium – 100mcg
Elemental Chromium – 50mcg
Elemental Iodine – 50mcg
Vitamin D3 – 12.5mcg (500 I.U.)

Please do not take that supplement. You do not need it and it absolutely may sway blue. Additionally, those have a MASSIVE dose of B vitamins in them and too many B Vitamins can delay or even stop ovulation, in addition to drastically shortening LP.

Doctors throw these things at people because it is easy for them. They let you think they're doing something but what they're doing is worse than nothing. If you think you're depleted in nutrients I have ways to boost your nutrient intake without affecting your sway or your cycle, so just let me know.

And if you're NOT understanding what I'm saying, please ask me to clarify. I am happy to do that, but I'm not sure if you are understanding or you're not.

:agree: i didn’t think i needed those but i had to ask to make sure. I think i am ok for now, still a bit nervous from the uncertain nature of swaying but nothing like before when i was entirely consumed by self doubt. CD 7 today will keep you updated hopefully with a BFP :luck:

Quick question...can I do femara after clomid if I don't conceive this month? I am battling between doing e4d or e4d +1 at pos OPK because hubby is not cycling and I am adding more fat through eggs and milk, maybe I will have a better chance to conceive with e4d this month? But this is my last month on Clomid so I should do my best to conceive while medicated? Or should I just flip a coin :worry:

I am at CD10 and we had 1 bd on CD8 and will do another one tomorrow on CD11. I think I will ovulate sometime next week.

You'd need to take at least a month off.

Yes, just flip a coin. This is just one of those things I can't know for sure and I have to leave the ball in your court.

Just did and coin says e4d only :nails: i guess then ill stop using the opk since it’s of no benefit right? and continue e4d until O confirmed with Bbt and will stop temping after that too. If this month is not successful then will continue e4d on the break month then see what happens. Sounds like a good plan?

Yes, sounds like a good plan!

Whether to keep using the OPK is up to you. Some people like to use them anyway as it gives them more information about when O may come. But you're right, you don't need them.

I went to pick up the lab result today and I did have both yeast infection and bacterial vaginosis last cycle right after I ovulated. They did go away on their own after a week or two but I wonder what might be the cause? I didn't do anything out of the norm...hormonal?

Anyway, since I went in I asked for a scan and since I wasn't doing OPK I was totally caught by surprise that I have a dominant follicle around 22-24mm (CD12) and will probably ovulate in a day or two. We had our e4d on CD8 and CD11, so our next attempt will be on CD14.

If I ovulate on CD13, then I guess the CD11 can cover? But if I ovulate on CD14, will the batch from CD11 still be viable? If not, would we still have a chance with the batch from CD14 (at night)? If I ovulate later then that then CD14 should cover, I am just abit concerned with the O-3 and O case since yesterday (CD11) was only semi fertile (if that's a thing)? Watery CM and semi open cervix but I did not get up after the attempt just went to sleep. Today there is lots of EWCM and cervix for sure is open. Hubby only cycled 1x this cycle so his sperm should be healthier?

It is very common to have outbreaks of yeast and BV at that point in the cycle. In fact many people will have a flare of these things several times a year, and it is possible to have mild flares without having realized it in the past. There's no "cause" the way you're thinking of it. These little organisms live inside of us all the time and it's only when they overgrow that they cause problems. After having ovulated, your pH is high, and additionally if you've been having sex that can make your pH higher too, and it simply makes it more likely that you have an overgrowth of things that are there all the time. Extremely common.

Yes you can be covered still from the CD 11 attempt on CD 14, and also you can still have a chance from the CD 14 attempt. That;s the way the e4d works - if there's anything left from the earlier attempt, it will have fertilized the egg before the later attempt can capacitate, and if there isn't, then the later attempt can have a chance.

You can't tell how fertile you are based on those things. Tons of people myself included have conceived with NO visible CM and not even knowing they'd ovulated. So don't read anything into that.

If you want better odds of conception just add an attempt (I'd have you do it today but that's your call). Don't sit around debating with yourself. Either add the attempt or stick with the pattern. Don't try to jockey the attempt around, don't spend any more time thinking about it than you already have done. Just add an attempt or don't, without endless amounts of mental debate about the pros and the cons.

Thank you for clarifying, makes sense to me! So there is nothing I can do to prevent yeast infection or BV?

I’ve decided to stick to e4d this cycle and that’s why I didn’t want to do OPK to complicate things and maybe I shouldn’t have gone in for a scan but I cannot resist to take a peek how my eggs are doing lol. But good to know that there is still a chance even if the attempts fall on O-3 and O. Good news is that lining still looks great with the triple lines and maybe I am ovulating this month earlier because my body is responding to the diet changes I am making? I want to give the girl friendly pattern a few more tries before moving on to adding attempt.

My cycle 1&2 on clomid had been suffering but 3&4 super comfortable. Maybe my body is immune to it in a good way. So I can do probably a few more medicated cycles after the break as long as my body can tolerate. Thank you again :awe:

Certainly there are things you can do to lower your chances of getting yeast or BV flares (like eating garlic, taking probiotics, cutting back on sugar and white carbs, avoiding homemade bread for a while, wearing only all cotton underwear that is washed in hot water, sleeping overnight without any undies or pants on, avoiding thong underwear, tight pants and pantyhose/stockings, being very careful about cleanliness with sex toys and also using lubes that do not cause any irritation, that sort of thing. you can even use a condom with sex, but obviously that's not going to help TTC!!)

But that is not the same thing as "a lack of garlic is the CAUSE of yeast" or whatever because plenty of people don't eat garlic and don't get yeast, and plenty of people do everything "right" and still get BV (and the same is true for all the other things I mentioned above). The CAUSE is overgrowth of fungi and bacteria, and sometimes the overgrowth of one can trigger the overgrowth of the other, since the vaginal environment changes as a result of the overgrowth.

Great news on the lining!! I can't speculate about the other stuff, just that things are looking great and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Thanks for the info! I am not doing the no no things apart from eating lots of home made bread because that's the only way I know it's really whole grain but I had been doing that for years so I don't think that's the cause (why does this cause flare up though?), maybe just bad months. But because I had some sort of flare ups two months in a row right around ovulation we couldn't carry on e4d after O.

I had terrible cramps and bloating and backache since yesterday afternoon and temp dipped today so FX that O will happen today on time and our attempt tonight will catch the egg!!

Diet wise I have gained back the lost weight and now being held steady at bmi 18.5 after the few tweaks on diet and reducing ex by a day without needing a lot of extra sugar and white carbs so I am really happy about that! And since I am so full all day long I have to shorten my overnight fasting more to 12 hours so I have more time between meals to have some appetite. Will keep you updated :cheer:

The reason why homemade breads can cause yeast is because not all the yeast is killed in the guts, and so it can grow coming from your bowel area and colonize your VJ(while this sounds terrible, this is not unusual or even a bad thing). It's not a sure thing as you point out, you've had homemade bread in the past, but just something that can act as an encouragement for yeast overgrowth.

As long as you're sure you have ovulated you don't need to continue after O. Some people think they Oed when they didn't which is why we do it that way.

Interesting to know! Temp spiked this morning by 0.4c so I guess O happened on time and now into the tww!

Wishing you a jolly Christmas and may your heart and home be filled with all the joy this festive season brings!

Thank you so very much!! I wish you all the same, and a wonderful 2022!!

Hi Atomic...need your insights please because I am driving myself crazy! As you may have read from my other post, I got a ghost line 10dpo, then neg HPT 11-13dpo. Temp also dropping slightly day by day but still 0.2c above coverline but with the trend and neg tests I think my period should show up soon today or tomorrow.

What confuses me is that I used OPK from 11dpo after I got a neg hpt because I know sometimes they can pick up hcg when it’s too low to be detected by HPT and surprise surprise I got almost as dark 11-12dpo and as dark today on 13dpo. It doesn’t make sense to me that the positive is from hcg because last time with DS2 when I got pos opk my hpt tests were quite dark and yet today I only got stark white neg. Then I started wondering if I actually ovulated? Or is it from another surge before period? I know only time will tell but I can’t stop wondering what is going on

Here is my chart and my pos OPK from today

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First off, you have it backwards with the OPK. They CANNOT detect HCG prior to a pregnancy test and anyone saying they do is spreading misinformation. While OPK can detect a pregnancy, it is only after an actual pregnancy test would have given you a positive. There is NO POINT to using OPK for a pregnancy test unless you have missed a period already and are out of pregnancy tests. Pregnancy tests are the only thing to use during the 2WW because OPK are not reliable.

The reason why OPK are not reliable during this time is because it is very common to get a false positive OPK around the secondary estrogen surge (6-8 DPO) and also a false positive just prior to AF coming. and even more common than a false positive is a very dark test that doesn't go fully pos at this time. So all you've done is detected that rise in hormones that occurs just before AF arrives and have gotten upset over something that was based in bad information.

Or, think of it this way - if OPK worked better than pregnancy tests, what would the point of pregnancy tests even be? Wouldn't they just sell one test for both functions? But they don't, because it does not work to do that, and whoever told you otherwise was sadly mistaken.

If your pregnancy test is negative the odds are all but 100% that you aren't pregnant, unless you ovulated later than you thought you did. Looking at your chart, it does seem possible to me that you ovulated later because we still see a bit of lower temps and then a much bigger and more consistent rise later.

I will say this, though, looking at your chart (and forgive me if we've already talked about this but it's important) you need to continue with BD after you think you've ovulated. I'm assuming where you have marked "PM" is where you had sex (and not the # mark??) but if so, you went a long time without having an attempt. If ovulation took place later you were not covered for a full week with no attempts. One of the main reasons we do e4d is to guard against delayed O, and it doesn't work if you stop having attempts.

Now, it may be something happened, hubby had to leave for work or something like that, I will go back and reread this thread, but I just wanted to mention that before I did as that jumps out to me - both the delayed rise and the lack of attempts.

I'm assuming that the lack of attempts the week after O was due to the disruption in your vaginal flora this month, but in future if at all possible I would continue with attempts after O.

Temp dropped and got my period this morning. 13 days LP just a day longer than my usual LP so my O can’t be later than a day or two? And I thought my last attempt would have covered that but I might be wrong.

Yes we couldn’t have attempts post O for the last three cycles because every month a day or two after O my bartholin gland swell up. It is partially blocked but my doc says surgery is not needed as long as it can shrink on its own. That’s why we couldn’t have sex for a long time because it usually goes away entirely only right before my period arrives. This time we tried having sex when it didn’t pain but still there i started to bleed. So I don’t know what to do about that too…

My weight is steady I have gained abit over the holidays. We were travelling so I was off diet for about a week. I will take a break from clomid and do e4d and try to continue post o. I am just upset and defeated and I think ive tried my best but I just don’t know what else can i do or not do anymore.

Yea I understand now, pregnancy can cause positive OPK but positive OPK doesn't always mean pregnancy. I only had 1 experience with my last son when I got the ghost line at 8DPO (too early i know...) and took an OPK to see if that was really a line or was i hallucinating and got an pos opk. This time I used it for the same reason and was happy that I saw a positive too with the ghost line. Then when I got neg preg test I thought maybe the level wasn't high enough or the urine was too diluted. Then after a few days of neg tests I knew I was out but just clutching at straws. Temp dropped further this morning and period came right on time.

We couldn't continue BD post O (for the past 3 months when I was doing e4d and e4d+1) because my bartholin gland always flare up a day or two post ovulation. The lump makes it uncomfortable while walking and sitting and very painful to have sex. My doctor said it's partially blocked but surgery is not needed as long as the cyst can shrink on its own. With that being said, if it recurs every month after O there is no way for me to guard against later ovulation. This cycle my LP is 13 days so just a day longer than my normal 12 days LP, does it mean even if I ovulated later it can't be more than a day or two, and my last attempt should have covered that? I might be wrong.

So this is my 5th month attempting and 6 full months on diet. We were travelling in the last week and I was entirely off diet, only tried to eat less meat but eating normally otherwise. I gained about half kilo so now my bmi is at a healthier range 18.5-18.7. I will continue to do e4d and try to keep the attempt longer. Coffee & alcohol & exercise. I will take a break from Clomid as well. Can Clomid reduce my chance of conceiving in anyway? What else should I do/not do?

Yes since your period arrived on time then it's more likely you Oed when you thought.

Oh gosh yes that is a complication, but the good news is since you did ovulate when you thought it doesn't matter anyway. It just wasn't the month unfortunately. If you wanted we could talk about doing "turkey baster method" in the 2WW in an e4d pattern.

I get that you understand, just to stave off any confusion for anyone else who still thinks that can work, the positive OPK with your son wasn't caused by pregnancy, it was just from hormones rising 6-8 DPO. You can't get a legit pregnancy-caused positive OPK usually till 14 DPO at the soonest.

What we can do is go to e4d plus one more attempt at positive OPK if you're ready to do that. I don't want you causing yourself injury having attempts past when you are able so we'll just give that a try.

Clomid can cause lowered odds of conception over time but as long as you take a month off the effects are mitigated.

Yea...it's no biggie but just really annoying and unfortunately I think it might be hormonal since it kept recurring at the same time in my cycle. Fortunately, judging from my LP I think I ovulated pretty much on time after pos OPK.

Can you tell me more about the turkey baster method? It is at home artificial insemination right?

Last month my hubby only cycled 2x but they were right before our attempts in my fertile window. Do you thing that could lower the sperm count too much? Should I stop him from cycling entirely or at least not right before our attempts? Should we do that before adding in attempts?

I will definitely not use OPK during the TWW now knowing for sure that I can get positive preg or not...and I will try to test only after missed period. I still couldn't believe that I got ghost lines two times in a row. Seeing a line then gone was much more heartbreaking than seeing stark white negatives :sad:

I have an article about the turkey baster method here (and ignore the warnings, I was trying to stop people from using it as a sway tactic, not for general conception. It can be a good technique if people have some physical barrier that prevents conception)

https://www.genderdreaming.com/forum...+baster+method

I ~doubt~ that cycling twice did any real harm. If you can get him to skip it, that's fine, but many times men just need to do their "stuff" in order to keep going with swaying and TTC.

Regardless, I think it's time for you to add an attempt. I feel the frustration coming through, and to my way of thinking that means it's time to make some adjustments to boost chances of conception. You don't HAVE to, but it's just what I would do on your behalf at this point.