One attempt advice

After some advice please! (Again!!)

It’s my ovulation week, my online calculators say I should ovulate on Sunday. We had 1 attempt on Wednesday when I had my first flashing smiley face on clear blue ovulation test, I’m now worrying this was too early! I’ve tested again today & it’s still a flashing smiley. I think I got so excited seeing a smiley face I forgot you’re meant to wait for a solid before DTD.

We’re swaying pink & I was keen to keep to 1 attempt, but should I add in another to up the chances of conception? If so..which day would be more pink friendly, as I know frequency sways blue!


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Yes, you need to have another attempt. That previous attempt won't count because the fertile window really wasn't open then. (I can explain more about the fertile window and why the tests start flashing when they do if you'd like)

While the tests are designed to give 2 flashies and then 2 solids, the truth is that many people have many days of flashy before peak, and less often but still fairly often, people go straight to peak with NO flashies at all. The reason why we time our attempt at the first peak is that's the best day for conception most months for most people and it's just easier than guessing at flashies (when you may get lots of flashies or none!)

The online apps are really not that good at pinning down ovulation. I would wait for the first solid smiley and attempt then.

Thank you so much!

So would this now count as two attempts, or if I leave enough days in between would that still be one attempt as its only one in the true fertile window? If that makes sense!!

Or am I better to wait for next month? I did one attempt when I conceived my daughter so keen to stick with that! Thanks so much this site & you are so so helpful!


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It's one attempt. Those sperm are dead and gone already. Not only do they just not live that long, the earlier you are prior to O, the shorter time they live - if you're not fertile they die very quickly.

PLEASE don't wait, there's no reason to. This is still one attempt.

I’m so sorry to keep asking questions! So it doesn’t matter which day we now dtd? Even though I was in high fertility when we DTD according to the ovulation tests?

Guessing I should wait for the full solid this time? Or is any day ok from now? The first flashing smiley was on Wednesday.

Thank you so much for your patience! [emoji846]


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If you expect to ovulate Sunday, and had an attempt Wednesday, that's at minimum 4, even 5 days before O - IF you ovulate on time. We have seen pretty lousy odds of conception with even 3 days before O (lousy by which I mean thousands of people over the past 10 years, going years trying with 3 day cutoffs, without conceiving) A very good study found that the odds of conception 4 days before ovulation is 1 in 1000, and 5 days before is 1 in 10,000. So while it's not impossible to conceive with a very long attempt before ovulation (and of course early O is also possible), the odds will be very slim.

We consider attempts as attempts ONLY if they're O-3, O-2, O-1 and O Day. Outside of that window we don't count as attempts. "High" fertility is a bit of a misnomer, it really doesn't mean what people think it means (which tends to be "if you have sex right now you have a high chance of conceiving with THIS attempt). It's more like "if you have sex now, there's a high chance you're getting close enough to ovulation to possibly make this worth your while". The OPK weren't designed for, and weren't intended to be, used in gender swaying - either for timing or one attempt. They're meant to help people get pregnant, and so by "high" they are basically saying "ok it's go time, start having a lot of sex NOW and keep going!" For THOSE people, just trying to get pregnant, starting to have sex to conceive at "high" is good, and that way if they somehow miss the peak with their OPK or get a false negative, they're still having sex, because they started going for it at "high". For our purposes, if you can only do one attempt, peak is the time to have that attempt as it's going to be 1-2 days before O, which is the best chance of conception with one attempt, if that makes sense.

The fact that you're still having flashy smileys indicates to me that you are not going to O early and so it's imperative you have another attempt, or this cycle will very probably be a wash, with no chance of conceiving.