Delayed ovulation

[Chocolatina]

Hi, I’ve started with my opk this month planning my first attempt, however my ovulation is delayed/missing. I’ve been on the LE diet for 3 1/2 months, vegetarian, I always tried to have at least 50 g of fat daily. I am nursing my 16 month toddler once a day. After the birth I got my period back 4 months ago, so yesterday should have been my fifth ovulation. My period has always been regular (despite the scarce nursing) and I feel the ovulation with terrible cramps and recognisable change of CM, I haven’t had them yet and my opk are all negative. Could I have messed up my period somehow? I eat twice a day with 1500-1800 cals of daily intake. I believe I haven’t caused any delays with my diet as it has been pretty much the same since before my period recovered after the pregnancy and intensive nursing. The only thing that changed this month is that I started taking fibre as the mildest laxative possible for digestion problems, I had psylium for about 2 weeks. I’ve had it many times in the past for long periods, it has never affected my period, though. My cardio consists of 60-70 mins of brisk walking. Since May I lost a total of 9 kilograms, 6 of them with the LE diet, my last month I attempted to stay at 57 kilograms exactly in order not to mess my period up. Any ideas what can I do?

[atomic sagebrush]

Psyllium can absorb fat very easily so I would suspect it may be related to that, but then again the diet can have a cumulative effect - you can roll along ok for a while but eventually your body starts to notice the lack of food coming in.

Let's go ahead and boost fat up to 60 g (just add in a serving of full fat dairy daily) and then cut out the psyllium. if you need a laxative, try Miralax instead.

No more weight loss till we get this sorted out!

[Chocolatina]

I already cut the psyllium, of course, I will up the fat intake. I am concerned that I may have lost my period altogether, is there a chance for that? Or is the ovulation going to be just delayed... of course, only a doctor can say for sure, but from your experience? I lost my period once in my youth due to a very harsh diet and I am stressed it might have happened again but I really cannot compare my eating back then with now. Now I eat 90% if how I usually eat so I really do believe it can’t have been dieting... ugh I am so frustrated
Edit- I still have no traces of incoming ovulation and my husband’s pushing me to drop everything... I am pretty sure I am eating enough, the change is skipping the meat which I didn’t like and eat much anyway... I am not willing to even try for a third child if I haven’t given it a chance for a girl after two boys. Is there any chance to get back my ovulation while swaying or should I leave 4 months of efforts behind and go boy-friendly? Is there any chance for a period without an ovulation? I have no idea what to do

[atomic sagebrush]

Sorry, I should have said "cut it out indefinitely". I know you dropped it for now but you'd be surprised how many people start back on things after something like this happens.

You won't lose your period indefinitely if the issue stems from diet. We will fix diet WITHOUT SWAYING BLUE and it will come back again. In most cases, ovulation even in the month that it comes late, still comes. It's somewhat unusual, not impossible, that you'd have an anovulatory cycle where no egg is released and then have a bleed (not a period but a bleed when estrogen drops) and then that acts like a reset and you'll have a normal, or more normal period. So yes, to answer your question, you can have a "period" without ovulating, but it's more likely your ovulation will just happen later.

DO NOT go off diet now. What we need to do is make small changes over time without going full HE Diet and then what that accomplishes is to gradually turn the dial back in the "fertile" direction just enough, so you'll be ovulating but still in the pink zone.

Above all else, don't worry! This happens sometimes and I have helped I'm sure into the thousands of people by now correct for this. It's not any cause for concern I promise.

[Chocolatina]

So today is the 18-th day from the 1-st day of my last period and the ovulation prediction strips are as negative as they come, no second line at all which means no ovulation within the next several days. My ovulation is pretty sharp at 14 days each month, period at 27, so unfortunately I don’t see how ovulation will happen from now on... I won’t take any fiber until after I get pregnant, that’s for sure. But what do I do now- I start eating 60 grams of fat every day, that’s all? No other changes? Will this get me an ovulation next month? What should I expect now- the “period” and regular ovulation after (keep my fingers crossed)? How does it usually go, you said you had many similar cases that were fixed? Do I stop breastfeeding since it is only once daily in case the prolactin interjected the ovulation (it did not happen before, though, 4 months of absolutely punctual ovulation with breastfeeding).

[atomic sagebrush]

Wait, you're only on CD 18?? That is still in normal range! Gosh I thought you were way overdue. Please try not to worry about that. Even ovulating as late as CD 21 is considered normal and up to CD 35 O is something we see frequently (even without swaying). While I know it sucks to have a delayed O it's really not worth worrying about.

You can and in the vast majority of cases WILL still ovulate. You're not correct to tell yourself "well I haven't ovulated so far, that means I can't see how it will happen". It does still happen. Even in most cases people think they had an anovulatory cycle they did still ovulate, just later on. The odds are all but 100% that you'll still ovulate (I say that because you really haven't cut back too drastically on your food intake).

It is also possible that you did ovulate and just had false negatives on the OPK tests. That can happen.

What you should expect is that you will still ovulate and have a normal period. That's almost certainly what will happen. So I would either continue doing OPK or else go to every 4 day method if you prefer and wait to see what happens.

OR, another much less likely possibility on the table is that you could have an anovulatory cycle, have a breakthrough bleed at some point that will reset your hormones and then the next month you'll ovulate in a more normal time frame. But I find that much less likely than that you'll simply ovulate a bit later than normal.

DO NOT stop breastfeeding for this. Once a day is quite unlikely to delay O and I suspect given that you were not seeing a delay from it before, that this is more likely to be diet related.

[Chocolatina]

Oh, I still have a chance? I will keep testing, do I still up the fat to 60 g? If yes, do I still keep the one attempt at positive opk, am I within the girl range? I doubt the tests were falsely negative as I did not have the usual strong pains and change of CM, either. I never in my life had delayed ovulation or period, it is just so weird and utterly unusual but I trust your words unconditionally. Another thing- I had a bit of a cheat day yesterday (more sugar than necessary), it doesn’t matter that much in case I actually have my ovulation despite the day being close to it, right? I guess it is the overall strictness that counts...?

[lad]

Hey Chocolatina! I don't know if this helps but I had a really similar situation this month. I think I was exercising too hard at the beginning of the month, and didn't ovulate at my normal time (14 days). I switched to just walking an hour a day (instead of running 4-5 miles), and sure enough, soon I had EWCM. We'd just started giving up on the OPKs and were doing E4D, and then I got a positive at cycle day 19! Unfortunately I don't think we conceived -- pretty sure I'm about to start my period. But it was good to know that I ovulated, and that my body is still functioning. Now I just have to figure out how to ride the line between getting my runs in and also not delaying ovulation for this next month!

[atomic sagebrush]

Oh, I still have a chance? I will keep testing, do I still up the fat to 60 g? If yes, do I still keep the one attempt at positive opk, am I within the girl range? I doubt the tests were falsely negative as I did not have the usual strong pains and change of CM, either. I never in my life had delayed ovulation or period, it is just so weird and utterly unusual but I trust your words unconditionally. Another thing- I had a bit of a cheat day yesterday (more sugar than necessary), it doesn’t matter that much in case I actually have my ovulation despite the day being close to it, right? I guess it is the overall strictness that counts...?

Yes, you absolutely have a chance, an excellent chance. Anywhere from 50-60 g fat, being sure that you're having 1 serving of full fat dairy daily and 4-6 eggs a week, is what we're aiming for.

You can still try for one attempt at positive OPK if you want, or you can do every 4 days in the 96 hour pattern whichever you prefer.

Nothing you eat now and then, even if it's right before ovulation, matters. We have good results that show us that only after 8+ weeks on diet, does it really get truly reliable, and 12+ weeks is best (even when people were quite relaxed over time. And 2-4 weeks on diet, even though most of those people were very strict, got poor results. So there's just no way a small cheat can matter.

[Chocolatina]

Atomic, you were absolutely right, on CD 21 yesterday I had a positive opk, out of a sudden, with no graduate change of colour of the second line of the opk stripes (which I usually observed when we ttc last time). We had our one attempt although I wished to try a 2-3 day cutoff for the first several months as both of my boys are conceived on a positive opk day (first boy one attempt, second boy one attempt on +opk, one attempt 2 days prior). Now another question (or two actually)- does the delayed ovulation mean anything - over matured egg, swaying more blue, lower odds of conception, anything else? Second q- I never found out how do we proceed after this one attempt on positive opk- do we abstain, do we dtd with protection (does it matter what) or can we just have unprotected sex as the ovulation is gone and when? Thanks a million for your support!