I always thought that I would get pregnant in the first month for the longest time. I now know how stupid that is to say haha. Here's my story throughout this journey that was so new but I did learn SO much.
Few things I learned....
TTC- trying to conceive
DPO- day post ovulation
BD- baby dance, aka doing the deed :)
BBT- Basal body temperature
OPK- ovulation prediction kit
SA- sperm analysis
and a few more things...
-The only way to know for sure that you ovulated is either taking your basal body temperature each morning or a blood test at the doctor for progesterone about a week after you supposedly think you ovulated. (usually you won't do a blood test for that unless you're with a fertility doctor)
-If you dont get a positive OPK, it probably means you won't ovulate, like me.
-Your period tracker app you've been using is NOTHING- everyones cycle is different and no way does everyone ovulate on day 14.
-The book Taking Charge of Your Fertility was so helpful (helps explain natural signs of when you are most fertile, even while I read this after 1 month of trying I thought I would still get pregnant so fast because I always have cervical mucus every month but little did I know that doesn't confirm ovulation will happen.)
-OBGYN's in my opinion from what I know do not check and do ultrasounds while you take Clomid or Femera to check follicle growth and plan the trigger at the right time so I think it's way better to do that with a fertility doctor. Fertility doctors check the sizes of the follicles with multiple ultrasounds and up the dosage of the medicine if the follicles are not growing.
-Femera is suggested for ovulation stimulation for people with PCOS. Clomid for people that don't have PCOS.
-Basal body temperature is just checking your temperature under your tongue when you've had at least 4 hours of sleep and haven't gotten up or been awake. You want to take it at the same time every morning so I had an alarm for 7am and usually go back to bed for a bit. I've taken it at 6am too and just log that one. I used this thermometer. You shouldn't get up to go to the bathroom in that 4 hours either- have to be sleeping.
ok... that was a lot .... but I'll explain what happened each cycle that got me to learn all that and more...
OK HERE WE GO
At the end of March 2021- when I was meant to be ovulating (per my period tracker app) I got my period... waste of BD :)
April- I had a 23 day cycle (day 1 is when you get your period and day 23 in my case was when I got my period again), I used the clear blue ovulation sticks and got a positive (smiley face) for 11 days straight... but didn't ovulate, then got my period
May- I started checking my basal body temperature to see if I was ovulating - and I ovulated on day 25 of my cycle- YAY finally!! (I had a positive ovulation stick on day 21 (so keep in mind I ovulated 4 days after the positive OPK) using the cheap amazon ones that show a darker line when your LH has surged which was better for me than the digital clearblue ones- I've never hated a smiley face more), 6 days post ovulation I had the WORST cramps that woke me up, thats never happened before in my life, cycle was 36 days and then got my period. I was wondering if the 6 DPO pain was my body rejecting the implantation or something along those lines but I don't think that's possible.
June- didn't ovulate, 21 day cycle, then got my period- this is the month that I made an appointment at Fertility Centers of Illinois because my gyno said that they have a $90 bloodwork panel, semen analysis, and ultrasound called the Fertility Awareness check up. I just wanted to be on top of it. We found out everything was fine with those tests so that was great.
July- didn't ovulate, 21 day cycle, then got my period. On July 23rd I made an appt for a consultation with a doctor at Fertility Centers of Illinois. Told him about me not ovulating (it was great that I had charts in the Kindara app that I could show him proof that I was not ovulating- another reason I love testing BBT), and he wanted me to get the basic tests done of a new patient next cycle. (bloodwork again, ultrasound and a saline ultrasound)
August- didn't ovulate, 34 day cycle, then got my period. On August 23rd I went in for bloodwork and an ultrasound (during day 2-4 of my period) On August 26th I went in for a saline ultrasound (usually done during day 5-11 of cycle) - they inserted water into my uterus to see if my fallopian tubes were open, they were which is good but they found a polyp so he told me I had to get that removed. I had to go on birth control because I didn't want to wait until the next cycle to do it. They just wanted to make sure I wouldn't ovulate during the procedure. (we were going to Greece for 2 weeks in mid September and I just wanted to do all the things I needed to do to get pregnant so I wanted to do the surgery before Greece- I didn't want to push it back)
August 30th We had the re-consultation to go over my test results- he told me I have PCOS based on two items (excess hair and irregular periods) so we would use Letrozole instead of Clomid once we start that process. The excess hair is a couple hairs under my chin so IDK how valid that is ha.
September- I was on birth control so that I could get the polyp surgery. On September 9th the polyp was removed- I was put under anesthesia for the surgery. I also continued birth control during Greece so that when I stopped the bc, I could get my period and get started on Letrozole right away (which I had to be home to start). I have no patience as you can see so this whole process was so hard on me.
September 27th- We came home from Greece, I stopped birth control, got my period the next day. 4 days later (October 1) I went to FCI to get bloodwork and ultrasound done. I started letrzole (2.5mg a day) that night- I would take it at the same time for the next 5 days. 3 days after my last day (October 8th) I went into FCI again for bloodwork and ultrasound to see if the follicles grew. I had one at 12mm, 1 at 9mm, and 1 at 8mm. Ones below 10mm usually dont grow anymore at this point but they usually grow 2mm a day so they told me to come back Monday for another ultrasound to check size and hopefully the 12mm grow to 18mm. On Monday (October 11th), they kind of even shrunk.. I was so bummed so they had me start that night at a higher dose of Letrozole (5mg a day) for the next 5 nights. Another ultrasound and bloodwork on Friday, October 15th and they weren't quite big enough but one was 15mm. I came back Monday October 18th and one was like 17.98mm yay!! I literally thought I'd never see the day. The doctor told me to take the trigger shot of Ovidrel (a shot in the tummy done at home) the next night and then BD that night and the two next nights. Typically you ovulate 24-36 hours after the shot. Pretty sure I ovulated the 21st (2 days later) because the next day after that my ovaries didnt hurt anymore. That ovidrel is major though because I felt like my ovaries were going to explode haha. October 26th I went in to get my progesterone checked which showed a good number (22) and confirmed ovulation so I didn't need to take progesterone supplements.
Proov is a test I also did on my own which tells you if you did ovulate but also if it was of quality. You test that 7 days after you ovulate.
So now it was the two week wait. I learned that the trigger shot has HCG in it (the pregnancy hormone) and that if you take a pregnancy test, it'll show positive BUT you can test every day to see where it left your system and then when you keep testing it'll show if you're positive. So of course I did that (no patience.) See my pregnancy tests below- you can see where it left my system and where my positives on 9DPO showed (the line is sooo faint and really only noticeable in person). October 30th was 9DPO and when I actually thought I might be pregnant but I was still in denial and shock haha. October 31st at night the line was darker.
That night I had dreams about breastfeeding and could not fall asleep haha and then Nov 2 I was scheduled to go into FCI for a pregnancy test via bloodwork. My HCG was 29.8 and my doctor warned me that its not the number he would want to see but that I need to come back in 2 days to retest it and to be cautiously optimistic. If it doubles then it's all good. At the time he didn't see my progesterone levels but that ended up being 36 at that time which is good! As long as its not under 15, its a normal pregnancy. I still didn't have the verification that I had a healthy pregnancy so I couldn't get excited. But I also was kind of annoyed later that he told me it's not the number he'd want to see because that first number doesn't matter, it's if it doubles or not. On Thursday, November 4th I went back in and I had to wait the excruciating 6 hours until they called me with results and I checked on the website randomly and they literally JUST posted the results. My HCG rose to 100 and progesterone was also almost 37. So as long as it doubled it's good! I think this is when it first hit me that I was pregnant but I had anxiety in case I would have a miscarriage since it was so early. On November 8th my HCG rose to 639 but progesterone went down to 28 which I asked if that was ok and she said it's fine because its like a wave for progesterone and goes up and down. November 10th HCG was 1831.4 and progesterone 28 so the pregnancy was progressing and she wanted me to come in November 12th for our first ultrasound! I found out from that ultrasound that the baby was in my uterus so an ectopic pregnant was out of the question. I had such relief and now we just had to wait until 12 weeks!
Below is my kindara chart of the month of this process. If you're not familiar, the blue numbers are my DPO's and shows my temperature and temperature spike. I ovulated cycle day 24. After 15 days I stopped temping and just logged in my symptoms. I'm going to do another blog post of my 1-12 weeks symptoms!
Some other things:
Pre seed- didn't prevent pregnancy for us (thumbs up)
Lay down after?? I didn't after month 1. I kept reading it was a myth and it in fact was ha.
If you don't want to go to a fertility doctor yet you can get a hormone test from Modern Fertility who lets you do an at home hormone level test for only $159 and that is cheap compared to some tests at the doctor! You send it in and get results under 10 days. It will tell you if you have a good amount of eggs, your general hormone health and more.
I feel like this is so important to get out of the way when you're ready for a family. Why wait until you've been trying for a year? I'm all about being proactive!
This link gets you $20 off so wanted to share!
Let me know if you have any questions. I hope all this info helps!
All of the photos have been edited with my presets
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xoxo ela