Lurker question

Yellowsailor4578 · June 2014

Hi, ladies. I'm a lurker and I have a question if you all don't mind. Hopefully this isn't a totally ridiculous question but you all seem to know A LOT about baby making lady stuff so I thought I'd just ask because I'm sure you all know. I have a long cycle and it's irregular. I've charted it for 2 yrs and it ranges from 24-45 days and always lasts 7 days. These past 6 months it's been better, usually 30-38 days. I was under a lot of stress for a long time (until recently) so hopefully that's why my period was all over the place. Anyway, I just started using opks this month, and it's cd 14 and I got a positive result I believe, but is this early being that my periods are so long? Is there anything potentially bad about ovulating early? I don't know how long my cycle will be this month, but if it's 35 days or even 40, then cd 14 seems earlyish. Sorry if this is a weird or really obvious question, I'm just wondering. Thanks!

islandmonkey8 · June 2014

If your cycles are anywhere from 30-38 days, ovulation at cycle day 14 could be completely normal. But there is no way for us to tell you that for sure. If you want to know when you ovulate more specifically, you'll have to temp.

FutureMrsWright2012 · June 2014

I agree with Island... Temping is probably going to give you the best idea about when ovulation might be occurring. Also, you can try to post a pic of you OPK today to get an outside opinion, if you want. GL to you!

carcrashheart · June 2014

Temping will help you best here, especially with long cycles. How long AF lasts doesn't matter, it's really irrelevant most of the time (I won't say all of the time since my AF went from 3ish days of light-medium bleeding to 7 days of heavy-super heavy bleeding. Coupled with mid cycle spotting my RE suspected polyps, which it was, and removed them). A 30-38 day cycle isn't incredibly excessive. A little long on the extreme end, but not all that much. Sounds like you would have a long LP in that case. I can't recall it being common for people to have long LP's, but nothing immediately comes to mind regarding a problem with it. A short LP is more of a potential issue (less than 10 days), since it can prevent implantation. Also, a positive OPK just means your body is gearing up to O. It could happen anywhere from 12-36 hours from now or not at all. This is why temping helps. Sometimes those with long or irregular cycles will gear up to O several times before actually O'ing (or not at all). I would temp for awhile to see what is really going on. Good luck.

Yellowsailor4578 · June 2014

Thanks for the info! Is there a thermometer brand you ladies recommend? I took another opk of a different brand and it was negative, so I'm not really sure about the positive result now. I'll try testing again later.

MRads · June 2014

I have the pink edged one from target. You have to make sure it goes out two decimal spots for temping.

LuckyAngel07 · June 2014

The other ladies have given great advice.

If your cycle this month ends up being 30 days, ovulation around CD 15 might be right on the money. But OPKs can only tell you when you're gearing up to O, and not that you actually DO O (many with PCOS get the gear up without ever actually Oing).

I loved the basal thermometer I got from Target. Took my temp quickly and "remembered" my last temp when I turned it back on later, so I could always input the temp in FF when I actually got up for the day (I always temped at about 5 am, 7 days a week, and then rolled over to go back to sleep; doing it at the same time every day is very important).

islandmonkey8 · June 2014

Ditto the Target thermometer.

Apollo11235 · June 2014

I have the Nexcare basal thermometer and like it. I'm going to disagree with MRads and say that you really don't need two decimal places. You are looking for a shift of at least about 3 tenths of a degree, so hundredths are really just extra noise. What you do absolutely need is a consistent, accurate thermometer, and for that you want to look for ones sold as basal thermometers.

sgautschi · June 2014

Just an FYI, PCOS can cause false positive OPKs. Not sure if you've been diagnosed with it or not, but just letting you know that OPKs can be pretty inaccurate. I ditto the temping suggestion, it'll give you a lot more clarity.

Yellowsailor4578 · June 2014

Great, thanks. I'm going to buy the target one. @sgautschi, I don't have a pcos diagnosis, but I may very well have it. I had an u/s and the dr didn't think I ovulated that month because there was just a bunch of non-dominate follicles. It looked like a typical pcos ovary, but then 2 months before on another u/s there was what appeared to be a ruptured follicle, likely from ovulating. I didn't pursue getting a diagnosis because dh and I decided to wait a year to ttc due to some other circumstances in our lives. We are now wanting to ttc, so I'm trying to learn about all this stuff because I have a suspicion that it's not going to be easy, but hopefully I'll be proved wrong. It's a big decision for us because I have a serious autoimmune condition, and if I ttc I have to get off my medication and then it's just a big unknown how my body will react to that....like, irreversible damage to my body could occur. So I was trying opks this month to see if I even got a positive result before getting off the medication. But now I see that they aren't accurate for knowing if I ovulated so I'll try temping. Thanks, all!

sgautschi · June 2014

GL to you!

Yellowsailor4578 · June 2014

Thanks, sgautschi! O, also, unrelated-- I'm reading "the better baby book" by Lana and David asprey, which is about how to influence our genes (through diet, exercise and emotion) to express in positive ways to prevent disease in babies. I think it's incredibly interesting and maybe something people on this board would be interested in. It's based on epigenetics.

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