Oct 15th is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day and More!

If you are a fan of social media, chances are you've seen this image in the last few days. If you know someone who has suffered a loss, it is a great time to reach out to remind them that someone cares. 

October is a big month in the "infertility community". Lot's of people hold remembrances or attend awareness walks. I am not a fan of big public displays, so a simple post seems sufficient enough. 

October is also my first month "officially" back on my treatment plan. This plan involves medication and careful tracking. 

Ive had some questions about the fertility monitor I use, so below are examples from this month.

This is a day 8 reading on my monitor showing that I was in a "high fertility" window. Day 8 means I am 8 days from the first day in the cycle (pretty self explanatory). The monitor does not check your levels everyday (that would be a huge waste of expensive sticks). Instead it zeros in on your fertility window. The more you use the monitor the more accurate these readings become. For me, the monitor prompts my first test on the 7th or 8th day. This month it prompted me to start on day 6 since it was my fist month back to using it. The first two tests came back as "low" or just the first bar filled. The fertile window begins in bar 2 and starts about 5-6 days before ovulation. (Remember sperm can live up to 5 days!)

I stayed in the fertile window until day 13 when I got this beauty....

This is a positive ovulation reading. (see the little egg? isn't it cute?) Now sometimes I will get a solid third box which mean levels are rising but there wasn't a big jump which would normally indicate ovulation. Basically, this is the reading you are after. In fact, once you get this result the monitor stops tracking you until the next month and requires no more tests. Once you get your little egg you have between 12-24 hours to ovulate. They do recommend using a 12-36 hour window so they will give you another high reading the very next day, just to be safe. 

So this is good news! It is very likely that I ovulated the month. The timing is right, the readings are on par, and it's actually showing that I ovulated a day earlier than is the norm. (Normal 28 day cycle ovulates on the 14th day...give or take a few days in either direction). Of course, this is not fool proof and cycles are a bit like snow flakes. 

Let it gooooo, Let it goooooo

Cheeky little Snow Queen. Anyway, since these monitors aren't fool-proof and we are all like precious little snowflakes, a 21 day progesterone test was order to confirm ovulation. Now my last tests came back with progesterone levels so high that the doctor thinks it may have been a lab error. (They were higher than someone pregnant with twins...YIKES) Looks like someone forgot the importance of decimal points. So between the last weird result and the clomid, a test is needed on the 21st day of your cycle to confirm ovulation. If ovulation can not be confirmed the dosage of clomid may be adjusted. Higher dosages come with higher risks and harsher side-effects so the goal is to trigger ovulation with the smallest dosage.

If the test comes back positive for ovulation, I will wait a few days and then test with an HPT. If it comes back negative, I stop for a bottle of wine and refill my prescription for next month. Just like baking a delicious cake, you need eggs to make it happen.

Fingers crossed, let's see what happens!