Questions/Chart Stalk February 2022

fantasyflyte

Got questions? Need chart interpretation? Ask away!

kiki047

My only question is how TF is it February already?! lol. 

acleverusername

Okay, ladies, gather round for an epic mystery of "when did Clever ovulate?" 

So, yeah, I obvi don't make it easy for you, since I don't temp the "normal" way. I wear Oura ring, which gives me a relative reading of my temperatures. I.e. there's a baseline, and when I wake up, I can see if my temperature was below that baseline, or above and by how many degrees. So, I've assigned a random value of 97.5 to that baseline, so if I wake up and see a -0.4, I enter 97.1 into FF. 

Furthermore, I don't make it easy on you because I don't take photo of my OPKs because after 2+ years of doing so, I know what's a positive OPK. I also stop doing OPKs after I get my first positive. Well.. sometimes I do it for 1 extra day. 

Here are some other mystery clues of you as you embark on this grand quest to solve "when is O?"

1. On Wed night, I had 2 glasses of wine, so my temp was slightly elevated. Although, technically, Oura is take surface temp, so it shouldn't be affected by alcohol. At least that's what I'm led to believe. 
2. For the first time in my life (okay, that's a hyperbole; for the first time since I've been tracking) I had spotting during ovulation. I first saw signs of that on Thu, and also yesterday, and again today. In fact yesterday, the spotting was worthy of a Peggy post with gross photos of what's in my toilet paper. But I decided to spare you. 
3. This morning I took a Proov test, and it's faint, but it's definitely still negative, indicating that my progesterone is not above the 10mL/IU threshold yet, BUT also confirming ovulation. 
4. My breasts have been tender since Thu, indicating hormonal rebalancing. 
5. If I ignore Thu temp, after my 2 glasses of wine, FF says I haven't ovulated yet. 
6. If I keep Thu temp, FF says I ovulated 3 days ago. 
7. My first glaringly positive OPK was on Wed. I did test on Tue, and I thought it might be getting darker, but I left it out too long before looking, so I figured I was seeing things because that evening it was definitely still negative. 
8. My OPK on Thu AM was lighter than Wed, but still positive. 

Good luck, my fellow detectives. (Need a couple of min to post screen shots from my phone.) 

If I do discard Thu temp.

If I don’t discard Thu temp.

optimistgardener

@acleverusername I vote Thursday purely on the basis of the positive OPK the day before. When all other signs are confusing, I figure it is the most reliable indicator, unless you have lots of evidence in the past of a delayed O after +opk or else a habitually short surge-to-O turnaround.

acleverusername

@optimistgardener right, so Thu is kind of what I was hoping / thinking. Because a) I definitely ovulated and b) I’m pretty sure I didn’t ovulate on Wed. 

acleverusername

So I changed my detector from Advanced to OPK/Monitor and it confirms O on Thu. So I’ll just go with that. 

jb129

Has anyone had any experience with hydrosalpinx?

optimistgardener

hi @jb129 welcome and thanks for posting in our questions thread! there may be people on this board who have dealt with hydrosalpinx or other issues related to infection/scarring/irritation who can weigh in. I have not had this diagnosis and can only speak to the details you provided in your original posting (the one-off).

(i'm spoilering a cut/paste version here in case others want to refer to it)

I may have hydropsalpinx on my right fallopian tube. I have yet to get an HSG, but based on the ultrasound images, it's pretty certain. They believe it might've been a result of my previous ovarian cyst surgery; perhaps my body is just prone to scarring which resulted in hydropsalpinx.

I think the fallopian tube in question may need to be removed. My doctor didn't necessarily tell me to stop TTC. What she did say is that - I need to call her right away if we found out we were pregnant so they can make sure it isn't a tubal pregnancy.

But aren't the risks higher that way? eg, potential miscarriages if fluid leaks into uterus, ectopic pregnancy. It looks like the body will need a much longer recovery vs just removing the tubes via laparoscopy and TTCing again?

If pregnancy were established, can hydropsalpinx still prevent that from becoming full-term? Or is hydropsalpinx only an issue with implantation?

it sounds like you're still waiting for further examination before they make a definitive diagnosis. you may, unfortunately, need to be patient for a while until they can better visualize what's going on with the tube. once the doctor has all the information from the various visualizing methods, they'll be able to offer you better guidance as to the most appropriate treatment. from what i have read, doctors will often remove a fallopian tube and then may encourage patients to consider ivf, since having only one tube but two ovaries still firing away will reduce your changes on a per cycle basis. However, I cannot say for sure if this is what your doctors would recommend.

I also can't speak to whether the risks are higher for a pregnancy conceived while dealing with hydrosalpinx. You'll want to talk this over with your provider! But it sounds like you may be leaning towards getting the surgery done before you continue your ttc journey, regardless. If so, please ask your doctor to talk more with you about what your ttc process would look like after the surgery. Would they consider you a good candidate for the "old fashioned" method of timed intercourse? or would they want you to do monitored cycles and an IUI when the correct ovary is ready to ovulate? Or just go straight to IVF? These are big questions and may have insurance/life plans/invasive treatment aspects about them for you to consider.

kiki047

@acleverusername it's been a while since I had to decode a chart but I'd be inclined to agree with @optimistgardener and FF, Thurs looks plausible to me as well. 

@jb129 I'm sorry, I don't have any personal experience with hydrosalpinx but I do hope you find some answers. I agree that further diagnostic testing is required, the HSG at the very least, possibly an MRI to get a better look at it if they don't recommend a laparascopy. If it's just a fluid buildup, I read that can sometimes be caused by an infection which could be treated with antibiotics, so it could go either way at this point. Have they scheduled an HSG for you yet? 

abjm0325

I've put my CD3 bloodwork results into the spoiler below. Any thoughts as to what I might hear for next steps? I have an appointment Wednesday to go over the results with my midwife, but I appreciate any insights about what I might expect. 

FSH 7.4 

LH 5.7

Estradiol 27.6

Google suggests FSH is normal for my age (36) and LH is within normal range. Estradiol seems low by my Googling.

acleverusername

@abjm0325 those numbers look good to me. A low E2 on Day 3 is actually good. It's a high E2 that you don't want to see. Overall, I think you're in fine shape. Did they test anything else? I.e. Prolactin? Thyroid? 

abjm0325

@acleverusername Ah, see this is why I should not be trusted to do my own Googling. Thank you for setting me straight on the E2. This was the only testing they did last week. When I meet with the midwife on Wednesday we will be discussing my previous thyroid result too to see if they want to do a full thyroid panel or what they recommend. Is Prolactin something I should push to be tested for next? 

acleverusername

@abjm0325 definitely get your prolactin checked, as well as getting that thyroid panel (TSH, T3, T4 + antibodies panel). Also ask to get your androgens tested: testosterone, DHEA, SHBG. 

abjm0325

@acleverusername Great information, thank you!

annanbby

Okay quick question, I'm actually not totally sure this goes here, but probably? So I had a positive OPK on Monday evening (which is usually when I test, around 4:30pm or so), then Tuesday I had a positive in the early afternoon and then by 4:30pm it looked lighter, and today was obviously negative. So what does that indicate? I know usually when you get a positive, the day after that is O. (Or the day after whenever your last positive was). I won't be able to confirm it with my temps this cycle cause of the issue I had this morning (see today's WTO thread). So I'm curious if that info with the OPKs would help determine it for me. I'm wondering it was a Monday night/Tuesday morning O or something like that? Cause if that's the case, maybe this cycle wasn't a complete miss. But anyway. Attaching my chart for reference.

optimistgardener

@annanbby the way i understand the rules of reading OPKs, what counts is the first positive OPK you receive. it doesn't matter how long the surge lasts thereafter. so although some people "test out" their LH surge each month it really isn't necessary. you can stop testing after the first positive. you can then expect to ovulate somewhere between 18-48 or sometimes even as long as 72 hrs after that first positive OPK. I feel like most charts I see around here tend to show a spike in BBT 1 or sometimes 2 days after the +OPK. I'm betting you'll get a temp bump tomorrow, but even if you don't, it's worth noting that it can sometimes take a day or two to build up the progesterone concentrations you need after ovulation to be reflected in your BBT. Sooooo, I did lurk your situ w/ grumpy SO in WTO, and all I can say is your timing on CD11 is well within the window if you ovulated on CD13.

annanbby

@optimistgardener oh wow, that’s really helpful, I didn’t know that about the first positive OPK so that’ll be good to know for the future. And also encouraging that we may have made it within that window.
Thank you for the info!! Six months in and I’m still learning. lol

mrsmtothek

optimistgardener said:

@annanbby the way i understand the rules of reading OPKs, what counts is the first positive OPK you receive. it doesn't matter how long the surge lasts thereafter. so although some people "test out" their LH surge each month it really isn't necessary. you can stop testing after the first positive. you can then expect to ovulate somewhere between 18-48 or sometimes even as long as 72 hrs after that first positive OPK. I feel like most charts I see around here tend to show a spike in BBT 1 or sometimes 2 days after the +OPK. I'm betting you'll get a temp bump tomorrow, but even if you don't, it's worth noting that it can sometimes take a day or two to build up the progesterone concentrations you need after ovulation to be reflected in your BBT. Sooooo, I did lurk your situ w/ grumpy SO in WTO, and all I can say is your timing on CD11 is well within the window if you ovulated on CD13.

Wow thanks for this nugget! I definitely did not know this either!