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2007-05-21 - 12.05am��previous entry��next entry
The Weirdest Cycle Ever
Oooh, long gap! Two weeks, waaaay too long when I'm thinking/doing interesting things with my cycles!
I'm on CD18 today. So far since Matthew was born, I haven't ovulated earlier in my cycles than CD18, and after Arthur was born, my earliest ovulation was CD18 (Matthew was conceived that time!). It's still later than I used to ovulate before I had kids, but it does get earlier as the cycles go by, if I don't go and get pregnant again, that is!
I have had the WEIRDEST cycle so far, in my entire history of charted cycles, I think! My temperatures were high after my period, as I said in my last entry (at CD4). That's odd for me, but it wasn't too big a deal. They had dropped, after all, the day after I got my period. They just didn't go below the coverline, and that was odd for me. The weird thing was, they STILL didn't go below my coverline for the first ELEVEN days of my cycle (well, one dipped like 0.02 degrees below, or something - almost exactly on the coverline, and then rose again the next day). Those temps looked pretty stable, and so I started to wonder if maybe I was just being extremely strange and starting to have a cycle with pre-ovulatory temperatures that were weirdly high for me. I guess it's possible. But I have NEVER had that happen before. My temps are very predictable, in terms of the normal range for me, pre- and post-ovulation.
If it had just been temps I would have been beginning to wonder what was going on, but I was WAY more suspicious of "something" with the symptoms I was experiencing as well. I have had sore breasts (exactly the same way as when I'm ABOUT to get my period, or when I'm pregnant) from ovulation LAST cycle till just a day or so ago. Well, the last few days of that was only VERY mild tenderness, but still. Anyway, that is very unusual for me. I also found it really painful to breastfeed, exactly as when I was pregnant and breastfeeding before. Along with that, I was weepy. Pregnant weepy. Seriously. And I couldn't understand why that was happening AFTER my period. I also had cramps every day. Just mild and sometimes twingy, but definitely worth charting. I had about 5 days after my period started where I didn't actually chart any symptoms because I obviously had my period so I figured symptoms weren't that relevant to chart at that stage.
My period was fairly normal, only a little bit lighter than usual, but strangely non-painful. I did have cramps and they were worse than my previous "mild" cramps on the first day of my period, so I charted them as "bad cramps", but I didn't have to take any painkillers, and I had NO trouble doing activities as normal, which is never the case for me.
I had a LOT of days where I felt one-sided twinges or cramps too, both at the end of last cycle, and the first half of this one. Then on CD12 I had a massive temp drop, down to my usual level of pre-ovulatory temps (which are quite low normally), and apart from a weird spike they have pretty much stayed there. What is up with that?!
By CD10 I was really suspicious that something was up, and I sooooo wanted to write here about my thoughts, but I just did not get time. I wrote half an entry in Word the next day but never got around to finishing or posting it, and now it's a bit obsolete, so...
Anyway. I decided to take a pregnancy test on CD11 because my temp was still so weirdly "up" and didn't look like it was going to come down any time soon. I HAD had a temp drop and a period, but the fact that it hadn't dropped below my coverline, and the mild period, and the weird symptoms, got me wondering (and googling!). My chart reminded me of things I'd seen in the past at FF, relating to ectopic pregnancy. I checked the chart gallery there for ectopic pregnancy charts and although the charts varied a lot, there were plenty with the exact type of pattern my chart showed if I merged the two cycles together, even the bleed in the middle. There are various reasons for ectopic pregnancies causing some of the symptoms and signs that I was suspicious about, but I haven't got time to go into all that here tonight. Basically Neil and I thought I should just test to rule it out (hopefully!) as I would have been 20DPO (or 21, I can't remember) that day if I was going from my previous chart's ovulation. It was pretty much negative (I am never sure of the evaporation lines on these new tests I bought, tsk!) so that was that, and then the next day my temperature dropped hugely to my normal level. Weird, no?
The pinchy one-sided thing died out the same day as the temp drop, but the crampiness and breast tenderness remained. It hasn't been sore to breastfeed at all for a good few days now though. I finally stopped being all hormonal and weepy a few days after the temp drop. It's all so weird.
ANYWAY, this evening I have been googling heavily (!!) on the subject and am now wondering if I might have had a corpus luteal cyst? That's where a cyst forms at the site of ovulation on the ovary and it fills with blood. It takes a few weeks to rupture or dissipate. It produces progesterone just like you'd experience in pregnancy, so that's why it keeps your temperatures up till it clears up, and you get many pregnancy-like symptoms from the raised progesterone. Lots of women who have those find that their temps stay RIGHT up like if they were pregnant, and also some find it just totally delays their period, so it looks for all the world like they're pregnant when they're not (how frustrating!!). But plenty have a bleed in the middle, or even continually as spotting, from the cyst losing blood. I did find some who had experienced lower temps later in the long luteal phase, but still above the cover line. So I am beginning to wonder if that's what it was. It would explain my temps, and the fact that it took 3 weeks from ovulation for my temps to SUDDENLY plummet down to where they usually are at that stage. Also it would explain all the hormonal symptoms, which I have NEVER experienced before in the first half of a cycle. It would especially explain the cramps and one-sided pinching cramps and twinges, as that would be consistent with a corpus luteal cyst causing pain. I am just so thankful that I am one of those who had bleeding during it and a bit of a drop in temperature, as otherwise I would have my little hopes riiiiight up there and would have felt crushed when it all didn't pan out. This way I have been spared that, so I'm thankful!
Anyway, who knows. That is my theory on it. I know I'm self-diagnosing with some guesswork, but I can't think of a better explanation for it. It has cleared up now anyway, whatever it was! I did have a big spike in temperature one morning, up to the levels from the start of my cycle again, and I thought, "Uh-oh, what is this WEIRD cycle doing?!" but it seems to have been a blip or something. My chart looks horrible for all the rocky temps now though!
I started to wonder if the weird thing would seriously delay ovulation for me this cycle. I usually have fertile signs starting before CD14, and last cycle it was CD10 (although the fertile CM ended up lasting TEN days before I actually ovulated!). At CD13 I wondered if I might juuuust possibly be slightly more interested in parsnips than usual. My cervix has been weird (pregnant weird) with the weird maybe-corpus-luteal-cyst stuff this cycle. It's been high as anything the whole time - I forgot to say before, that was another major thing that made me think something was up. Sometimes it was high, soft and open (like when I'm fertile) even though I obviously wasn't in a fertile patch. Anyway, CD14 I had the increased parsnip-drive again, and Neil's was through the darn ROOF (!!) so, parsnips :) RIGHT before parsnips, I went to the loo and found what I ended up charting as EWCM, but it was very poor quality for fertility purposes. Cervix was fertile though, that day, but it had been a LOT so far during this cycle, so I didn't make much of it. Also, my fertile patches have been pretty long since Matthew (and since Arthur, actually) so I felt pretty sure that I could expect at least 6 or 7 days of EWCM once it started, before ovulating. So parsnips on the first day of poor quality EWCM should be fine if we're avoiding pregnancy.
Soooo, my point in all that is to respond to a couple of comments and say that although my chart looks otherwise, we are really NOT TTC this cycle! Honest! ;) Yesterday Neil was nearly crazed for want of parsnips (!!) and *I* (yes, me!) was the sensible one, swatting and fending off his pawing and cajoling all day long. *sigh* I kept saying a February baby would be LOVELY, but was he sure he wanted to have one?! Neil isn't usually like that, but we've noticed that we are getting to be very in-tune around ovulation time. If I'm fertile, he somehow knows it and has the parsnip-drive to match. Sometimes he doesn't even KNOW I'm fertile. He just ends up asking me if I am because he can't figure out why he's so frisky the last couple of days! ;) And I always am. Anyway, so we did NOT have parsnips. Boy we soooo could have, but I was strong-willed and we didn't! So I DID have willpower this cycle, contrary to what it might look like from my chart. Neil didn't have so much, but I had enough for both of us, and I'm proud of myself :)
Today I am really surprised to find that I have NO CM at all. Nada. The EWCM just zipped out of existence. That leads me to believe I have probably ovulated today. It's very unusual for me to have EWCM that suddenly disappears without it being due to ovulation. If I ever have a fertile patch that doesn't end up with ovulation occurring, it tends to fade out gradually rather than just all disappear. And it's CD18, so I'd be glad to ovulate today and not really late in my cycle. BUT, it only gave me 4 days of fertile CM (3 if you don't count the poor-quality CM that first night) which is lately unusual for me. I can't believe I'm saying this, when I think back to when we were TTC Arthur and I never EVER had any EWCM (ever!). So weird to hear myself say, "Oh but I've only had 4 days of EWCM this cycle! What is up with that?!" hehe! ;) I'm glad my body got kick-started by pregnancy. I think I really did need to produce the right "stuff" in order to conceive. We used pre-seed that cycle, which replaced it, but I'm so glad I started doing it by myself since having Arthur.
Anyway. The other thing is that if I HAVE ovulated today, the parsnips were only 4 days before ovulation. That is exactly how we got ourselves a Mathsie-woo! BUT, I checked my chart for the cycle I conceived Matthew, and I had great quality EWCM the day of the parsnips 4 days before ovulation that time. Four days is a long time for sperm to survive (they generally survive 2-3 days in good conditions) so if they're going to, they need IDEAL conditions (ie, plenty of good fertile CM). That time, things were well set up for that to be achieved, but this time I am not so sure, because my CM wasn't great quality the day of the parsnips.
I checked my cervix for this evening and it's no longer HSO, so I am feeling pretty confident that I've ovulated. If I have, tomorrow's temp should be up. If it's NOT, then I will be all confused again. Since this is a very confusing cycle all round, I am pretty much expecting another low temp tomorrow! ;) To complicate the temping further, I've lost my more accurate basal body temperature (BBT) thermometer again (sigh) so I'm using the one that has just 1 decimal point. It's not a BBT as such, but it's more accurate than a glass thermometer. It's what I've used throughout TTC, except for the cycle I conceived Matthew, which is when I had bought the new BBT :) Anyway. Tomorrow Neil has a job interview (yay!) and has to get up at 6am. Normally the boys wake somewhere between 6 and 7 (not usually at the exact same time), and he takes them downstairs and wakes me at 8am so he can get ready and go to work. So I temp at 8am. Tomorrow I have to get up when the boys do, so my temp is going to be skewed by the timing, which is frustrating! A couple of hours earlier than usual means a lower temp than usual, for me. And that could make all the difference. It could mean my chart doesn't recognise enough of a temp rise tomorrow to call it ovulation. I am praying that either I'll get an obvious LOW temp so that, early rise or not, I KNOW it's not a post-ovulatory one, OR a very obvious jump so that my chart will recognise it no matter the early hour. I hate empty circles on my chart so I might not tell the chart that I've temped at a different time to normal, haha! I might just note that in my notes there or something.
Anyway.
Other weirdness has happened to me since my last entry. Last time I wrote, I sooooooooooooooo wanted to have another baby. I did not want to wait a second longer! I feel differently (not hugely, but still) now, and I think it's down to having a new baby in the family. I think. My brother and his fiancee had their first baby 6 days ago! Her name is Thea, and she was born at 41 weeks and 3 days, after induction, though they had planned a homebirth. I feel like I have been so emotionally involved in her arrival, WAY more so than any other baby except for my own. I was in touch with them so much in the week or so leading up to her birth. They wanted my advice such a lot and talked about everything in so much detail, and I almost felt like I was going through it with them. When Thea was born I felt so attached to the three of them, like never before. I had attributed all the weepiness I'd been experiencing to her arrival actually. Every time I think of her name I just well up! In the two or three days after her birth, sometimes when I thought about them I would randomly start just sobbing about them! Happy tears though :) I absolutely ACHED to be there with them, like I was that attached that it felt physically achy not to be close at that time.
I finally got to see Thea yesterday (I will write about it in my arthursmummy diary soon, I promise!) and the boys got to meet their new cousin. I held her TEENY tinyness - she was 8lbs then, but oh my gosh she felt like an empty milk carton, seriously! My arms are so used to huge writhing-and-wriggling boys these days! ;) I marvelled over how tiny and new she was, and DID get a squeeeeezy feeling inside, but on the way home when Neil was going on about parsnips later (sigh!), I realised that it was something to do with THEA that was making me have willpower over not TTC this cycle. It's sort of like she has filled a baby-shaped gap for me, as though she has satisfied my urge to have a baby for now. I felt like I didn't want to have a baby right now, because it felt like there was only just a new baby in the family, and it almost felt like my own. Not quite, but enough so that my urge was less.
Also, Matthew was NOT impressed! Arthur loved her and has always been that way. He was exactly Matthew's age (well, 10 months and 3 weeks actually, a couple of weeks younger) when he met Ella (his other cousin) for the first time when she was 3 months old. He just beamed at everyone while we held Ella, and wanted nothing more than to peep round at her and smile. He didn't care one bit to see us holding another baby. Matthew turns out to be pretty much the opposite! I always wondered as much, because they are very different in personality, and Matthew always struck me as the type who might have more difficulty with a new sibling. I was almost apprehensive about going to see Thea because of how it would be a test of what Matthew would be like, perhaps. He loved seeing her and smiled and smiled at her, so long as she was motionless in the moses basket! If I held her, he cried and sobbed and reached for me, as though his heart was breaking. Then, when I put her down and cuddled Matthew, he looked DAGGERS at her over my shoulder! I never saw him look like that before! Yikes!
Oh, I'm writing about it here, aren't I? *sigh* Never mind. I'll carry on.
Anyway, then Neil held Thea and Matthew did the same reaction. But THEN, the interesting thing is, a neighbour called Bob who was an old man from next door, came to visit just before we left, and Matthew was just as upset when he saw Bob holding Thea! He was craning his neck to see if he was holding her, looking all anxious and suspicious, and when he saw that he WAS, he immediately started wailing and crying again, and couldn't be consoled. I had to take him out of the room!
My guess is that he has an awareness of his STATUS in the family, as the baby, and it's his status which he feels a threat to when he sees Thea being held - obviously as the "baby" rather than him. I can't explain Bob otherwise, so I'm guessing it a status thing. We talked about it a bit later on, because it did rather shake my feelings about when to add another little Boo to our family. I don't want to give Matthew a hard time if he's pre-disposed to finding it hard. BUT we do feel that 9 months is a long time in their development, as we know from Arthur over that same time period. If he really IS that way inclined, a longer gap isn't going to "fix" the way he feels. We will just have to muddle through with him and help him the best we can. It made me want to wait till July after all, because that's a couple of months more for him. I don't think waiting till he's older would help. If anything I'm concerned that a child of that disposition (towards a potential sibling) combined with the terrible twos would NOT be the best plan! I was such a child, and well, yeah.
Anyway, it did throw me a bit. I don't know what to think about it really. Neil wasn't so worried about waiting, but he did say it made him wonder about timings too.
So, all that has helped me to be strong this cycle. I do not know what will come of the CD14 parsnips. Very likely nothing, but I have to allow for the possibility since the same timing brought Matthew into our lives, albeit with slightly better chance due to great EWCM. And I MAY not have ovulated yet, who knows? I will have to watch my temps and see. Then at least the parsnips makes the wait for my period a little more interesting than if no parsnips had occurred! ;)
Okay it's SO late again and I must go to bed if I'm going to be up with the boys from earlier than I'm used to. I will try to update my other diary tomorrow if I can. I have so much to write. And I'll update here more frequently too, especially if I have ovulated. Back soon! Oh but thank you for the lovely messages after my ramblings on longing for another baby last entry! I appreciated everything you guys said, soooo much! :)
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