Live and Learn

I've been going through my posts from 2005, the time between my myo and TTC again and then my second miscarriage. In there I found a reference I made to having headaches in my luteal phase, and for some reason I made the connection to them being related to prolactin levels. The reason this seems so odd to me is that in the middle of my past luteal phase I also had a killer headache, and since I'm nursing prolactin is easily related, though I'm not sure. That was the cycle I tried Vitex and while a little helped a lot, more didn't help at all, it rather delayed my ovulation.

Now that I'm TTC while nursing my cycles are a little more unpredicatable. I was loosely charting the start of my period since I first got my first post-partum AF in September. I've just started using Ovusoft's Taking Charge of Your Fertility software again to track it in a little more finer detail. I'm just tracking symptoms but not yet have I delved into basel temp taking. I know my little guy would be fascinated by the beeping of the thermometer and want to take it out of my mouth so I don't know that it would be a practical thing to do while co-sleeping. I also pulled out my fertility monitor from the back of the closet and took a look at it again. It might come in handy though now my thought is of all those little plastic sticks and their foil envelopes and the impact on the environment.

I'm trying to be diligent about taking my prenatal vitamins as you are supposed to do while nursing. I try to eat a balanced diet, eating a good 3-4 meals a day plus snacks to keep my calorie count up for nursing. The baby is growing well and my energy level has been good so I think we are doing okay in that regard. My partner is back taking Acetyl-l-Carnetine and Arginine again, plus his daily vitamin. We held off on grape seed extract for now and we have talked about getting some more Preseed again, that's the really expensive lube that doesn't hurt the sperm. I think one of the cheapest places to get that is through Ovusoft

My beta came back at 94, which is in that good range (around 100 ng/ml 14-16 dpo results in an 85% success rate at this point)

Can you even believe it?

My partner doesn't want me to tell anyone online yet though so it will just be you and I for a little while. I don't think I can hold it back though for long, already people are starting to ask questions about my chart.

I posted a message on Saturday to one of my buddy groups that went on about how lame my chart was this cycle and how it didn't even look a little like the example charts of pregnancy success and how it was a good thing I wasn't pregnant right now as work is so busy and that I just had to resign myself to the fact that we might not have kids since we don't want to do IVF. I almost took it down on Sunday morning but decided to leave it. Pretty amusing.

One of my chart-lurking buddies, said to discard the weird peak prior to O and then to move out my ovulation date ( it was only due to my override that it was on Sunday anyway) and my coverline would drop down indicating a larger thermal shift. When you look at it that way, the vitex does in fact look like it adjusted my hormones for the better compared to previous cycle and that it does in fact look like a better chart.