Friday, July 24, 2009

Confusion In Fertility Land

Well, I appear to be having a bit of a freak out here, so maybe you can help me. According to the Almighty Pee Sticks, I have now been experiencing an LH surge (meaning impending or current ovulation) for almost four days. However, everything I've read online and heard from my doctor says that once you get a positive, you will ovulate within about 24-36 hours. After that, your egg is viable for about 12-24 hours before it deteriorates. At which point your lutenizing hormone should dissipate. So assuming you catch your surge right when it begins (which I think I probably did,) the longest you should keep getting full-on positive test results is two or three days.

I looked up my question at good old peeonastick.com, and she says that if your surge is showing up longer than three days, your body is probably trying to ovulate but is having trouble actually releasing the egg. WTH??

So have I not actually ovulated at all, then? Is the egg still trying to get out of the gate? Did I get the shot too soon or something and the eggs weren't ready after all?

Edit: After getting ANOTHER boldly positive test this morning, I finally called the doctor's answering service and got to talk to an OB. Not my OB, but still. Someone with some knowledge. He listened to my frustrated rant, but once he heard about the hcG shot I got on Tuesday, he was very reassuring. He said that I probably did ovulate just fine, and that the continued positive tests are just a result of the extra hormones from the injection PLUS the hormones my body produced on its own. He said I should disregard any further tests, and assume that the egg (s) got out of the gate just fine. I will start taking the progesterone supplements in a day or two as planned, to make sure there's enough of THAT hormone to allow a successful implantation, and then hopefully in two weeks I'll be posting about a different kind of positive test.

So I guess I'll just settle on down now.

4 comments:

Mommy Daisy said...

Hmm, I have no idea. The one time I did test, I stopped testing after one positive one. I hope things work out for you.

Giselle said...

I hate those tests. I used them for 3 months...the first two months I got blaring positives...but didn't get pregnant. The 3rd month I never got a positive reading...and that's the month I conceived my eldest.

Stupid tests.

Katy said...

Don't you wish you had a little ultrasound machine so that you could see what the heck was going on in there?

Michelle said...

So the LH hormone is similar to the HCG that your body makes when you are pregnant. How, I have no idea. I do know that you can use an ovulation test as a pregnancy test in a pinch. But not the other way around. So. You keep seeing positives because you have HCG (from your trigger shot) in your body.

I start peeing on pregnancy tests after my trigger. One a morning every day. As soon as the positive goes away I know the trigger is gone. If I get a positive after a negative then there is much rejoicing and I can stop paying the RE my future kid's college fund. 8-)

Good luck! We're cycle buddies as I triggered tonight...