all this time we were waiting for each other

[canadianchia]

Hello friends. I'm sorry I've been a terrible LJ-er of late. It's interesting how quickly I fell into the pattern of not wanting to spend much time on the computer at night once I went back to work. There just always seem to be other things I'd rather be doing than dicking around on the internet, and so I quite often don't. Either I don't turn the

Comments

[e_liberation]

How long were you on the pill?
I've been told that depending on how look you took it, your body needs x amount of time to readjust. This might be why your cycles are not consistent.

I've been off the pill for three years - took it on and off since I was 16 - and my cycles are anywhere from 28-34 days, and pretty consistent. I'm not tracking ovulation, obviously, but I'm very in-tune with my body and can feel it sometimes anyway.
Stress can and will affect your cycles too, so anything you can do to cope with it will only help :)

[canadianchia]

I was on the pill for 6.5 years continuously. I hope it doesn't take that long for my body to readjust! :p It has been only 6 months since I stopped taking it, but still.

I hope I get that kind of consistency at some point. Of course, if I do get pregnant, then it all goes out the window again, soooo I probably won't have it anytime soon. :p

The weird thing is that, if my ovulation was delayed because of stress, at the time when I thought I should have been ovulating but maybe didn't, I wasn't stressed! Or at least, I didn't FEEL stressed. It was right before I went back to work, so it's possible there was some underlying stress, but I felt fine. So I don't know.

[flamingophoenix]

My GYN told me that it can take as much as a year for your body to readjust after going off the pill, which is why "12 months of unprotected sex and no pregnancy" as a diagnosis for infertility is a crock. (The technical term.) ;-)

[canadianchia]

Ugh, really, a year? Boooo. But yeah, I knew that that criteria as a diagnosis for infertility was BS because if you weren't tracking your cycle and had no idea when you were ovulating, it'd probably be pretty easy to go a year without ever having sex during the time you were fertile. Well, anyway, hopefully I'll be able to get pregnant without having to wait the full year for my body to readjust, but I guess we'll see!

[heaventonoone]

I had no idea getting pregnant was such a struggle once one was off birth control. Friends of mine got married lately and my friend told me that they would try for a baby once she was off the pill.

And here I thought, you just get off birth control and whoot - you get pregnant. Proves just how much I know about the female body. *g*

Good luck!

[canadianchia]

Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be a struggle, but you do have to get the timing right. A woman is only fertile for a small window in each cycle, for about 3-5 days around the time she ovulates. Otherwise, if there's no egg present for the sperm to fertilize, she can't get pregnant. So, yes, you can just have lots of unprotected sex and hope for the best, and if you're not too concerned about when you get pregnant, that works for a lot of people. But if you want to maximize your chances of conceiving, it helps to make sure you're having sex around the time that the woman is ovulating, and for that you need to track your cycle.

Thanks! :)

[bonjour_cupcake]

As you know, I got off bc fairly recently. I haven't started tracking, mostly because I wanted to see what my body would do the first month and if I would get my period on time. Nope. When I finally did get it (like a 35 day cycle) it only lasted two days and now I feel and see signs of potential ovulation (not tracking yet, but trying to be aware of fluid and such). *shrug* So I'm absolutely no help, but I hope that your body is able to go back to a more regular cycle soon! I haven't read the TCoYF book consistently, so I'm not sure if they mention this? Ugh, annoying!

I'm sorry about the money stress. What kind of jobs is Brad applying to/for? I'm not aware of how the job stuff is going on in Canada and if it's the same as here, but it sounds like he's been looking for awhile so I'm guessing it's similar to here. I'll keep you guys in my thoughts and hope that something good happens soon. *hugs*

[canadianchia]

I don't remember if the book mentioned anything specifically about it or not, other than to say that if your cycle is irregular, tracking your fertility signs is pretty much the only way to tell when you're going to be ovulating. If your cycle is consistently 32 days, for example, and you always ovulate around day 18, you could probably stop tracking all the signs and just have sex (or don't) around day 18. But since mine varies so much right now, I'll have to keep tracking until I get pregnant. So yeah, kind of irritating, but what can you do?

He's applying for everything at this point. I mean, he'd still love to get something in his field, but he's applied for factory jobs and even stuff like Petsmart and other stores. I know the economy is tough and lots of people are out of work for a long time before they find something, but he doesn't seem to even be able to get an interview, which is just ridiculous. :-/ Thanks for your thoughts. I hope so too! *hug*

[bonjour_cupcake]

Very irritating! :(

That is very ridiculous. I really hope something changes soon. Maybe something working from home? I sometimes visit a site called ratracerebellion.com and they have listings daily. Maybe something will be up his alley!

[canadianchia]

Thanks for the suggestion! I emailed the site to him to see if there's anything he could do. :)

[fadetblack]

Waking up when it's still dark or semi dark out is the worst. It's so hard to convince your body to get out of bed.

Sorry about the money problems. Sending some good vibes that Brad manages to get a job soon.

I wish I had some advice on FAM. I don't know much about it other than tracking. I also know that everyone's body is different when coming off the pill. (For me when I come off everything goes back to the way it was pre-pill within two months. Seems pretty normal for my family.) Perhaps try a community like vaginapagina? If they don't know they may be able to guide you to someone who will.

[canadianchia]

Yeah, exactly. I firmly believe that if the sun's not up, I shouldn't be either, so trying to convince my body otherwise is never a fun time. :p

Thank you!

It's okay, I'm not necessarily looking for advice, just for other people who've had similar experiences to share. I think I just need to keep tracking everything and hope that it becomes more regular or that we get pregnant soon, haha. :)

[fadetblack]

They have these alarm clocks with lights that are supposed to help people get up. Not sure if they work, though.

Sorry! Advice was the wrong word to use. Meant that I can't relate to your experience cause I never went through it. There are some great communities out there with people who can relate, though. I wish you the best of luck with it!

[canadianchia]

That might be a good idea. I'll have to look into that!

Thanks! :) And yeah, I've sort of been avoiding pregnancy/trying to conceive boards/communities, because they sort of stress me out, haha. Just . . . the level of intensity seems really ramped up and I don't need any more stress than I inflict on myself, haha. That's why I was just looking for friends with stories, but if I continue to have difficulty or be confused, I'll definitely seek out other communities. :)

[flamingophoenix]

I used the "MyDays" app to track my cycle when I was trying to get pregnant, but I just tracked menstruation and temperature, not cervical mucus, so I'm probably not much help.

Also I just now saw your mood icon after mainlining the first season of Once Upon A Time, and wanted to comment that I approve! :-D

[canadianchia]

Yeah, I'm using the OvuView app, and it's pretty useful so far. I know there are a bunch of other apps out there that I could check out if I needed to

[flamingophoenix]

Awesome!! Book 4 sucks a lot, mostly because of his plan to "split" it into 2 books (which never happened), but it'll probably be a LOT less terrible now that you can read Book 5 immediately after it instead of having to wait six or seven years for "what is happening to Jon Snow?"

[canadianchia]

Haha, yeah, I'm glad in that regard that I waited so long to start reading the series, because now I can just plow through one book right after another. Are there more to come or is the whole series out now?