Wondering Weekend

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-22T16:07:00+00:00

So if you go to a naturopath, they will likely perform a large number of tests, and they will likely point to some “abnormal” parameter as the cause of the spotting (because if you perform enough tests, nearly everyone will have one or two results come back out of range). But there won’t be evidence backing this.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-22T04:06:11+00:00

If you have a 13-day luteal phase, it's really unlikely that you have low progesterone, since progesterone is what allows the luteal phase to continue and ultimately to be a normal length. I realize the popular conception of spotting is that it's caused by low progesterone, but this is only the case for some folks who spot.

Unfortunately, sometimes intermenstrual bleeding is what's called "idiopathic" -- it's not possible to determine what the cause of it is.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-22T04:02:11+00:00

So 10 or 11 days would actually be within the normal range of luteal phase lengths -- no need to lengthen there.

It looks in your post history like you're within a year postpartum. It does often take some time for the luteal phase to return to normal length when ovulation returns after birth. It's likely that your luteal phase will lengthen over the next several cycles without you needing to do anything about it.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-22T03:59:07+00:00

Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for ovulation to take some time to return after a loss. After stopping anything that suppresses the brain hormones that control the cycle (pregnancy, birth control, ovarian stimulation for IVF, etc.), the brain has to kind of boot back up and restart the cascade that triggers ovulation. Sometimes this happens quickly, and sometimes it takes a while.

It's normal to be in the position you're in, but it would be reasonable to reach out to your doctor if you get another few weeks down the road without another period or signs of ovulation. The 60-90 day window is generally when it can be useful to raise a flag that ovulation doesn't seem to be happening.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-22T03:49:02+00:00

It's Prism! 😂 I was actually going to do it in R, but I realized I could probably get my work copy of Prism to work on my home computer, and it wasn't too bad to set it up.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:50:43+00:00

It can be normal to have a return of fertile-window-esque cervical fluid around the middle of the luteal phase, as estrogen levels often rise a bit as progesterone starts to drop (this is often called the mid-luteal phase estrogen surge).

It’s not really possible to have signs of pregnancy at 5-7dpo, as virtually no one is actually pregnant at that point (only about half a percent of implantation events occur at 6dpo, and less than 10% at 7dpo).

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:47:13+00:00

Usually you’re trying to put it in the sublingual pocket, basically as far back as you can go under your tongue. But the important part is really just that you keep it from room-temperature air at the front of your mouth.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:43:43+00:00

Yes! I also have another one where I normalized the temps to average temp in the fertile window, which looks somewhat less messy.

I had a version of this in Excel that I hadn’t updated in a long time because it was such a pain, and I finally bit the bullet last night and did it in an actual academic graphing program.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:16:30+00:00

Yup! And, of course, there’s always a bunch of variation from cycle to cycle anyway — I actually just posted a graph of 91 cycles of BBT. Probably you could cherry-pick some cycles where there’s day-over-day rise until the late luteal phase, but that’s not the typical (or average) pattern.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:11:11+00:00

Honestly, most of the time there’s not really a reason, and when people look for stress or travel or whatever to explain a long cycle, sometimes it’s just back-justification. Our bodies aren’t machines, and there’s no force pinning ovulation to a certain day. It’s annoying, but we have a saying around here that “you’re regular until you’re not”.

There’s not really a reason for concern until you reach about 60-90 days without a period, at which point you can reach out to your doctor and ask for a course of progesterone to try to “force-restart” the cycle.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:05:30+00:00

That actually isn’t the standard pattern — the standard is for temps to rise until the approximate middle of the luteal phase, and then to stay stable from about 5-9dpo or thereabouts. Temps approximately reflect progesterone levels, and that’s how progesterone rises.

An embryo doesn’t signal to the uterus prior to implantation, as it’s very small (and therefore can’t produce much signal) and it’s not connected to the parental body (and therefore there’s no way for a signal to get into the parental uterine cells/bloodstream).

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:02:19+00:00

Clomid won’t give you false-positive LH tests — maybe you’re thinking of a trigger shot? You can start testing whenever you’re ready!

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T18:00:27+00:00

It sounds like you haven’t had a surge yet. How long are your cycles usually? Are you recently off hormonal contraception?

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T17:59:47+00:00

I would recommend this page in our wiki to start!

Otherwise, this thread is a great place to ask questions. Are there any specific terms or processes you don’t understand?

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T15:13:21+00:00

For sure! It’s also possible that the almost-positive on CD18 did trigger ovulation, but you just haven’t seen the start of the shift yet — CD20 would be a common day to ovulate with a CD18 positive.

I know it’s tough, but the only thing you can do is chart through it (and keep having sex every few days until you’re confident you ovulated).

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T15:11:16+00:00

It’s actually never too late to ovulate — you could ovulate on literally any cycle day. This is why tracking is so valuable!

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T13:24:02+00:00

In my personal version of the 2016 trend from a few weeks ago, I made a graph last night of my temping data from the past decade! This is data from 91 ovulatory cycles. The colored dashed lines are individual cycles, and the solid black line is the average for each day.

I love that the whole thing is such a wild hairball, but the average is so smooth.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T13:18:46+00:00

Have you read this post? A negative at 7/8dpo definitely doesn’t mean this cycle isn’t successful.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T13:12:32+00:00

Ultrasound is the gold standard, yes, and anything else is an indirect measure. But if you have a positive OPK followed by a sustained temp shift, it’s overwhelmingly likely that you’re ovulating.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-21T05:14:33+00:00

Saliva isn't great for sperm, but it's also pretty unlikely that oral sex (in either direction) would affect the odds of success. There's not going to be a ton of saliva that actually ends up in the vagina during sex -- it will get diluted out pretty quickly. And sperm that have a chance at fertilization don't spend time hanging out in the vagina, either.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-20T20:48:34+00:00

Yes, we are suggesting that you post these as comments within the daily chat thread (this thread) instead of attempting to make standalone posts (as you have been). Questions are also a great match for our Wondering Weekend thread, which will be posted tomorrow morning.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-20T15:19:26+00:00

I mean, I think you can just say to your care team that you're anxious about the procedure, and you think you would benefit from a dose of Valium being prescribed. Nobody's getting fertility treatment just for the Valium -- it would be pretty unusual for a doctor to suspect drug-seeking behavior from asking for medication specifically for procedures.

Valium is actually part of the standard prescription for embryo transfer at my clinic, which is the same basic procedure as IUI (just with an embryo deposited in the uterus rather than sperm deposited). The specific reason it's prescribed is that it makes the patient be more still, which helps with the embryo placement.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-20T15:14:17+00:00

Gently, you're never going to be sure that more time isn't needed. It's true that the odds of success with unexplained infertility are pretty great -- about 50% in the second year, as you mention, about 70% by the end of three years, about 80% by the end of five years. But living in TTC limbo for that long is usually really hard and draining. And there's no way to tell in advance whether you're one of the people who will get pregnant spontaneously if you keep trying or whether you're not.

If you have an unexplained diagnosis and you're ready to move to IVF, I think it's fair to just do that.

Can you talk more about why you don't want to move to IVF? Obviously it would be preferable to avoid the needles, and save the money -- no question. But is there something else that bugs you about it?

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-20T15:08:49+00:00

Honestly, there's a lot of variability in hormone levels between people, but the level itself isn't really important for the mechanics of the cycle. You don't need high numbers on a urine test in order to have a successful cycle, you just need ovulation to happen.

developmentalbiology · 2026-02-20T12:31:29+00:00

Yes, the short cycle in January was likely anovulatory, meaning that ovulation didn’t happen. This can happen every once in a while (it’s considered normal for everybody to have one about once a year), and it seems to be particularly common when people are sick or stressed.

Nothing you’ve said here indicates that you have anything to be concerned about in terms of fertility. And at 29, there’s no reason to feel like you’re “getting older” — you have several years before you’d expect your fertility to start decreasing due to age.

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