Calling all Clomid experts!

I?m hoping you lovely ladies can give me some advice.

I suffered a late loss in July this year and my cycles prior to the loss were quite regular (32-33 days) and I had all the typical symptoms of ovulation so could pinpoint my ?ripe? time down to the minute. It took the second month of trying to fall pregnant.

After my loss, my cycles have been totally off the planet. DH and I started TTC again in September and my past 3 cycles have been anywhere between 40-45 days. Needless to say, I got excited each time AF was late, only to crash when the witch reared her ugly head each time.

Earlier this month, I went to see a FS as I was very concerned damaged could have been done after requiring two D&C?s in July due to retained placenta products ? with the second D&C causing an enormous amount of bleeding to the point of nearly hemorrhaging. The FS assures me all looks good with my uterus and lining now but he decided to put me on 50mg of Clomid days 2-6 to help regulate my cycle and speed things along a little due to my age (almost 38). He stated I would ovulate on day 14 on Clomid and we should DTD regularly from CD7 until day CD15. DTD like crazy from CD 8 to CD15 but to be on the safe side, continued every second day until CD 19.:redface:

I had no noticeable CM on Clomid (which I know is a side effect) so don?t know when I ovulated this month. He advised not to use OPKs on Clomid as you can get false positives. Did use Preseed to help with the dryness after reading a lot of good stuff about it on the internet.

Today I went for my 21 day progesterone test and I asked the nurse about lack of CM and the detrimental effect it has on sperm surviving, and she said I probably haven?t seen EWCM yet as I should be seeing it now and approaching LH surge any day ? today is CD22!! She said a lot of women ovulate late on Clomid and if I don?t ovulate this cycle on 50mg then we should up the dose to 100mg and I will then get more EWCM ? completely contradictory to what I have read about the side effects. So now I?m really confused. My FS put me on Clomid to regulate/shorten my cycle and stated that I will have a 28 day cycle on Clomid and if AF was late, then that would mean I?d be pregnant for sure ? he stated ?there is no such thing as a late period on Clomid, if you?re late you?re pregnant? - but after today?s chat with the nurse, I?m left confused and irritated at the conflicting information.

Can anyone help me out?

Hi,
It is confusing isn't it?

Okay it is a fallacy that women ovulate "on time" on clomid - I did not - in fact I ovulated later. My obs at the time told me that the clomid hadnt worked as my cd21 test indicated no ovulation. I surged that day (cd22) and conceived that cycle.

With regard to OPK's. If you commence them from cd11 and test daily or twice daily you will see your ovulation. It may be that you get an "almost" positive but you will see approx when you ovulate. If you use opk's too early inthe cycle they may register a false positive. If you go online and purchase opk's from Lullaby Conceptions you can buy a big bulk pack. As an experiment test daily at 2pm from cd1 - continue on and see if the clomid gives you a false positive around cd9... I didn't get this but it does and can happen so therefore you cannot begin using them too early in the cycle or it will give you the illusion of impending ovulation when it is the LH stimulation of the clomid.

You can request (and many obs will do this as par for course) a cd12 u/s to check on follicular development. This will show how many follicles are maturing and at what level of maturity they are. This will also give you an indication on when ovulation is likely to occur.

Good luck my love... :hug:

The nurse is correct you may need more than 50mg to ovulate on day 14. I took 50mg and had unregular cycles of 28, 30, 35 etc, and I tended to ovulate around day 20 on clomid. Thats not true re false positives for OPKs on clomid. My FS said so, I got a OPK positive and it was correct and we were lucky and conceived Julia. We too started DTD from day 8 to day 22 to cover all bases (every 2nd day).

It also depends when you take the Clomid too, I took it on day 2 to day 6 and still ovulated late.

Best wishes and good luck!

I took clomid to help regulate my cycles and it did bring my O date forward from around cd21 to a more reasonable cd14-16. I had poor folicular recruitment and the clomid was prescribes to encourage more folicles. So I took clomid cd2-6 and was recommended to DTD every second day from cd10-cd20 to try and cover it. I always got a BT on CD21 to check for progesterone, and was always good, indicating o had occurred. I also used OPK's and found them to be reliable, testing daily from CD10 till I got a positive.
Was your BT to check for an LH surge or for p4 levels?
Good luck with it.

Thanks for the information ladies. It's so great to hear that you both had luck on Clomid, congratulations. I wonder why my FS was so adamant that I would ovulate on day 14 if it just doesn't seem to be the case. I will try OPKs next month but am obviously praying that I won't need to :crossfingers: :pray: I can't believe how much conflicting information is out there - as if things aren't hard enough. I will get my blood results tomorrow so will know if I ovulated or not. Think I will have to lure DH back to the boudoir this evening for one last shot, if it's not already too late (last time we DTD was on Friday CD19) so it's quite possible I may have missed ovulation day :wall:

Rufalina, my BT today was for progesterone levels to check whether I ovulated - is that what p4 level means? Good to see Clomid helped you ovulate earlier. Prior to my loss I also ovulated around CD21 so was hoping it would help bring it on a little earlier.

Its terribly annoying to get conflicting info isn't it.
My clinic gave me clomid and opk kits to test with to ensure we did IUI when the surge occurred - along with a CD10 scan. So you can definitely use OPK's with clomid use.

Sooooooo annoying! I wish he suggested an u/s mid cycle to see what was going on in there. I will ask him to monitor me more closely next month if I don't get my BFP this month :pray:

yes.. sorry p4 is the progesterone level, and if this is high enough it would indicate ovulation had occurred. You should have a number somewhere over 20nmol/L to indicate Ovulation had occurred.

I just need to say it DOES happen that clomid can give a false positive opk result. That is absolutely correct. HOWEVER if you leave 3-4 days between last dose and using opk's you should avoid this.

Clomid does not always give you a cd14 ovulation. On 150mgs of clomid I ovulated on cd20. I conceived Imogen on this cycle. Our bodies are individual and will respond differently so what response my body has may not be your experience. There is a very wide variation of normal. For me it didn't matter what days I took the clomid my cycle length was still long. I had a trigger shot with Immy and my follie (the largest) was 28mm.

Fertility clinics usually give you opk's when you have your follie scan.

:redface: yes Flowerchild, I totally forgot about the 3-4 day wait after taking the last tablet to start OPKs... Thanks for the reminder...

Thanks Rufalina, will make sure to ask the nurse what the level is when she calls with the result.

Flowerchild, thanks for the advice, you certainly sound like an expert in this field!! I'll give the OPKs a go next month IF I need to and follow your advice on when to test. You are so right, everyone reacts differently to treatment - I wish my FS gave me these possible scenarios rather than saying I would definitely ovulate on day 14 - I am just so glad I kept DTD past the time he told me to!!

The results are in! Nurse called to say I have already ovulated and my progesterone level is 43. I asked whether this number could give an indication of when I may have ovulated but she said they can't tell - only that I ovulated. Anyone know what this number means?

I guess the Clomid did help shorten my cycle a little which is great. Now praying for the BFP!!

my doc said he would expect prog to be 80-90 for pregnancy and mine was only 20. and yet i did get a bfp and the little one is hanging in there just FINE. I have read of some ladies having prog as low as 8 and still being pg.

so this test is not an accurate indication of pregnancy... BUT you definately did ovulate WELL DONE and GL.

:leap: Yay for you ovulating!!!!! :clap:

The level of your P4 can't really tell us when you have ovulated... However keep in mind that if you ovulate on CD14 and have a P4 level measured at CD21 your progesterone will be a fairly accurate indicator of how many follies you had. Basically a progesterone level CANNOT tell you if you are pregnant. I have had P4's of 100 and not been pregnant - but been prgnant with an early P4 of 60ish. With Imogen my p4 was 160 7 days post trigger shot. Simply I had 3 mature follicles each producing the P4 - so it was high.:o

A P4 of around 40 probably indicates that you only had one follie OR that you ovulated later than cd14 and the P4 is still yet to peak...

So for the poster that had the P4 of 20 at CD21 and conceived it is likely that the ovulation was later than cd14 and therefore the P4 is still yet to rise. Maybe not but that is a likely scenario...

Myson, thanks for the information and congratulations on your pregnancy! Wishing you all the very best.

Flowerchild, ever considered being a nurse or better still an OB :lol:?? You are a wealth of knowledge and are much more informed than the nurse I had!!! I guess experience really does outweigh anything you read in books doesn't it? Thanks for the celebration dance and thank you so much for your response. I don't think I ovulated on CD14 - I think it was more CD 16, 17 or 18 but am only guessing as I was experiencing some slight ovarian pain around that time - so I think you're right about the level not being at its peak when p4 was tested on CD21. Oh well, we shall wait and see what happens.... I'm just so happy I ovulated that it's almost like getting a BFP!!Well not quite but I am one step closer....

Thanks again and am sending you the biggest :hug: I can muster up for such wonderful support and informative information.

Diana xxx