Charting, opks, long cycles and stress

While we've been trying for nine months, this is only my second month of charting my temperature. I've always tracked my cycle, even before trying to conceive (ttc). When I went off the pill a few years ago, my cycle would be around 42-46 days long. At the moment it's down to a much closer to normal 32 - 35 days.

Because I don't have the typical cycle, I started using ovulation predictor tests (opks) in our second month of trying. They worked great, I would take one mid afternoon and then another after dinner. That way I could track the hormone surge more closely. I always get a positive opk around day 18-21.

Then December came along and it was crazy busy with Christmas parties, baking, present buying and all those things. Going on my previous cycles I was due to ovulate right around Christmas Eve, but I knew with how busy things were that I wouldn't have time to test so we just took that month easy and forgot about timing.

I decided in January that I'd give charting my temperature a go. I'd bought the basal thermometer months ago with my first lot of opks, but never used it. I have issues with sleeping and staying asleep. I'm often woken my our neighbour leaving for work at 5am, or I get called into work early. With charting you need to have a solid 3 hour block of sleep before taking your temperature and you need to take it at the same time each day, before getting up, getting out of bed or doing anything.

But I was still on holidays in January so there'd be no phone calls from work so I decided to give charting a go. It was great, it showed I'd ovulated on day 19 which is around the same time as previous months. I didn't use opks in January because I'd run out.

This month is different though, I'm using both opks and charting. It's day 21 and there's still no sign that I've ovulated. All my opks have been negative and my temperature is saying the same thing.

I have been a bit stressed out this month, last weekend was pretty bad. There was a miscommunication between my husband and I, which resulted in me having a huge panic attack that lasted for hours. Once the panic attack was over I was left with a migraine. Friday and most of Saturday were awful.

I'm now starting to wonder if the stress of last weekend has caused this cycle to be longer than normal. Oh well, I'll just keep charting and taking opks until something happens.

It all began..

I met my husband nine years ago. Back then I was studying and didn't dream of being a wife or mother. To be honest, even as a young girl I didn't picture myself married or having children. I wanted to study, start my career and make that my life. How different things have turned out!

It was shortly before my 26th birthday when I woke up and knew that I wanted to have children. But life was crazy busy. We were living with family, planning a wedding and hoping to move out on our own again after our debts had been paid off.

A year later and we were married, living on our own and frantically saving for a house deposit. Another year passed, we'd purchased our first home, a small but affordable apartment. My career stalled and fell flat. We struggled but got there. Another two years had passed, my job prospects improved slightly, we'd taken a lovely long holiday together. Our mortgage was growing steadily smaller and we started to try for a family of our own.

And now, here we are. Nine months on (which I know is still only a short time in the world of trying for a baby).