Pregnancy Without Regular Cycles Q's

They have 28 day ovulation tests that you take throughout the month to make it easier to pinpoint an exact day. I just took a test with all 5 of my pregnancies. Good luck to you!

Why chart? I cannot tell you how many stories from friends over the years that were about throwing out the charts and being relaxed in each others company, being spontaneous, and finding out they were gonna be parents.

I have never been regular. Four "experts" and over $10k later, and they still couldn't tell me anything beyond the fact that I was very fertile, and not at all regular(DUH! I paid you money to tell me something I didn't already know!). I never could predict my ovulation on a chart. I get a pain on one side or the other, and then I knew I was ovulating(I did find out that I tend to have more than one egg at a time, hence the pain per side).

I was heaving my guts out for more than two weeks, which prompted me to take a test. {Not going into details} Pregnancy number two, walking into a Steak and Shake and walking outside to heave into a trashcan. Test number two {still not giving details} Pregnancy number three found out a few months after getting out of hospital,
Pregnancy number four, shortly after pregnancy number three, fainting in my friends garden nursery after drinking water constantly, and being in the shade nearly all day. Friends hubby tells me to go whizz on a stick. I tell him to get bent. He again tells me to whizz on a stick. I tell him he's insane{with a lot of fancy expletives and adjectives}. He says it a third time {again with the expletives}, and I do. I am still not buying the results, so I go talk to my friends Mother who was my Midwife in the other pregnancies, she does an exam, and she tells me my nerves and fluttery tummy were baby saying hello, and that I was 13 weeks along.

He's going to be eight soon, my little miracle, and I cannot imagine how I got this far in life without him.

Hang in there Mama! Relax and take it easy.

I have had irregular periods pretty much since I started my period. I was very worried there was something wrong with me and that I would not ever be able to get pregnant (even though doctors never found anything wrong). With my first child, I got pregnant right away after coming off the pill but when we were trying for #2 it was a little harder. Anyway, I bought a simple ovulation test from CVS for about $20 and it was great. One box lasts for a month - it's kind of like taking a pregnancy test in that you dip it into a cup of urine and then it shows if you are ovulating. So you do the test every day at the same time and you can see as you are getting closer and then ovulating. It took me a little while to get used to reading it - sometimes it's hard to see if the lines are the same color. I could usually tell if it said I was not ovulating but sometimes i wasn't sure if it said I was. But, in the end, it worked out great because after I think three months of trying based on this, I was pregnant. I recommended it to a friend and she also had good results. It's pretty cheap so I'd say it is definitely worth a try. good luck!

I really recommend the book Taking Charge of your Fertility. It sounds like you're aware of the recommended fertility signs to track, but are skeptical of the value. I think the author addresses that, but if you want feedback from someone who followed the method, I can say it worked for us. I'm actually surprised by the other responders who just say - let nature take its course. I have several friends who have unexplained fertility problems and charting helped me to know what my cycle was doing.
My cycles have become increasingly shorter as I've gotten older - as short as 20 days, so I worried about whether I could time our activity correctly to conceive and have a luteal phase long enought to sustain the intial pregnancy.
For our first, after we hadn't gotten pregnant after about 6 months, I charted temperature and cervical fluid for several cycles. Both my husband & I used to travel for work, so it helped me realize that we just weren't even in the same state when I was ovulating! For our second, just being aware of the cervical fluid change helped me know when I was ovulating, and we predicted getting pregnant with our daughter.
In both cases, I had spotting at the time I would have started my period, but it never really turned into a period. I tested with a home test & it was positive. No other symptoms until about 1 month in. Then exhaustion, sore breasts were my first symptoms.

I think your doctor can explain it better to you than we can. But I will say that just because you are not having regular periods you could still be ovulating regularly.

Oh a holestic way to regulate periods is chamomile tea. I don't know how or why it works but it does.

I wouldn't worry too much about your cycle, especially since you got pregnant before. In the western world, especially in the US, everything is highly medicalized. But we are talking about your body here, which cannot be judged by statistics about other people's bodies and, chances of getting pregnant and all of that. Why even worry about charting ovulation? Why not just stop using protection and let nature do its job? You can waste money on ovulation test kits and who-knows-what if you don't get pregnant for a while. Also, if you learn to listen to your body you'll know when you are ovulating. I always know days in advance when it will happen. Just tune in.

I have never had irregular cycles , so take or leave my advise. I do think that paying attention to your bodies signs of ovulation can be beneficial but could be hard with irregular cycles ( I don't know).
I could tell I was ovulating by my cervical fluid changes , ovary pain , having to urinate more, & less acne. Also, my sex drive was crazy.
Good Luck!

We never charted or planned - I'm so irregular that I have to skip 3 months before I can say that I'm late. We never did anything extraordinary, either - no IVF or shots or any of that. We just let Nature take its course. It took a long time, but eventually we had the 4 kids we had planned for (and two miscarriages; sometimes Nature isn't pretty.) Don't get discouraged, no matter what the outcome is!

I always had super irregular and long times before my period (like 40 to 55 day cycles), before I had my son. I read up on all of the signs of ovulation (like cervical fluid consistency), and made sure to try at least around then. It really isn't weird or a big deal to check your cervical fluid, just pay attention to what comes out of your body, which you should anyway so you know if something is wrong (like a yeast infection).

I tested when I figured my period was supposed to start based on when I thought I ovulated (no body changes at that point), and I was pregnant. I actually hadn't been testing the two months before I figured out the whole ovulation thing, but that month I was worried I was pregnant because my husband had just lost his job and I was going to be out of health insurance. Turns out I was pregnant, but it all worked out in the end and I didn't even use the Cobra insurance I had (home birth).