Conception related question

My wife and I have started trying to conceive. This month, we timed it out, and did the necessary things at the necessary time period in several unnecessary positions in order to conceive a child. About five days after the predicted ovulation date, my wife started what she termed “spotting”, which eventually progressed to a full fledged menstrual period. Now, she’s never been completely regular with her cycle, but this was ridiculously early and unheard of for her.

Does this indicate that a conception took place and didn’t implant? Or did it implant and release? What are possible explanations?

Aside: Not a medical question. She is 100% fine, and in no danger! Just looking for possible explanations as this whole conception thing is new to us.

Not all women are on a 28-day cycle. Some women know when they ovulate by pain they get (mittelshmerz) when the egg is released. You may not have caught at the right time.

Yeah, but this was an 18 day cycle, which has never happened before.

It’s possible that one of your scenarios occured, but you’ll probably never know.

It’s a positive sign, though- 25% of conceptions miscarry, the majority of them before the mother has even noticed that she’s pregnant, so you can be fairly sure that all of the respective plumbing is working properly and that this was just one of those very common nonviable conceptions, and try again.

That’s what we’re figuring. We’re not concerned. Just curious.

Mr. Kiminy and I move into an apartment together a couple of years before we actually got married. I was not a virgin before then, and we certainly shared a bed before we got married. I was also SO regular in my periods that I could predict the start of my next period within hours, even before I started taking the Pill.

We actually timed the marriage so that there would not be any chance that my period would start during our two-week honeymoon, based on the fact that I had been regular to the day for the previous ten years or so.

When we got married, I think my psyche finally decided that sex was acceptable. We had the best sex possible (or so I thought) our wedding night, and three days later, my period started. I was still on the pill, and we definitely had no plans to conceive, but I think my hormones got a little whacked by the emotions involved, and the sexual stimulation sped up the ovulation/menstrual cycle. This was absolutely the first and only time that my period had ever been significantly early.

However, the best sex we ever had was when we finally decided to conceive a baby. I had been off the Pill for a couple of months already, but given my “heightened” stimulation, I would not have been at all surprised if I had had a period a few days later, even though the “event” was timed two weeks before my next period was due to start. As it was, I got pregnant on our first real attempt.

I do believe that the menstrual cycle can be disrupted by extreme sexual stimulation, so it’s possible that your wife’s body just reacted in an unusual way to the stress/relief/enjoyment. Next month, you may want to take things a little more casually and see what happens.

This may be TMI, but one act in the missionary position produced a girl for us, and one act in doggy-style produced a boy. Both were definitely timed, based on my extremely regular cycles, rather than thermometers or ovulation tests (which didn’t exist OTC back then, anyway). The first was a “let’s see if it works” thing, because we knew we wanted children, and we figured we were as ready as we ever would be. The second child was more of a “we have a girl, let’s see if we can get a boy” attempt.

It may have even been that her last “period” wasn’t a real period, or was what’s called an anovulatory period. When the body is under any sort of stress before ovulation, it will sometimes supress ovulation. If this goes on long enough, estrogen builds and builds until it can’t anymore, and then it drops very quickly, causing a bleed when no ovulation has happened and no corpus luteum is making progesterone. This is called an “anovulatory period” and it’s not a real period, but it looks and feels like one. You can still ovulate at any time, and get your next period much sooner than you anticipate.

It looks like this:
(period. start count at day 1)…[13 day interval]…(ovulation)…[12 day interval]…
(period. start count at day 1)…[10 day interval]…(stress)…(usual ovulation doesn’t come)…[19 day interval]…
(period later than normal, count resumes at day 1)…[8 day interval]…(ovulation)…(period 12 days later)

The italicized “period” wasn’t a true period, because there was no ovulation that month. Notice in the example, the woman ovulated earlier than expected and therefore menstruated earlier than expected. This may or may not be the case. One friend of mine skips ovulation quite often (based on morning temps and cervical position and fluid), but bleeds like clockwork. She’s one of the few women I do NOT recommend FAM for. It’s too risky with those damn anovulatory periods.

This is why:

a. it’s possible to get pregnant during a “period”. If it’s an anovulatory period, you can ovulate while you’re still bleeding and get pregnant from it.

b. periods can be irregular buggers when we’re under stress.

c. you need to track your wife’s cycles over several months before you can get a real picture of her cycle and can identify anomalies with any accuracy.

Incidently, women are remarkably stable with the second half of their cycles. If you have your period 12 days after you ovulate, it’s not going to vary by more than a day or so every cycle. When you’re “late because you’re stressed”, it’s because of stress in the *first *half of the cycle.

(Of course, you already know about Taking Charge of Your Fertility, right? Right? There’s more about it in there.)

5-10 days after conception is about the time period you would expect a pregnancy to implant, and some women do experience minor spotting at implantation. My mother has never bought a pregnancy test in her life- she spotted day 21, and was vomiting by day 28 of that cycle every single time she conceived.

It is perfectly possibly that the pregnancy didn’t implant properly, or was in some other way non-viable, leading to more spotting than usual, and progression to a very early miscarriage. This is much, much more common than people think, and doesn’t have any bearing on future chances of a successful, healthy pregnancy.

Or, of course the stress of officially “trying to conceive”, a change in diet or exercise patterns, exposure to the prostaglandins in semen, or simply coming off hormonal birth control could have just thrown your wife’s hormones a little out of whack and her normal rhythms off a bit, and there might not have been any conception at all.

Next time you might want to start taking early pregnancy tests from day 7-10 after ovulation, or you might just choose to wait until the day her period is due, or even just wait until it’s a few days late. It depends on how much you want to know, when you want to know and how that knowledge will affect you.

Best of luck!

Also very possible. We were doing the body temperature plotting for the past two months. The first month was relatively normal. This past month, the temperatures made no sense at all.

I’ve had a few of those in the past three years. My OB told us if this happens once in a while its just stress. Under stressful conditions the body sometimes shuts down the baby factory. She also thought it was possibly related to breastfeeding in my case. But if it happens more often it’s a sign of ovarian aging or ovarian dysfunction. An eighteen day cycle means she didn’t ovulate.

If it happens on a frequent basis I would check with an OB.

I suspect you meant this site "Taking charge of your fertility

Rather than one about myopia in infants.

If the book is the same one I remember Mrs. Butler examining/studying/memorizing/charting from, then it’s a great book! We knew Mrs. Butler was pregnant days before the “blue strip” did it’s chemical thing. Why she had to wake me up at 6AM, I’ll never know… the chart already told us… it was old news by then… “Right, you’re pregnant, we knew that… can I go back to sleep?” :cool: :wink: :eek: <thump>

:smack:

grumble, grumble.

Thanks for fixing that! Yes, that’s the book.

It’s ok, the other Doper parent’s understand. :smiley:

I thought the pill controls when you have your period, like it comes when you get to the sugar pills??