Got a positive OPK this morning, feeling panic, what do I do?

[sarahcecile]

I feel like all of the research I did up until now has floated out of my brain. I wasn't due to ovulate until next week, but both my Clearblue Easy fertility monitor and my plain-old grocery store OPK came up very positive this morning. Ack! I wasn't due to pick up my "unit" at the cryobank until tomorrow (we live near enough to one to avoid shipping), and I am assuming they can scramble to get it ready for me in time.

But.... remind me ladies (even though I am not partnered with a woman, I am in the same boat all same (DH has a chromosome inversion that makes us miscarry and may cause harm to children we produce together genetically, so he has had a vasectomy and we are TTC with DI) - Wow, that was a lot of parentheses. How many hours after a OPK is ideal for doing an at-home insem. with unwashed swimmers, only one vial?

Anything else I need to do?

Will my 3 cc syringe work?

Any foods I should eat?

I thought I would have this weekend to review everything again, and now it looks like we will insem. tomorrow!? I am hoping this is a good sign, because I usually ovulate on CD 20 and this puts me at ovulating at CD16, which is when I ovulated when we conceived our daughter. I am happy to read good omens in all the clouds today

So, help me please! I am a flake!

- Sarah (who is slightly twitterpated)

[Limabean1975]

I know NOTHING about this, just read it out of curiousity, and am now bumping it for you because I can feel your high emotions so keenly I have goosebumps!

All the best!

[wehrli]

i have not had success in the 2 months i have TTC with frozen donor sperm from a bank, but everything i have read says to insem 12-24 hrs after a positive OPK. so you should be good to go!!!

there is a great post from a midwife here:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1113612

the best of luck to you, and keep us posted!

[sarahcecile]

Thank you to both of you!

I think we are going to inseminate 24 hours after my positive opk, so that makes it about 5 am. tomorrow morning. I picked up the tank this afternoon, boy was that weird.

I have the swimmers in my living room!

Ahh, life is surreal.

- Sarah (who is positively bursting with hope and excitement ::

[sarahcecile]

DONE! We inseminated this morning. The syringe we had soooo didn't work. Not sure how much of the already minuscule amount made it where it needed to go.

Oh well...

Now for the TWW!

- Sarah

[Snapdragon]

Best of luck to you! Was this your first ever insemination? How exciting! I think 24 hours is great timing. The cycle that worked for us we actually did three insems and it was at 18, 24 and 36 hours past +opk.

[sarahcecile]

Thanks! And yes, it was our first ever.

- Sarah

[Satori]

I know its after the fact but I'll give advice for next time just in case How soon after surge do you O? That would determine when you insem. I charted for several months and discovered that I, like a lot of women O at surge and not 12-36 hours later so if I had followed standard advice of 12-24 hours later I would have missed the egg and dd wouldn't be bugging her sister right now I would insem about 4-6 hours before you expect to O so the sperm are ready and waiting when the egg pops If you happen to feel O pains you could also wait until you feel the pains and insem right then. Remember, its when 3 signs line up and not just when you get a + OPK

Anyway, good luck!

[sarahcecile]

Satori, I am not entirely sure, since this is only my second cycle using OPKs, although I have been charting for years. I had my temp shift 48 hours after my positive OPK, and inseminated 24 hours after the positive OPK. I'm hoping that means that we timed it correctly. I also had an increased in CF the day we insemed, so.... fingers crossed!!!

I am wondering if we will do the next cycle at home or go to the Doctor's office. I was surprised how emotional and intense the whole event was, and how difficult and stressful it was to get the sperm into the syringe. We had the wrong size syringe (the OB's office gave us the syringes they use for IUI, that are meant to have a catheter attached). So we lost some of the it in the transfer from one container to another.

Does it get less stressful?

[Satori]

Originally Posted by sarahcecile

Satori, I am not entirely sure, since this is only my second cycle using OPKs, although I have been charting for years. I had my temp shift 48 hours after my positive OPK, and inseminated 24 hours after the positive OPK. I'm hoping that means that we timed it correctly. I also had an increased in CF the day we insemed, so.... fingers crossed!!!

I am wondering if we will do the next cycle at home or go to the Doctor's office. I was surprised how emotional and intense the whole event was, and how difficult and stressful it was to get the sperm into the syringe. We had the wrong size syringe (the OB's office gave us the syringes they use for IUI, that are meant to have a catheter attached). So we lost some of the it in the transfer from one container to another.

Does it get less stressful?

Frozen swimmers usually last about 12 hours, do you always O about 48 hours after? If yes then I would wait till about 36-45 hours after a + OPK.

I would also find out the sperm counts and motility of each vial you use, the bank should be able to tell you this, I would refuse to take any vial with less then 20K per ml. Most banks only guarantee a count of 10K per 1ml for ICI but according to WHO (I think) anything less then 20k/ml is considered infertile so I can't understand there reasoning for only 10k. Both cycles I had success the 1st try had counts of over 60k/ml and excellent motility. Also, I used the 1 ml syringe with cath to get the sperm out of the vial then disconnected the cath to insem.

[Jeremiah2911]

@ Satori: My partner and I are looking to do an at-home insem once I chart my LH for a couple of months. Aug was the first time charting & I surged yesterday, but tested again today and nearly no sign of LH. So I'm thinking I may be one of those women who if we insem 24-36 hrs after LH the time would have passed. Is this normal? Or is it possible that I'm testing at the wrong time of day. I've been testing once a day around 3PM (the instructions suggested that afternoon was best). Our target month to insem is Oct so I'm trying to find out as much info. Any help is MUCH appreciated!

@SarahCecile: Have you heard or used pre-seed? Again, something I read was really AWESOME in helping the swimmers make successful contact!

[Satori]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah2911

@ Satori: My partner and I are looking to do an at-home insem once I chart my LH for a couple of months. Aug was the first time charting & I surged yesterday, but tested again today and nearly no sign of LH. So I'm thinking I may be one of those women who if we insem 24-36 hrs after LH the time would have passed. Is this normal? Or is it possible that I'm testing at the wrong time of day. I've been testing once a day around 3PM (the instructions suggested that afternoon was best). Our target month to insem is Oct so I'm trying to find out as much info. Any help is MUCH appreciated!

@SarahCecile: Have you heard or used pre-seed? Again, something I read was really AWESOME in helping the swimmers make successful contact!

What I did as tested every 12 hours starting a couple of days before I expected surge then as soon as I started seeing a purple line I started testing every 4 hours. Yes it gets $$ but I needed to know ASAP when I surged to catch the egg.

[Jeremiah2911]

Originally Posted by Satori

What I did as tested every 12 hours starting a couple of days before I expected surge then as soon as I started seeing a purple line I started testing every 4 hours. Yes it gets $$ but I needed to know ASAP when I surged to catch the egg.

Thanks 4 such a quick response Satori!
So if you started testing every 4 hours after u saw the first sign of purple line, when did you know the "right time" to catch the egg... and did you literally drop everything and insem? I have no prob doing the every 12 hour deal and then every 4, but I want to get the timing right... I hope I'm making sense.... so as I'm charting now, exactly what do u suggest I look 4 & what to chart?

Also... you mentioned 3 signs lining up? please xplain. thanks for ur patience!
I'm a newbie!

[sarahcecile]

I had heard of preseed - but I think there is conflicting feelings on it hurting or harming if you already have sufficient cervical fluid.

But I am may try it out in the future!

I think was Satori was talking about is opks, cervical fluid, and temperatures lining up. You want to see a positive opk, fertile quality cervical fluid, and then a temp shift in your chart afterward to show when/if you ovulated.

Good luck!

- Sarah

[wehrli]

jeremiah, i used preseed on my last/2nd cycle... no bfp but i am still willing to give it a chance. i get my best EWCM at least 2 days before ovulation and we are using frozen swimmers and 2 days before seems too early. right before O my CF is creamy/lotiony but somewhat scant. so i think it is worthwhile to try it at least a few more times...
good luck!!

[Satori]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah2911

Thanks 4 such a quick response Satori!
So if you started testing every 4 hours after u saw the first sign of purple line, when did you know the "right time" to catch the egg... and did you literally drop everything and insem? I have no prob doing the every 12 hour deal and then every 4, but I want to get the timing right... I hope I'm making sense.... so as I'm charting now, exactly what do u suggest I look 4 & what to chart?

Also... you mentioned 3 signs lining up? please xplain. thanks for ur patience!
I'm a newbie!

I had already charted for months before starting so I knew when O happened plus I had the benefit of being able to feel O every month Intuition played a huge role in it too. Have you read "The Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth" by Stephanie Brill? Its the TTC bible for getting prego via AI and I've helped quite a few women get prego over the years following its advice and they talk about the 3 signs lining up rather then just the 1 like a +opk. I've barely had any sleep so I can't remember anymore details on it but for sure get that book, I learned so much from it that it got me prego both cycles, 1st try

[Lyndzies]

Originally Posted by Satori

I had already charted for months before starting so I knew when O happened

I seriously think this is KEY.

Of course, doesn't hurt to TTC while you're getting used to charting/interpreting your chart, but I feel like it's all a crapshoot until you've got a handle on your body and unique signs of O (every body is different!).

Of course, for fun, the universe will throw you curveballs like annovulatory cycles... but not much we can do about that, and you just have to get a few months of data points to discover what's normal for you in terms of your "signs"

Oh, and one more thing... charting for a few months in advance of TTC also helps during the TWW. If you're really good about recording details during the LP, you're less likely to think every single thing is a pg symptom because you know what your "normal" pre-AF symptoms are.

Just my 2 cents.

[Jeremiah2911]

Originally Posted by Satori

I had already charted for months before starting so I knew when O happened plus I had the benefit of being able to feel O every month Intuition played a huge role in it too. Have you read "The Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth" by Stephanie Brill? Its the TTC bible for getting prego via AI and I've helped quite a few women get prego over the years following its advice and they talk about the 3 signs lining up rather then just the 1 like a +opk. I've barely had any sleep so I can't remember anymore details on it but for sure get that book, I learned so much from it that it got me prego both cycles, 1st try

just ordered the book! thanks... and i totally get you on the intuition part. i believe i'm very in-tune with my body.

thanks again!