Irregular Periods Post-Pregnancy?

[MadTown16]

My son was born December 18th, 2010.  I had my first postpartum period on July 22nd, and it was just like my pre-preg periods.  I assumed that after the first one, my periods would go back to being 28-32 days apart like they were before I got pregnant...but that's apparently not the case.  I have yet to get another period.  After getting really anxious and taking several pregnancy tests over the past week (all negative), I'm wondering if this is normal?  I'm still breastfeeding regularly and using birth control, so it's not likely I'm pregnant.  So I'm thinking that irregular periods might be normal (even if I never had irregular periods before)...

Has this type of thing happened to anyone???  Thanks!  

[Jaimee]

Absolutely!  After my first child, I got my first ppAF around 8 months, but it took over a year after that for my cycles to regulate and become fertile again.  Some cycles were short and some were quite long.  It is very common to have several months of irregular cycles and breastfeeding can affect your cycles even more.  About 2/3 of women will ovulate prior to their first postpartum bleed, but only half of those will have a luteal phase long enough to sustain a pregnancy.  So it is possible that you aren't even ovulating yet and even if you are, you may not be able to sustain a pregnancy.  My luteal phase was quite short for many months and then hovered around 9 days for several more months.  It wasn't until my dd was sleeping through the night and cutting down her nursing sessions during the day that my LP shot back up to 10-12 days and I was able to conceive again. 

After my second child, I had one cycle with a 4 day LP and the very next cycle I conceived.  So you can see that there is much variation when it comes to returning fertility.  Anytime you have bleeding and fertile cervical fluid you must consider yourself fertile and take precautions if you do not wish to be pregnant at this time.  Charting your basal body temp and CF can really help clue you in to what is happening with your cycles.  It's fascinating to watch them regulate over time and knowing when you O'd helps you to predict when AF will show and take the mystery out of whether you are pregnant or not.  If you'd like help getting going with charting, just post or jump into the CTA thread for support and advice.

[orvis]

I don't know if its normal but its what happend to me. 

After I had my first child I was breastfeeding and didn't get my period back for 1 full year after pregnancy!  Then it was a full 59 days till I had it again, it lasted the normal 6 days for me, then it was another I think 48 till I cycled again, then after that 39 days. 

So I don't know if its normal but it is what happend to me I thought it would only take from 3- 6 months to get my period back but it took forever!  And she was eating normal food and also had a pacifier so it wasn't exclusive only breastfeeding, it was more then every 6 hours though and a lot of nursing at night. 

I was so jealous of women who got a period back after like 3 months I mean I felt like my body was messing up in some way.

I'm just glad it came back when it did.  I have heard of it being delayed much longer and not going back to normal for longer too.

I assume everything is back to normal now?

[BaileyB]

Yes, that's how it was for me. I thought I'd be all smart and just take 1 month of birth control to 'jump start' my periods and then quit the b.c. after that and use my natural family planning. Well, I got some periods but they were 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, and 21 days long, and then gone. I called my vanishing period. This was after I quit breastfeeding. I know at one point I took 20 preg. tests in a week. All neg. I finally got my period back after it being gone for 40 or so days. I won't know if I will get another period until next week but I'm pretty sure I will since I am 99.99% sure I ovulated.

[ahimsamom]

I am going through this right now. Had my first PP period last month (11 months PP) and have yet to have another one. It's been about 40 days. I though I was going to get it last week (had all the symptoms) but it never arrived.We don't use any type birth control and I am still breastfeeding A LOT (my daughter still only eats a few bites here and there). I thought I had implantation spotting a few weeks ago (blood when I wiped once), but I've taken a couple pregnancy tests (OK, 6 pregnancy tests), all negative. I am trying to chart and it is driving me nuts.

[orvis]

I know how that feels ahimsamom, well I didn't chart, but I did the ovulation tests, they were all over the place too.  I thought maybe I wasn't having enough progesterine?  I tried Vitex, I don't think it helped though because it still took forever to have a period, and then I got pregnant before they did get to a normal length anyways.  I wish you a red flow soon thats regular!  Well that sounds weird, but whatever the appropriate thing is to wish you to get that all back on track. 

[orvis]

OK, 6 pregnancy tests),

So I did that too a lot very funny. Ha ha I really had a problem with those things.

When I started to use the opk's I heard they can double as a pregnancy test, they do show 2 lines if preganant, its a lot less expensive if you get them though amazon then the pregnancy tests, but just to be sure, after testing with the opk's, the doller store and then Walgreen pregnancy tests were all used to confirm and yes like 6 times I know pretty sad of me, I just wanted to be sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!