calling all insemination pros!
i have a ton of questions and need you all’s input in this.
1- for the past 2-3 cycles, my digital monitor has been going from low to peak overnight. so instead of having a few days of “high,” it shoots straight up to peak for days 14 and 15. does anyone have an idea why? is this a bad thing? what should i do about this?
2- when you get two days of peak on the digital monitor, are you supposed to count the 24 and 36 hours after the first one or the second one? i’ve been counting after the first one and realize that maybe i’m wrong. again, input needed.
3- last month, i tried insemination 18 hours and 36 hours after the peak reading. maybe my timing is off, especially since after the second insemination my cervix still looked a bit open. please, please advise!
4- any other advise yall have for me to pinpoint my ovulation more? i feel like i’m trying everything but my timing is off. i really cannot afford to go the hormone and ultrasound route. any advice is more than welcome, as long as it’s advice and not thinly veiled criticism. no debbie downers allowed!
8 comments on “calling all insemination pros!”
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l.i.b.e.r.a.t.i.o.n. theory 
with the monitor i believe they say ovulation happens after the SECOND peak…with me, i had a trigger shot one day, the next day was peak and iui #1, that night i ovulated and the next day iui #2. i can give you exact timings if you want.
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so i’m confused.. should i be counting my 24 hours from the first or the second peak. i’ve been doing it from the first peak. so for example, peak #1 is on day 14 for me. i count day 15 as my ovulation day, and i get another peak then. however, i start my 24 hour count after i get that first peak.
am i doing it wrong?
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I insemmed 7 months before I got pg. What I did differently on the cycle that worked is that I got my HCG trigger shot the morning I got the 1st peak (egg symbol) on the monitor. I had an IUI 24 hours afterward. The timing must have been right, because I only had 1 vial/IUI that cycle.
Best of luck, it’s soooo damn frustrating!
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thanks for the feedback.
i’m not doing any trigger shots or hormones. so i’m only guestimating. 🙂 i think i’m going to have to do several types of opks to try to narrow the window of when i surge.
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Okay – this is my experience with the monitor….it became more and more UNreliable. Turns out for me morning is not the time for testing for a surge so it was almost always late reading peaks because I started surging mid day the day before. Sometimes it would even miss the peak because of this, even though I would get very, very positive OPKs.
And this is a pattern that I noticed: after the first peak it would ALWAYS give one more peak, even if I KNEW from OPKS that the surge was over. So, I figured that after the first peak it wasn’t even reading the stick anymore and I wouldn’t bother giving it anymore sticks. I would count the 24-36 hours afer the first peak reading.
And I ended up getting rid of the monitor…it caused me way more headaches than it was worth. I just did lots and lots of OPKs.
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You will automatically get a second peak reading no matter what. After the first peak reading, stop testing and save your sticks. So with that here are my thoughts….
1. supplement with regular opk’s. you may find that you’ll get a +opk earlier than a peak reading. Because your LH comes in late morning and you test in the early am with the monitor, you are not getting your surge reading on the monitor until the day after. If that is the case, you may be insemming too late because you are doing it based on your peak reading instead of your opk. Does that make sense? Additionally, I love my monitor and still use it but I feel like it is really successful for straight couples because they bd on high days to peak days. For us it’s a little trickier and I’m not sure the same rules as far as insemming on peak day applies.
2. meet with an RE and have an u/s to see what’s going on in there. Even if your insurance doesn’t pay for IUI’s and the like, they may pay for the first u/s as an assessment. Mine did.
3. I’ve heard other people’s monitors going straight to peak. Some never even get it a peak reading. I don’t know why. I think this is all the more reason to supplement. I didn’t supplement until after a few cycles and although I’m not pregnant, I do see the sense in doing it.
4. Consider seeing a RE just for testing. I didn’t go to a RE until cycle 10. I wish I had gone earlier. Even if you don’t return and just use them for testing purposes to make sure your levels and everything are not getting in the way. I think it’s worth the piece of mind.
Lisa
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you all have provided invaluable insight! now i need to go check to see if my insurance will cover a visit to an RE and the supplemental tests.. i swear i hate this part of it. but i’m trying to do everything in my power this time..
thanks again
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I’m with Lisa on using pee sticks as well… the monitor so, so so so did not work for me. I started using very sensitive OPKs that I had to find on the internet (OvuQuick). They started to become too expensive for me this time around so I ended up buying Target OPKs. They worked just fine, believe it or not. the OvuQuicks are very reliable but require pipettes and cups and 3 drops… not just peeing on the stick. (I guess all the tedium is what makes them reliable – they’re very exact.) When I believed I was close to ovulating I would check at 12:30 and before bed… the 12:30 time was specific because I had to call my clinic before 1 to have the specimen processed if I were to have an IUI the next day. But more important was, IMO, spacing the stick-peeing out so that you could catch when your LH surged. Of course you only know it’s in that 12 hour window (unless you pee on a stick every 4-6 hours), and you know that from there you’re going to ovulate anywhere from 12-36 hours later… but I found that it really gave me a better shot at timing the insem correctly.
Please, be patient and kind to yourself, and have faith. My first came on the 5th try. Statistically, that’s spot on (20% chance of conceiving via IUI with frozen). But other friends of ours conceived their 2nd (and, um, 3rd) on the 14th try. That’s a miserable long time to wait, and a lot of negative tests staring you in the face… but we are all wishing and hoping for you!
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