HOW DOES ANYONE GET PREGNANT??

Firstly, could this boy be any more of a poser if he tried? Anyway...

So, I'm still not pregnant. I didn't really expect to be, since this is my first cycle of doing things differently, but once you're trying, every month brings new hope and it becomes a little all consuming. 

Strictly speaking, I'm still in the "two week wait" so I suppose I could be pregnant, but I'm not hopeful. I started charting my basal body temperature this month, and to say it's all over the place would be an understatement. If you didn't know, tracking your basal body temperature (you have to take an accurate digital temp measurement every morning before rising so you are at full rest) essentially tracks your hormone shifts. Here is my chart so far, so you can see what I mean:

I should probably say at this point that for the first few days, I was using our in-ear thermometer while I waited for my proper basal thermometer to arrive in the post, so those days can pretty much be discounted as it's not nearly as accurate. Anyway...

The day after you ovulate, your temperature will see a sharp rise, as the hormone progesterone is released into the body. Ovulation is marked on my chart here with the red dotted line. It's dotted because although my temperature shift indicates that it happened on day 17, I still got a positive OPK (Ovulation predictor kit) on day 18, which throws the date into a question  a little. If it weren't for this OPK, the line would be solid red. But whatevs, I'm assuming I ovulation on day 17. 

So basically, my temperature after ovulation is a very good indication of my progesterone levels, and as you can see, it's kind of all over the place. I started taking Progest-E Complex on Sunday (I was in Bruges until then and hadn't taken it with me, otherwise I would have started taking it on Friday once I knew I had ovulated) and you can see that my temperature started rising again after this, for a couple of days, but then it starts dipping again. Apparently it can be a sign of implantation to get a temperature dip  between 7-10 dpo (days past ovulation) but I don't think this is the case for me, as it dipped for 3 days and even went below my cover line (the horizontal red dotted line) which I'm pretty sure is bad news. Then today, at 9dpo it shot right up again higher than it was before. I also woke up with a nasty headache which I still have, and I'm feeling a little nauseous. Some might say this is a good sign, but I could also just be coming down with something. Who knows. The only choice I have is to wait and see what happens. I expect I will probably come on in the next couple of days, and the cycle will begin again. 

My overall suspicion, is that I have what is called a "Luteal Phase Defect". The Luteal phase is the time from ovulation to the start of the period. For most women this phase lasts between 14-17 days. Anything below 12 days is usually too short to support a pregnancy, and if my chart is anything to go by (with the temperature dipping so early) I think mine is quite short. Of course, I can't be sure of my luteal phase length until I do actually come on, but we'll see. As well as Progesterone, I am also taking vitamin B6, and Vitex (agnus castus) which are both supposed to be good at lengthening the luteal phase.

I'll leave it there for now, as you're probably as bored of my secondary fertility issues as I am, for today at least :o)

If you are/have been in the same boat as me, please let me know in the comments section. I'm really interested to hear how these situations work out for other people and share tips on how to help each other.

Thanks for reading xo