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Read about why I am sharing my cycles here. See Cycle 1 analysis here.

Cycle 2 Stats:

• 39 days
• Ovulation on Day 27 or 28
• Ovulation 1-2 days after full moon
• Luteal Phase 11-12 days long

Cycle 2 Analysis

This cycle was a time for stress and a time for rejoicing. And in particular it was a time of confusion – and only the beginning! This cycle ran from late October 2013 to the end of November. It was my senior year in college and I was not doing well. I had a huge amount of job stress, I got wait-listed for pharmacy school (I ended up deciding that this wasn’t the right path for me, but it was very hard to deal with at the time), and I was on the verge of failing a class I needed to graduate. And for good measure I was planning my wedding. I was exhausted and frankly I was eating like crap.

I went to the doctor to see if anything was up with my hormones, and my labs all came back “normal.” Some were suboptimal – my TSH was a bit high, and a few values were a bit low, but overall things should have been fine. The doctor, who is supposed to specialize in fertility problems, saw nothing of concern and just prescribed me some progesterone to take to induce a bleed.

I wasn’t a fan of that idea. I wanted to see if my body could do this on its own. And as luck would have it, within a few days I started to see an increase in cervical mucus. It seemed consistent and I held my breath. Then I saw my temp rise. I saw my mucus dry up. I saw that temp rise sustain itself. After a week my breasts began to get really tender. And on the 12th or 13th day, I saw a drop in temperature and my period started. An actual period following an ovulation! It had been over 7 months since I had gone off the pill, and my body finally ovulated.

I am not sure of the exact day. Technically cycle day 28 can count as the first day of my temp rise. However, it is only 1/10th of a degree above my coverline, while day 29 is 6/10th above the coverline, and all of the other post-ovulation temps for this cycle are in the same range. This suggests to me that ovulation probably occurred on day 28, but it also could have happened on day 27.

But you can understand my confusion, of course, as to why ovulation occurred at all. I was eating horribly and my stress had never been so high. I spent most of my time exhausted and crying. Yet this month, as opposed to all those months I was feeling great, my body decided it would be a good time to bring a child into the world. Why? This is a question I would ask myself over and over during the next few years as this pattern repeated itself. I have some theories, but in the end I have no answer as to why fertility promoting activities left me barren and fertility decreasing activities brought on ovulation. This is something I will discuss more in future cycles.

Read about Cycle 3 here.

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