Im a bit confused atm. I had my wonderful son on April 8, and af came back 7 wks later, about May 23 with no cramps and heavy. Then on June 16th she visited with VERY painful cramps and very heavy, then she came again on July 2nd with no cramps and light/moderate flow. Now before I got pg with my son my cycles were every 28-29 days, I could litterally chart when I was going to O or have af come just by looking at the calender... and now here I am on day 33 of my cycle with only slight cramping last week but no af. I'm afraid to get my hopes up and test because I did earlier this month when I "felt" pg because of my nausia (that I've been having all month long), but now I have nausia, headaches, and my husband says Im a grouch. If I am pg this one will be due on my son's b-day because I had af on the 2nd last year too.

You think I could be pg? Im afraid to test and get a + only to get af a few days later (happend to me 3 times before already).

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Hi there....first thing you should know is that your cycles after being pregnant are crazy. They don't fall back into the normal pattern very often.

Here's my philosophy: Test

pretty simple, huh? I just figure that there is no sense in "freaking out" about it when you can go and spend $2-3 and know.

As far as tests go, I have never heard of anyone getting a false positive. I have heard of false negatives. But, you said it has happened to you three times, so I don't know what to say about that.

Either way, I hope you get the answer you want.

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I agree... HAPPY TESTING :-)

well i took your ladies lead and bought a test. it was neg, Im kind of frustrated about not knowing my cycles anymore

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i forgot to ask if you guys know how long does it take to have your cycles back to normal?

My dh and I want to have another child in the not too distant future (when my son is 18-24mo ideally); which means we need to start trying in 4-5 mon.

I've never had to "chart" before because I was so regular; I caught my son on our second cycle. Im just wondering how long it will be until most ppl are regular so that we can plan accordingly. (know what I mean?)

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are you breastfeeding? wonder if the mini pill would help?

Well, since I was breastfeeding, I didn't get my cycle back until my son was 9 or 10 months old. But even now, I have cycles that last anywhere from 22 to 31 days. But then, I was never like clockwork before, either.

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I bf some, I've been going through high stress lately and its causing me to dry up (im almost compleatly dry now) I bf before each feeding but that lasts like 2-5 min max now and I can only pump 2 oz max/pumping. So I dont think that its the bf thats causing my odd cycles. We tried the mini pill for about a month and my supply dropped even from that, my lc suggested to stop using it and do nfp or condoms until we were ready to start trying again. My ob agreed. I guess I could try the mini pill, but Im afraid of losing the little bit of milk I still have.

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Oh no! I'm sorry your milk is drying up so soon! That's got to be frusterating in itself! I haven't had a baby yet, so I don't know much about cycles coming back after PG, but I bet that if you were to chart your temps it would help you out in more ways than you can imagine. It would give you back control over your cycles. Well not that you can change what your body does but at least you would know when you are ovulating and stuff like that. For now you could chart and use OPK's for the purpose of preventing until you know you feel ready to go for it again. I want to do the same thing...go for my second pretty quickly after my first is born. But first things first! Gotta get myself PG! That might help!

If you do decide to start charting, and you're not familliar with the whole drill of it, let me know and I can help you out as much as you need!

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I would love to learn how to chart, like I said I've never had to before so its all new to me.

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Oh, it's really simple. Have you see other women's charts by clicking on tickers? Click on mine to get a general idea. I've got over a year's worth of cycles in there since I started charting last summer. Then you can set up your own account with fertility friend by looking at the top of the page...I'm not sure what it would say for you if you're not a member yet, but I'm sure it will show you where to go to set up a free account. Then it'll probably ask you for the first day of your last AF so if you put that in, it should just start up a chart for you. Then you can click right on the chart on whatever day it is in your cycle and it will bring you to a page where you can enter in your temp for the day. So if you do this tonight, then take your temp in the morning and enter it in. You'll need to get, if you don't have, a basil thermometer or even a regular digital thermometer is fine. I actually use a talking thermometer so it just says my temp so I don't have to look at it. I haven't been able to find those in the stores anymore, but I get mine on ebay.

So when you wake up in the morning, take your temp right away before you get out of bed or even move around a lot. It should be taken at the same time every morning so if you don't have the same wake up time every day, just set your alarm to the ealiest you would ever get up and just have it go off every day at that time and if you don't have to get up that early, then just take the temp and go back to sleep. Just make sure your thermometer stores the last temp in there so you can look at it when you do get up. Most digitals will store it for you at least until you turn it on again.

So start with that and see how it goes for a few days. Then after you get the hang of that, you can start doing other things like checking your cervix for mucus and position. Those are also a big help in knowing what your cycle is doing. Let me know how it goes! Good luck!

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wow. Hard to believe that they would prohibit such a thing, well I guess I fall between the cracks huh? I want to learn my cycles so that I can get pregnant when we are ready, but Im not ttc atm.

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I filled it in with the best that I can remember (with the help of old posts), so we'll see where we go from here right?

Also Im going to poas tomorrow just for the heck of it. While lurking on these boards you ladies have made me become a stick junkie... all I want to do is test. Im never going to be able to afford this! After all until af shows up we all could be pg right?

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Well that didnt last long. I woke up and decided to test even though i know its not concentrated. I got a light bfp, Im going to go out and buy more to make sure that it gets darker. thank you ladies for your help in trying to help me chart and everything else.

sending you guys

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That was fast! OMG! So is this something you're happy about now that you know, even though it's a few months too early than you had planned for? I wouldn't want to say congrats if you're not happy with your result, but for now I'll just say...
CONGRATULATIONS!!! That's amazing! Let me know how the future tests come out okay?

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alright I bought the Equate and the dollar tree kind and they came out :BFN !! so Im going to go back to a different store (target vs walmart) and get my accuclear that I used last night and w/my last pg. I just read on "early pg test.com" that equate has to have 100ml hCG before it detects it. So maybe Im to early to test pos on equate...

Told you that you guys made me a test junkie!

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used the accuclear another , I dont know what to think anymore. The line last night was faint but it WAS there, you could just look at it and see the pink line. I guess it just wasnt ment to be, so I'll be here waiting for af to come, should be soon now

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Oh, I'm sorry about that! It sounds like my two chemical pregnancies exactly! Both times it happened just like that. I hate those!

Well, keep on charting, and then start a new cycle when AF does show up. Then you'll be all set to chart your temps for the whole cycle, and watch for a rise between CD12 and ?. I don't know because it doesn't seem like your cycles are quite back to normal yet. But that's what the charting will help with. Just stick right here and I'll be here to help you along anytime you need it.

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