Haisla's Adventures in Endoland

It's CD28 today and I am not spotting.

This is highly unusual, since I am the great serial spotter. I spot before my period, sometimes for days on end.

To be fair, last month I only spotted for two days, so maybe the trend is slowly passing.

All the same, this is most unlikely behaviour from my body, as I am also a girl of fairly shortish cycles (26 days has been the average in the past year).

All of the above has obviously left my mind racing.

Yes, I could be pregnant - we have been trying for well over two years now. But that's just it. We've been trying for two years and it's never happened before. Why would this cycle be any different?

I haven't relaxed; in fact I've been super-stressed. We didn't so much try, as have one measly attempt around ovulation time (and I'm pretty sure I did ovulate, as I've had the 'hots' for about two weeks now.  For someone who is always cold, progesterone makes a 'nice' change, by providing me with a mild temperature-like feel to accompany the TWW, charming).

Despite the stress, I'm pretty sure I ovulated roundabout CD14 or 15, so it's not like my ovulation was delayed, and hence the longer cycle. Perhaps all my lifestyle changes are now having a positive effect on the endo and my cycles are normalising?

One thing that could account for the lack of spotting is evening primrose oil. Holland and Barrett had a big sale again and I had a voucher left over from my birthday, which I spent on almost exclusively on evening primrose oil.

Since my periods were getting really quite bad, painful and bloody again, I read up  on my symptoms and was reminded that bad prostaglandins can be the culprit. One way to combat bad prostaglandins is to a) cut down on meat eating (I'm a vegetarian) b) cut down on bovine dairy intake (I predominantly consume goats' dairy products these days, so another box ticked) c) cut down on animal fats, period (I love my goat's dairy and need it for weight management, so that's a no-go) d) increase the intake of 'good' oils (e.g. evening primrose).

So I've been taking 2000mg of EP daily for about a month and a half now. So maybe that's what it is.

Also my Fertility Friend calendar confidently suggested this morning that AF will arrive tomorrow. Gee, thanks for having zero-confidence in my reproductive capability, you stupid app! Then again, I suppose it adds a needed dose of realism into my excitedly racing mind. It is, after all a computer programme generated to calculate all the info I've provided it with over the past months, with the view of offering helpful forecasts on what is likely to happen next.

I have no unusual symptoms (apart from the lack of spotting). Boobs are mildly sore, but they are like that during every TWW. I'm having some cramping, but again that's nothing new. I'm tired, but "hello, stress!"; irritable - tick. So nothing really worth talking about.

That's that AF-wise, then. I'll keep you posted, if / when AF arrives to update you on whether EP has had any effect on period pain, clotting and so forth. If AF hasn't shown up by tomorrow (and there is zero spotting still) I might POAS. I'm not big on POASing, as can't stand the disappointment. I prefer to wait for the blood.

In other news, I am working from home today. Yay! Yesterday was another day from hell work-wise and I decided I needed a break. Luckily I've got a training package that needs to be completed by end of July and I've negotiated some working-from-home time to complete it, as it's proven impossible to do whilst in the office. Although I felt bad about not working with clients today, I also knew that if I was to try to push myself as much as I had to yesterday I would just end up sick, with nothing to give to no one. So hopefully I can get some legwork done today (purely metaphorically - I'll be sitting on my arse all day) re: client cases and also complete one module (minimum) of the training package.

I'm hoping for a productive day with minimum symptom spotting and pant-checking. Wish me luck!