It tests the urine with the stick, or else it gets the hose again
10.05.16, 10:00 am

Ovulation testing kits are a thing, and require you to test your ‘first moring urination’ as the leaflet calls it every day to pick up hormonal changes and pinpoint when you’re about to ovulate. You start off with the Circle of Low Fertility, move on to the Flashing Smiley Face of High Fertility when oestrogen levels start to rise and then end on the Solid Smiley Face of Peak Fertility, which means the LH hormone spike has been detected and an egg is coming in 24-36 hours. You then hurriedly bang and cross your fingers. And you should also have more sex during High Fertility as sperm can live for a few days.

I buy them because my cycle is longer than average and makes predicting when I ovulate a bit of a challenge. They make life terribly exciting. You can’t go for a wee in the night, so it’s like a mild torture device. Because I’m clumsy I collect the urine in a little pot to make testing easier, and sometimes the testing sticks fail so you have to keep the urine sample around for a while, especially as the test takes about 6 minutes to process (first time this happened, James shouted down the stairs: “Any reason there’s a pot of wee sat next to my toothbrush?”). The fickleness of the testing sticks I learned to my sadness, as the first time the stick failed I’d already chucked the remaining urine away. This led to a very sad situation where I had to lock myself in the disabled toilet at work with a 50ml Falcon tube from Primary Cell Culture’s worth of urine after four hours of holding in the next wee, whilst across the corridor an enormous meeting took place and people threatened to knock on the door at any moment and demand why I was a) taking so long and b) there in the first place being clearly NOT disabled.

I’ve also learned that I have an INCREDIBLY long high fertility stage, which is the part where oestrogen levels rise. The box declares that you’ll have up to 4 days’ high fertility before peak fertility. I have TEN. This led to much sadness first time, as I presumed that I didn’t actually ovulate and was clearly infertile and had never realised. It’s one of those things you never really consider and then suddenly you think, ‘I belong in the Old Testament along with all the other unfortunate barren women that never experienced the Solid Smiley Face of Fertility.’ When the solid smiley face finally did turn up I felt like letting off a party popper.

And after all of that, I’m still not pregnant. God, it’s killing me. Ha, I just typed that and then nearly had a heart attack from the hyperbole. It’s just, I cannot handle things just being left up to chance; I am such a planner and controller of life, and having to wait and see and roll with things makes me feel like my skin is turning inside out. We’ve only had two failed cycles so far, with is NOTHING when it comes to trying to get pregnant, but for me feels like a massive failure already. I’m such a doofus. This cycle does feel more relaxed though… because I know I won’t ovulate until about day 20 there’s no pressure to frantically have sex every other day of the High Fertility days, as it’s not important on the early ones. That, at least, feels like progress. Because you like to think you’re a sexual, highly seductive Love Queen, but actually having sex 5 times a week is tiring and hard work.

Apart from that, life is grand. The weather is wonderful, all of my loved ones are well and I still have a job. You’ve got to keep it all in perspective.

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