My Fault....

So I learned today that I am the reason my cycle was late and that I missed the cut-off deadline for my clinic. I started a vitamin regimen that I'm hoping will be my 'magic potion' for my 4th and final IVF. However one of the vitamins I've been taking is the B vitamin. I found this on the web today:

A luteal phase is the time in a woman's cycle between ovulation and menstruation. In a pregnant woman, during the luteal phase the fertilized egg will travel from the fallopian tube and into the uterus for implantation. The luteal phase is normally 14 days long and on an average it can be anywhere from 10 to 17 days long. If your luteal phase lasts anything under 10 days it is considered a luteal phase defect. But some doctors believe that if the luteal phase falls under 12 days, then it is a problem. If you conceive and you have a luteal phase defect, you will have an early miscarriage.

A luteal phase defect cannot sustain a pregnancy because the uterine lining in these women begins to break down, bringing on the menstrual bleeding and causing an early miscarriage. There could be more than one reason for the luteal phase defect which can be found out after medical analysis. Going by statistics, the number one reason for a luteal phase defect is low progesterone levels. Your doctor can do a progesterone test on you 7 days past ovulation to determine exactly how deficient you are. Once you know that there are several ways of correcting this defect.

My cycles has always been about 27 or 28 days with me O'ing between CD16-18 and only making it to 9DPO or 10DPO before AF showed and I never thought anything of it before. One of the several ways they mention to fix the luteal phase is:

Over the counter remedies for luteal phase defect:The two main over the counter remedies for luteal phase defect are vitamin B6 and progesterone cream. Vitamin B6 is perfectly safe and can be taken daily in dosages from 50 mg to 200 mg. Taking vitamin B6 every day during the entire month will help to lengthen the luteal phase.

I added B vitamins before knowing about this to my daily regimen because:

*Vitamin B Complex - associated with hormonal health. Easily depleted through stress, alcohol or smoking. Research shows giving Vitamin B6 to women who have trouble conceiving can help increase fertility. In B Complex is also Biotin - which is essential for healthy division of fetal cells, including those in the nervous system. The concentration of biotin in breast milk is 15 times higher than in the mother's blood, which suggest that Biotin is very important for a baby's growth and development.

So I took a look at the B complex vitamin I've been taking and sure enough it has B6 in it and 100mg of B6. The B6 lengthened my luteal phase and this is the reason my cycle went to 30 days instead of the normal 27 which made me miss the cut-off date to start my IVF in June.

I don't think this had anything to do with my failed IVF cycles as I would think the progesterone shots would keep my lining from starting to break down early. But could explain why I never got pregnant before. I always heard of short luteal phase but never knew that 10DPO was considered short. So maybe it was a good thing after all that I missed the cut-off date as I've had even more time now to let the vitamins work in my system.

I wasn't going to share my vitamin regimen / 'magic potion' here until I found out if it worked or not and I can then compile a 'what I did different list', but I'll list it here anyway.

5/12/08 - Started my Self-Researched Vitamin Regimen before start of IVF to combat my Stage IV Endo and hopefully increase my success rate:

*Prenatal Vitamin

*Vitamin E and Selenium when taken together has been reported to decrease inflammation associated with Endometriosis as well as an immune booster.

*DHA - Which is an Omega-3 Fatty Acid for my Endo (There are the are good guys and the bad guys of the prostaglandin group. The action of the bad guys is to increase uterine contractions (which can interfere with an embie trying to implant), and the good guys have a soothing effect.) Omega-3 Fatty Acid is a good guy of the prostaglandin group.

*Vitamin B Complex - associated with hormonal health. Easily depleted through stress, alcohol or smoking. Research shows giving Vitamin B6 to women who have trouble conceiving can help increase fertility. In B Complex is also Biotin - which is essential for healthy division of fetal cells, including those in the nervous system. The concentration of biotin in breast milk is 15 times higher than in the mother's blood, which suggest that Biotin is very important for a baby's growth and development.

*Evening Primrose Oil (2 a day) - Omega Fatty Acid like DHA listed above and does the same thing. (Will stop at ER)

*Bromelain - Is the main ingredient women try to get from eating pineapple. I'm taking it from 2 days before Embryo Transfer and 3 days after.

*Vitamin C - important anti-oxidant associated with fertility. Also important in placental development, blood flow and organ development. Helps with absorption of iron.

*Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc - Egg and hormone production

*Iron - I've always been told I'm slightly anemic and read that women suffering from anemia find it harder to conceive. Also Iron is used to enrich the womb lining

*L Arginine - (Take Day 1 of AF until lead follicle reaches 17mm) - A study in Human Reproduction, vol. 14 no. 7, 1999, reported that supplementing with 16 g. daily or oral L-arginine supplementation from day 1 of the menstrual cycle until the dominant follicle reached over 17 mm. in diameter improved the response. The study concluded that, "oral L-arginine supplementation in poor responder patients may improve ovarian response, endometrial receptivity and pregnancy rate."

So yep - I take 9 vitamins a day and have been since May 12th. It originally was supposed to be for 5 weeks but then when I wasn't able to start my IVF in June I continued to take them. So we shall see if this helped as well as going into IVF with no suppression will give me that sticky BFP I've been trying to get for the past 5 years.