Estrogen priming -- question abt LH surge

[Anonymous]

I'm doing an estrogen priming protocol for IVF. My cycles are usually short -- like 25 days. I just got my LH surge today on cycle day 16. I'm supposed to start estrogen patches 10 days after the surge, but that will be after I get my period. Anyone dealt with this problem before? I asked my nurse and she doesn't seem concerned, but this doesn't seem right to me.

[Anonymous]

Are you saying your luteal phase is less than 10 days? I wouldn't worry about it unless that is the case... maybe you ovulated later than usual this time in which case your period would come later.

[Anonymous]

Do you know when you usually ovulate? If you just happened to ovulate later this cycle it is unlikely your luteal phase will be shorter than usual. Also remember you LH surge is usually 24 hours before ovulation. My luteal phase this EPP cycle was a bit short so I only did 2 of the 4 estrogen patches in my protocol. Still seemed to do the trick and the cycle is going well.

[Anonymous]

That's helpful. Thank you both. And yes, I do mean my luteal phase is (or appears to be, this month) fewer than 10 days. I don't know what it usually is. I have never monitored before.

[Anonymous]

Your luteal phase is almost always the same length of time every month and it depends on when you ovulated, not how long your cycles usually are. So even if your cycles are pretty regular, if you happen to ovulate early or late one month, this would result in an earlier or later than usual period. Ex. It takes 13 days for my period to come after i ovulate, so my luteal phase is 13 days. So if I ovulate on day 10, I can expect my period to come on day 23. However if I ovulate on day 15, I would expect it to come on day 28. So a better question for you would be do you usually get your surge on day 16 or is that later than usual? If that's usual for you then you would have a short luteal phase and might run into some timing issues but if you usually ovulate earlier, then your luteal phase is probably longer than you think and will probably be fine.