Infertility Term Series- Part One

Table of Contents hide

What does LH surg mean? How does it help me?

Okay first, what the Heck is LH?

What is the LH Surge?

Am I only fertile after the LH Surge?

Whats the difference between the “High”and “Peak”?

How often do I test in order to catch my Peak?

Any Questions?

Resources

What does LH surg mean? How does it help me?

When you enter into this world of TTC and Infertility the knowledge and what you start to learn can be very over whelming.

You thought all you had to worry about was the sex part but now theres body temperature, cervical mucus, height and openness of the cervix, LH Surge. I mean Fork My Life, right?!

So to take some baby steps into all of that, I am going to discuss all things LH Surge. I want this to be a stepping stone into your research and maybe ease the anxiety of knowledge overload a little bit.

Now Ive been on this journey for quite some time now so some of what I will talking about will be from my own learning experiences and some of it will be from resources I have found and I will make sure to add links to where I found my information so that you can go and poke around yourself.

Please note that some of the links within this post are affiliate links, and at no cost to you, I could earn a commission. Please read my full Affiliate Disclosure for more information.

Okay first, what the Heck is LH?

LH or Luteinizing Hormone, is produced by the pituitary gland and it has effects on both men and women reproductive systems; for women it effects the ovaries and for men the testes. For women this hormone is very important because this hormone is responsible for ovulation and releasing of an egg.

If that egg ends up being fertilized (fingers crossed), this hormone is also the one that will tell the body to start producing progesterone which you need in order to sustain a pregnancy.

(Hormone Health Network.”Luteinizing Hormone LH | Endocrine Society.” Hormone.org, Endocrine Society, 30 April 2020, https://www.hormone.org/your-health-and-hormones/glands-and-hormones-a-to-z/hormones/luteinizing-hormone)

Yea I know, pretty important. Who knew one hormone had so much control? Whose idea was that anyways?

What is the LH Surge?

Now the “Surge” part of this tells you that you will ovulate in the next 24-48 hours, so this is the time to get to Baby Dancing or when they will schedule your IUI or can try an at home insemination kit such as Mosie Baby. (click here to learn more)

Am I only fertile after the LH Surge?

Not exactly, those 24-48 are your Peak Fertile Window but when you are testing for your LH surge they will usually tell you when your getting close to it, many strips or Apps will calls this a “High”level.

This is also a good time to have intercourse, the misconception is that you want to have sex during ovulation because that’s when the egg will be there . . . but heres what I have learned, unless you know the exact minute that egg will drop and you get the sperm there at that exact moment then your chances can decrease, don’t get me wrong this can and does happen but more so out of luck or pure chance.

So to make sure we dont miss our windows of opporunity we use tools like the Femometer Fertility Tracker with LH Strips in order to get as close to that moment as we can.

Theres more to making sure you get to your most fertile time but this is just talking about LH Surge, to again, not to overload you with information.

Whats the difference between the “High”and “Peak”?

When you get to your “High” result, this can last a couple days and its the period of time leading up to your “Peak” window, this is a good time to BD (baby dance/have sex) because sperm can live for days so this gives you a chance to build up your army per say.

Adding to that thought, I do not suggest going overboard with BD because you do want to have a good “sample” size for your “Peak” window, but you could do the golden rule of every other day until your “Peak”.

Okay so you’ve been testing and you finally get your “Peak” result, its game time and this is when you turn up the heat.

Again, your peak should last between 24-48 hours but lets be real were on this infertility journey for one reason or another and the “typical” aspects of trying to get pregnant do not pertain to us, so this time frame can be different for each woman but it’s a starting place.

How often do I test in order to catch my Peak?

When I first started LH testing I would only test once a day, usually in the morning, Please Do Not make this mistake!

Your Peak can show up anytime of the day not just in the morning, so you could take a test in the morning and it says your still in your “High” period, so you just stop and it a day.

Now you’ve just closed your window even further because, say your “Peak” period started later that day but you don’t test again until the next morning.

Yes you’ll get your Peak result but now your already in your tail end of your 24-48 hour window.

Now again this is from my own experience but I test once my period is over to get a baseline and then I test once a day until I get my “High” result and then I test at least every 4 hours, so that I do not miss my first “Peak” result, so that I can keep the whole 24-48 hour window.

Once you get your “Peak” result continue testing every 4 hours until you go backwards and get a “High” result, this will tell you that you have closed that “Peak” window.

Any Questions?

I hope this helps a little bit when you are doing your research on all things trying to conceive. If there is something you were wondering but I did not answer please shoot me an email or leave a comment and I will do my best to get you an answer!