Hi everyone,

I'm new to this board and TTC baby #1 for the past 5 months I am also 34 going on to 35 this week. I wanted to share my story and questions. Please bear with me as this may be long and will contain tmi.

I have been TTC for about 5 months and only this past month did I start to use OPKs to pinpoint my ovulation since I was sure I was missing it. (we are also using preseed) Up till now I had been using an app to chart my periods and used their "ballpark" time frame for ovulation. My periods have always been irregular and my cycle is about 30 days or so. Since I was about 31 my periods have started to change and my usual is I spot brown for about 5 days (could be more or less depending on the month) before my actual "heavy" period shows up, when it does show up it lasts about 3 days and it's gone.

Last cycle I used a OPK the day after it ended and there was a faint line but I didn't think anything of it and waited until 7 days after to test, that day (sept 22) I had a light ovulation line which was not quite as dark as the control line but not as light as when I had checked it the day after my period. The day after I checked again and it was super dark, darker even that my control line so hubby and I dtd. I only had ewcm on the 22,23 and by the 24th it was ending (dtd again). We also dtd on the 27 and 28th but I think at that point it was well after my fertile period and I started experiencing cramping around that time and the "shop" was closed. I think because of this my ovulation date may have been the 23rd?

On the 28th, 29th and 30th I experienced cramps and my boobs were extremely heavy, painful and radiated heat. Then it all went away on Oct. 1st. Since Oct 2nd I have been experiencing brown spotting (with old flakey blood) , which comes and goes during the course of the day (since 3rd have been using a panty liner just in case). I really don't have sore boobs or feel much but the occasional minor minor cramp/bloat on my right side.

At this point I'm pretty much thinking i'm out since I get brown spotting like this every month. It's a bit annoying for me and I have brought it up to many gynos and they all say your fine. I do get tiny ovarian cysts during some cycles but they go away or rupture/absorb themselves back. This is stressing me out because i'm not sure how I will know when I'm pregnant with this spotting..

In any event, this morning I took a family dollar pregnancy test and there was a super faint line on there. It's hard to photograph, what do you guys think?

I think I'm about 12dpo but I'm not entirely sure, I could be 11 or 13? Any advice?