Spotting

It's hard to believe, but this is my 100th post! Wow! That happened more quickly than I thought it would.

My mood and concentration gradually improved over the course of the day yesterday so that by the early afternoon, I was pretty much back to normal. (As an aside, I want to say that I can't even imagine what my mood would've been like had I not been getting regular exercise and eating "clean," both things that tend to positively affect my mood. Yikes.) I stopped feeling like I might lose my mind, lose my job, kill my husband, etc.

HOWEVER. . . . beginning yesterday morning, I started having lower abdominal cramps identical in quality to those I get with my period (complete with low back pain) and a small amount of rust-colored spotting. Not much spotting: just enough to see on the tissue when I wipe and to require wearing a panty liner. Today, though the cramps are gone, the spotting continues, but is now a dark brown color rather than rust.

I should explain here that my usual period consists of full flow on CD 1 and CD 2 and some spotting on CD 3 and CD 4. (I know, I'm lucky to have short periods.) There have only been a handful of times in the 27+ years that I have been menstruating where my body has deviated from this pattern, and I have noticed no change in the amount or length of flow as I've gotten older.

I realize that, for some people, spotting on CD 7 might be normal. But it's NOT normal for me, and I had had no bleeding at all since CD 4 until this starting up again yesterday morning.

I've read that you can have spotting at ovulation, but I certainly wouldn't expect to be ovulating on CD 7! I won't even be using my first OPK until this morning, CD 8. Plus, I'd always thought that ovulation spotting would be red/pink if I had it; this spotting is decidedly dark.

I've made two calls to my clinic's nurse line about this and haven't really gotten a satisfactory answer. The first nurse to whom I spoke told me this could be normal, old blood left over from my last period (I disagree: it's not normal FOR ME to have spotting on CD 7) and also suggested that I might be dehydrated--also not possible, as I drink between 2 and 3 liters a day of water and have been diligent about that of late due to dieting and exercising more. Ultimately, that nurse just told me call back if the spotting continued, which I did yesterday afternoon. I am still waiting to speak with another nurse about my second call.

Being me, I google'd the heck out of this to see if this is something that others have experienced in cycles with similar drug regimens, but I didn't find anything.

I am a little concerned only in so far as this is abnormal for me. And I'm hoping that this doesn't indicate that something is going wrong with this cycle.