by Melanie Denyer

Created on: January 09, 2009

It's a tough time. The baby you wanted so much and had started idly forming a picture of in your mind is suddenly, heartbreakingly gone. At times like these, many women will want to retrench, recover from the physical symptoms and make an effort to prepare their bodies for the next cycle when they can try again, should there be no complicating factors to prevent this (anyone having had an ectopic pregnancy or a molar pregnancy will have other instructions from their doctors). Yet many other women find that all they can think of at this time, all that keeps them going, is trying again - and in most such cases, the sooner the better.

This is perfectly normal, but with all the upheaval the body has been through it can be hard to work out what's happening and when. Some women don't ovulate at all before their next period, just as all women have anovulatory cycles from time to time, but on most cases ovulation will occur. It's just a case of pinning down when.

There is no hard and fast rule to apply to this. Because women miscarry at different stages of pregnancy, with different quantities of hormones in their blood, as well as different rates at which these hormone levels decrease, it is not as simple as adding or subtracting a week here or there. While it is generally acknowledged that the body will not permit new eggs to be readied for ovulation while the main female pregnancy hormone, Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin (HCG) is present, the first part of the normal cycle may well be shorter or longer than usual.

Before you start trying to detect ovulation, however, you must make sure that your doctor is satisfied there are no leftover tissues from your pregnancy that may cause either an infection that would endanger a new pregnancy, or an obstruction that may lead to an ectopic pregnancy. They can determine this with an ultrasound scan, which is advisable if your pregnancy went beyond 8 weeks. Or, if your pregnancy was shorter, your bleeding has stopped and vaginal discharge is colourless and odourless as normal, they may be happy to give you the all-clear without a scan. If you have had medical management of your miscarriage in the form of a D&C (dilatation and curettage) or ERPC (evacuation of the remaining products of conception), however, your doctor may well advise you to wait until the next cycle, as both may involve abrasion to the uterus lining that can become infected if foreign substances like semen are introduced. Also, be aware that most doctors prefer

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