Over The Counter Progesterone Cream

My Experience

I am using a natural progesterone cream I bought off of Amazon a while back: Sources Natural Progesterone Cream. The back of it says this has been known in the state of California to cause cancer (since it was made in California), so after reading that I was scared to really use it and did not use it when I first bought it. Interestingly enough the Amazon link one that is the same brand as the one I bought a while back does not have the same California / cancer warning label on the back currently (2015). I probably got it around the time they were labeling many things for that. However, I have read it is not the natural progesterone, but the synthetic, such as Provera, that increases the risk of Cancer.  I was on my eighth menstrual cycle, I only had three cycles where my fertility friend chart had said I ovulated out of seven cycles. And my luteal phase was short on those three cycles: 5, 4, and 6. My eighth cycle was the fourth time I have ovulated. As soon as fertility friend gave me my crosshairs at 3 days past ovulation, I started using the progesterone cream twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. That cycle my luteal phase went past 6!

Because fertility friend on Fertility Awareness Setting said I did not ovulate, I actually did not begin using progesterone cream until 11 days past ovulation after getting a positive pregnancy test. I used it off and on for about 10 days before stopping it completely, since I had not used it during my two-week wait and did not feel it had made much of a difference this cycle. Had I started the progesterone at 3 days past ovulation which is about the time I get cross hairs confirming ovulation on my fertility friend chart, I would have continued taking the progesterone cream until the first trimester to be safe. I did have my progesterone levels checked when I went into my OB/GYN to confirm pregnancy through a blood test. My levels were fine. It seemed the Soy and B-complex helped me ovulate earlier in my cycle and have a longer luteal phase.

Month	Cycle	Length	Ovulation	Luteal Phase	Progesterone
Aug 2014	1	39 days	None	None	No
Sept 2014	2	37 days	CD 32	5	No
Oct 2014	3	32 days	None	None	No
Nov 2014	4	37 days	None	None	No
Dec 2014	5	31 days	CD 27	4	No
Jan 2015	6	26 days	CD 20	6	No
Feb 2015	7	32 days	None	None	No
Mar 2015	8	34 days	CD 24	10	Yes
Apr 2015 May 2015	9 10	27 days 28 + days	CD 18  CD 19	9 Pregnant	Yes No

Side Note: A woman in my mommy message board decided to give progesterone a try for her next cycle after she saw the difference it made in my 8th cycle, bringing my short luteal phase of 6 from my sixth cycle to a 10!  She purchased the same brand I bought. She took Soy Isoflavones from cycle day 3-7 and used the progesterone cream in her two-week wait to start at 2 days past ovulation. She was concerned that the over the counter progesterone cream may be stopping her menstrual cycle from coming. That cycle, she got a positive pregnancy test.