The evils of Charting and Stupid OPKs

Some of you may or may not be aware that Tim and I are considering trying to conceive a 4th child. (Oh and to save some of you from wasting your breath.... Yes we know what causes babies. Yes we know how to prevent them. . And lastly NO we don't care if we have a boy or a girl and we aren't "trying" for any particular gender. Yup I think that covers all of the potential 1 liners from the peanut gallery! ;op ). Anyway I recently weaned Mason from breastfeeding 2 months ago. Once I weaned him it only took a week or so for me to start cycling again. My first 2 cycles were somewhat dysfunctional and very difficult to understand. I had a hard time pinpointing ovulation and my period seemed liked it was "late" but who really knows since I never did nail down my Ovulation date. But my period did finally arrive. This month for SURE we are trying to NOT get pregnant since our potential due date would have been December 20th-ish. Yeah, we would NOT want to plan another Christmas time baby. So we have had a few things to consider in the whole scheme of trying to conceive. The number 1 issue is timing. When Tim works out of town 5-7 days at a time it would be easy to "miss the window" of ovulation. So to combat the timing issue I have been trying to "predict" when I would ovulate so that when the time comes for us to conceive that I could tell Tim either, yes you can go to work out of town or No you best stay around town. I chart my cycles. I monitor cervical fluid, basal body temperature and even my cervical position on a daily basis. This is all in an effort to "predict" when the big Ovulation or Egg day will arrive. But herein lies the problem....

Charting is a RETROSPECTIVE activity. You chart your temps on a graph and you watch to see when your temp shifts from a low pre-ovulatory range to a high post ovulatory range. And after 3 high temps that are higher than the previous 6 days you know you Ovulated.... three days ago! Charting is NOT a predictive method of determining when you are going to ovulate. Now your Cervical fluid and Cervical position can give you some hint and information on your body's process of gearing up to ovulate but alas even they can not be the fortune teller in your egg's exit from the ovary.

Anyway, I started to look into how to predict ovulation and it didn't take long to discover Ovulation Prediction kits (OPKs). A little strip for women to pee on that measures the LH hormone in our systems. Your LH hormone surges 24-36 hours prior to Ovulation. It signals the Ovary to leggo of my eggo! The OPK tests the level of hormone in my pee and once it reaches a certain threshold the stick will show 2 lines.

Since"timing"is our biggest issue I thought what the heck....I will try the OPKs to "predict" my ovulation. And that is when I LOST MY FREAKIN' MIND!!!! LOL! So last cycle I go to Walgreen's and buy the "Answer" brand OPKs. Then I go online and do some research on OPKs and LH. I find out that LH can surge for less than 12 hrs, meaning that if you only test once a day you could miss the LH surge. Good Grief.... like I don't have enough to do, now I have to pee on a stick (POAS) twice a day! So then I read online that you should start to POAS OPK based on your average cycle length so that you don't miss your LH surge. I calculated my average as 31 days which would mean that I should start POAS OPK on day 13. But then I looked at my cycle history and I have Ovulated on day13 before so I decided I should give myself a few extra days in the beginning to see if I ovulate early. Which means that I wold need to start using the OPKs around day 10. And the latest day I have Ovulated was day 25. That is quite a range of time from day 10 to 25 to be using OPKs especially if I need to use them twice daily.

So last cycle I used the OPKs 2 or sometimes 3 times in a day. Lets just say it did NOT help me pinpoint Ovulation any better than my temps, Cervical Fluid or Position. Here is a picture of my chart:

I think that those 2 high temps on day 20 and 22 kinda threw me and I started taking the prometrium too soon. But those high temps coincided with my positive OPK on day 20. Here is a picture of the OPKs: http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b354/kalico24/oB40.jpg

They looked positive to me on the 20th day, but apparently the test line has to be as dark or darker than the control line. So I guess those were negative. But compared to the rest of my strips those were the most possible positive ones that I had. After the fact or RETROSPECTIVELY I looked at my chart when I kept getting Negative pregnancy tests and saw that I probably did not Ovulate until day 25. We timing our "trying" poorly and I started taking progesterone supplements too early which delayed my period and caused me all sorts of stress. So I am NOT pregnant and am still slightly upset about it! LOL!

So now I am in a holding pattern. I can't try to conceive this cycle because it would put my due date at Christmas. And I swear I am in the cycle that WILL NOT END! As of today I am on day 24 of my cycle with still negative OPKs and no temp shift. Which translates to No ovulation as of yet.

I am still using the OPKs in hopes that if I am trying to avoid getting pregnant that perhaps I could use the OPKs with less pressure and perhaps learn something more about my body. So far it has been a HUGE PITA (pain in the ass), and I have thus far not learned anything except that I hate OPKs! LOL!

The only shinning star in this whole mess is that I did find an online resource that sells the OPKs and the HPTs (home pregnancy tests) for very cheap, so at least I won't go broke peeing on sticks! If you are interested visit: http://www.saveontests.com/ . The tests seem to be more sensitive and more reliable than the OTC tests.

So If anyone wants to take a look at my this months chart you can visit it at: http://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/35660 And I will probably be posting more about stupid OPKs as my journey continues.

Has anyone out there in cyber-land had good luck with OPKs in the past? Or am I really just wasting Money, energy and brain cells trying to "predict" a God-Thing! LOL!