OPK advice?

Guennie

Ok, I finally broke down and bought a 7 day OPK.  I'm really hoping it will help me figure out when I'm ovulating but I'm a little nervous.  My cycle was a little wonky this month and I'm not sure if I have correctly numbered my cycle days.  Usually my period will start with fresh bleeding.  Every once in awhile I may have a little spotting but only for the day before or the day of, say in the morning then fresh bleeding will come on in the afternoon or evening.  This month I had light spotting, all dark brown, for 2 days before I started a fresh flow.  So I called the day I had fresh bleeding day 1.  But now I'm wondering if I should have called the first day I spotted day 1?  What would you guys do?  I am trying to figure out when to start using the OPK and I don't want to be off on my days.  If I call the day I started spotting day 1, I would now be on day 7.  If I call the first day of fresh bleeding day 1, I would only be on day 5.

Also, my cycles vary anywhere from 27 to 31 days.  They are more often longer than shorter, but I just never know what kind of month it's going to be.  The calculator says to pick my shortest cycle from the past 6 months, but does that sound right since my cycle is not often that short?  Anyone have any advice? 

Jacque Sills

Hi Guennie,

Glad to hear that you got some OPK's to help you out.  You are right to consider the day of fresh blood, day one.  That is what my doctor/nurses have all told me, so use that date.

In regards to the claculator's suggestion of using the shortest in 6 months, I am no expert on that one.  I would follow that advice or maybe take an average of your cycles from 6 months. ?  And or maybe, some of the other ladies will have a better suggestion on that one...hope this helps and good luck to you.  Let us know, how it goes....

gscoville

I would definitely recommend buying cheapies so that you can test earlier and more often without feeling like you're just peeing money down the drain.  Many of us test two times a day as it can be easy to miss your surge if it's short and you only test once a day.  

As for me, I do have shorter cycles overall so I have to start testing early to make sure to catch my surge in the first place, then I tend to have a three day surge so keep testing through it until I get negatives again in order to be able to tell when I'll O (you usually O 12-36 hours after the end of your surge). I've gone through 10-15 OPKs in a cycle, so the cheapies meant I could get all that valuable information without spending a fortune to do it. 

Cheekers2010

Thanks for asking and for the responses. I'm new to using OPKs, too.

lrosy13

CD1 is the day that you have red blood. If you don't need to wear a tampon or pad, it is considered spotting. My cycles have been anywhere from 27 to 30 days, and I usually start testing with OPK's on CD10. I haven't missed my LH surge yet.  Hope that helps!

Guennie

Thanks, everyone!  This really helps.  I actually wasted one the other night because I had some ewcm and I was extremely emotional, so I thought maybe I was surging early.  It was negative.  I do wonder if I ovulate early though, because the first pregnancy with my husband we did not have sex after day 11 of my cycle.  So I guess testing on day 10 is a good idea.  I'll just try not to stress over it and cross my fingers!