I ended up getting a ClearBlue Easy Fertility monitor and using that. I tried OPK's but I have a slightly irregular cycle in that I don't o at the same time every cycle (there's a 4 day window for me), so they didn't work for me...
If you have a fairly regular cycle, then I think they would probably work for you.
I would buy a pack of the OPK strips from Amazon (waaaay cheaper than anything else and still totally accurate) and start using them daily around day 12 of my cycle and keep using them until I got a +. I used it in conjunction with charting, but it's still good info on it's own.
ETA: Be aware that OPKs indicate that your body is *about to* ovulate but they can't *confirm* ovulation like charting can. But like I said, it still gives you good info and would help with timing.
BFP#1: 01/10, M/C 6w BFP#2: 06/10, M/C 5w BFP#3: 09/10, DS born June 1, 2011
I have no advice, but I was just about to start using them and then I got a BFP with this pregnancy. My best friend used them and she said they are idiot-proof and they worked very quickly for her-twice.
DS is a Clear Blue Easy baby so I'm a big fan of that kit. Charting never worked very well for us - schedule varied like crazy so temps were never reliable, my cycles were all over the place, yada, yada. I imagine having a kid would make it that much harder to get the sort of regular sleep you need for reliable temping - though I guess there are plenty of people who make it work.
Anyway, the CBE kit was a decent investment at first but it's hard to complain given the result.
i have a ton of cheapie amazon OPK tests somewhere, if i can find them and you're interested, i can mail them to you. another nestie sent them to me and i never ended up needing to use them. (we anticipated trouble ttc since i have pcos but got very lucky...i got pregnant with dd 2 months after we threw out my BCP thinking it could be a year or two of trying.)
Another source for cheap OPKs is early-pregnancy-tests.com. I bought a pack through there (one of the combination packs w/ both OPKs and HPTs) when we were TTC DS and they worked perfectly. The only downside to just OPKs, like SK said above, is that they can't confirm ovulation, just indicate that it's likely about to occur. In any event, I was planning to go that route again for TTC #2, but uh... that clearly wasn't necessary since we wound up w/ an "oops."
Re: Ovulation predictor kits
I ended up getting a ClearBlue Easy Fertility monitor and using that. I tried OPK's but I have a slightly irregular cycle in that I don't o at the same time every cycle (there's a 4 day window for me), so they didn't work for me...
If you have a fairly regular cycle, then I think they would probably work for you.
I would buy a pack of the OPK strips from Amazon (waaaay cheaper than anything else and still totally accurate) and start using them daily around day 12 of my cycle and keep using them until I got a +. I used it in conjunction with charting, but it's still good info on it's own.
ETA: Be aware that OPKs indicate that your body is *about to* ovulate but they can't *confirm* ovulation like charting can. But like I said, it still gives you good info and would help with timing.
BFP#1: 01/10, M/C 6w
BFP#2: 06/10, M/C 5w
BFP#3: 09/10, DS born June 1, 2011
BFP#4: 07/12, M/C 5w3d
BFP#5: 12/12, EDD 08/18/13
My Blog: Decorate This
DS is a Clear Blue Easy baby so I'm a big fan of that kit. Charting never worked very well for us - schedule varied like crazy so temps were never reliable, my cycles were all over the place, yada, yada. I imagine having a kid would make it that much harder to get the sort of regular sleep you need for reliable temping - though I guess there are plenty of people who make it work.
Anyway, the CBE kit was a decent investment at first but it's hard to complain given the result.
lovelylittleworld
BFP#2 1/12/12 ~ Missed M/C 8w2d
... every single day of forever.
DE IVF #1= 04/11 - BFP