Advice or opinions? Chart included.

GoaliesWife123 · July 2013

Hello all! Fertility friend has given me crosshairs on my chart and says that I ovulated on day 20. The good news is that the only other month that I was diligent with temping/charting, was February/March and I was given crosshairs on the same day of that cycle.

Here's the question: DW and I will begin TTC in September. If this was your chart, would you start inseminating the day you see the positive OPK? Would you then inseminate again as much as possible until you see the crosshairs? I just want to know what to prepare for when we order from a bank.

Advice or tips would be so welcome!

My Ovulation Chart

lbugher · July 2013

Well, are you doing IUI or at home insemination? Typically you do the insemination the day after your OPK gives you a positive (since you have your LH surge, and then ovluate 12-24 hours later). If you're using fresh sperm, they'll live longer so I think if you only do it once you'd be fine. If you're doing an IUI at a doctor's office, he/she will advise you on when you should come in for the insemination. Good luck!

Jazibel · July 2013

If you are using frozen sperm (unwashed/non-IUI) I would wait about 24 hours after the first OPK+ since you are seeing a longer gap from +OPK and BBT rise. And then inseminate until you see the temp rise which would indicate that ovulation has happened. If you are using IUI I would try to inseminate 1-2+ as close to ovulation as possible. It seems that your OPK and BBT are somewhat conflicting because of the positive OPK and EWCM 5+ days before your BBT registered ovulation. I would consider tracking additional fertility signs, perhaps a fertility monitor, or ferning lens to narrow down the window for optimal insemination. I've always heard that relying on one indicator is not reliable enough. My concern would be that you are actually ovulating within 12-24 hours of the positive OPK and not showing a temp rise right away. What do your other charts show in terms of days between temp rise and +OPK?

AmandaG47 · July 2013

I think it does depend on what method you are using but since you said bank I'm assuming frozen sperm, which doesn't live quite as long so you want to make sure you get as close to ovulation as possible. Also, we could really only do two insems per month because its so expensive and we did them at home. How many do you plan to do? I hope you don't mind, I took a look through your charts and I think at least one more cycle of careful charting would be very helpful. I was "in charge" of our timing and getting my wife KU and I like trying to figure it out so here is what I think... The last crosshairs you got was about a day after opk and your LP was 14 days, which is very "normal." Your current crosshairs looks great with the temp change but your opk was five days before, which seems rather unlikely. If you keep temping and your LP is around 14 days again I would say the crosshairs are right and the opk maybe not "peak" for you. What method did you use for opk? We used wondfo and always poas at least 23 times per day near O and also kept poas afterwards to make sure we really got a positive... sometimes they were close but when we got a true positive they always stayed dark afterwards. Based on the window between pos OPK and temp rise, my wife always ovulated between 2640 hours after pos opk. Based on this we did one insem around 22 hours and the other around 3234 hours. This gave us the most coverage based on sperm survival and the optimum timing after the egg gets released.

If you don't have a limit on the number of times you can try, then your method of insem no more than 24 hours apart... or closer because some data suggests frozen sperm don't live that long in utero.... Would work fine I think.

If you are limited at all in the number of tries per cycle:
I would make sure to keep temping so you can see this cycle's LP. I would also evaluate what you are doing for opks to make sure you get the most accurate read. If you have another cycle to chart before you try, I would also be super careful in charting and include cervical mucus... fertile mucus is egg white in consistency... and ferning if you have a microscope lying around. I would then reevaluate timing based on more data.

Sorry for any punctuation issues... Mobile bumping. And also sorry for such a long response... After carefully charting for my wife for so long I feel like its a hobby of mine, lol.

GoaliesWife123 · July 2013

Thanks, all. I'm going to be doing a detailed charting until we start to ttc. I discussed this all with my acupuncturist and she agrees. Paying for a fertility monitor is out of the question right now, so I am going to make sure to check all of the signs I can that won't cost extra.

Thankfully we still have a few months to get things under control!

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Advice or opinions? Chart included.

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