Chart Stalk / Questions – April 2021

acleverusername · April 2021

Post your charts & ask your questions here.

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acleverusername · April 2021

@griffonmama This is where you can ask your bbt / charting questions!

fifilala516 · April 2021

So I've been using CBAD to track my cycle since my...

**TW**

...CP (sorry, haven't figured out yet how to hide the TWs!)...

and I had low fertility for a few days, then a week of high fertility, and I tested again today and it's back to low - never had a peak. It's possible I missed it since I was only testing once a day, but has that happened to anyone else?

Edit: My CM indicates that I am still at high/possibly peak fertility. I should add that I got the low fertility after getting an error message earlier that day using first urine of the day. I had waited the appropriate amount of time before testing again, which is when I got the low, so perhaps the urine was too diluted.

deaf_girl · April 2021

I don't know why my temperatures are doing this...could it be my thermometer??

griffonmama · April 2021

I’m not sure if this is the place to ask this or not but I have a couple questions about taking temps.
1. Does it matter what time you take it as long as you’ve been at rest for a few hours? I see a lot of people get up early to check it and talk about going back to sleep when they get up to check it earlier then they get up 🤔🤷‍♀️

2. What if you have to get up to pee or you have a toddler that sleeps in your bed and is often trying to e right on top of you and that makes you move around? Will you never get an accurate reading or be able to take your temp?🤔🤷‍♀️

pajamstagrams · April 2021

@griffonmama

Yes, it does matter, but how much varies. My temp is usually 0.1-0.2F higher if I take it more than an hour "late". For me, that only really affects temps when trying to determine when I ovulated, so I definitely try to be consistent during my fertile window.
Rest in spoiler *TW LC mentioned*

I was pumping at 1 am FOREVER with my daughter, so sometimes I would only have 3 hrs of sleep before I woke up, and typically 4 hrs+ is suggested. That being said, for me, even getting up to pee an hour before I take my temp doesn't affect it too much, so my midnight pump sessions didn't cause any issues with charting and seeing patterns. But again, it's going to vary person to person. Give it a few months and see what you get.

@deaf_girl are you referring to the repeating temps? My old thermometer favored the same temp at least 5-6x a month, even with a newish battery, so I bought a new one. Problem solved. Try changing the battery or just buy a new one (preferably not in the middle of your cycle) and see if that helps!

[Deleted User] · April 2021

@fifilala516 The CBADs can be tricky if you are experiencing a longer surge. You are only supposed to test with those once a day, so that's fine, and I would try to stick with FMU or SMU (it may say in the instructions) but the exact time or whatever doesn't matter. I think more likely than you missing Peak, is that possibly things backed off a bit and you didn't actually ovulate yet. Do your temps corroborate that? It helps so much to have more than once piece of data to provide more insight into what may be going on.

If you want to try using cheapie OPK strips, THOSE I would use twice a day once you start to see some action, (I usually did morning and late afternoon), and possibly three times a day, (morning, late afternoon, evening), as you start to see them looking close to positive, so you don't miss it. But that is a non-issue with the digital ones. Once you get a Peak, it will stop working for that cycle, whereas a false surge would not give you a Peak reading, so just hang in there...

@deaf_girl That does happen sometimes that you get the exact same reading two days in a row. When I have that, I usually try to re-temp in a few minutes and see if I get a different number, just to make sure it's working. If the new temp is similar, then I don't worry about it and it's probably just a fluke thing, nbd. If the new number is TOTALLY different, then I will use that second temp instead. Either way, since you are post-O, even if one temp ends up being a little wonky, it won't make a difference in your overall chart. At 5 or 6 DPO, you are safely just riding out until test day (or AF). As long as they stay up there, you should turn a positive test, but if they come down and AF arrives, then that tells you about how long you can expect your LP to be going forward. GL!!!

@griffonmama You will see what works for you. Some people with weird schedules just temp after their longest sleep, most people like to find a consistent TIME to temp, and then either get up or go back to sleep depending on the day. As far as moving around, it shouldn't make a huge difference. I keep my thermometer under my pillow and temp while still laying in bed. You just don't want to get up and move around, go to the bathroom, etc, and then come back and temp once you've gotten OUT of bed. Make sense?

deaf_girl · April 2021

@pajamstagrams thanks, if I have to I will...

@BusinessWife I will definitely try that...thanks, I know I don't have the best chances, but I'm still crossing my fingers...

griffonmama · April 2021

Ok! So how do you know what time is a good time to do it every morning? It looks like around 5-6 is what I see a lot of people doing but how do you know if your doing it “late” 🤔🤔🤷‍♀️

bumblebee0210 · April 2021

@griffonmama. Literally all that matters is the pattern, not the levels, so you should pick any time you can do it consistently. I think a lot of people do it early on weekends and go back to sleep because that is their normal wakeup time on weekdays. I have a fairly consistent wakeup time, so I just did it whenever I woke up, I rolled over and temped before I got out of bed. It takes a bit of time to figure out what affects your temps (other than ovulation), and you learn to see the patterns over time, but it's not immediate. It's good to combine with cheap OPKs when you're first starting out if you really want to nail your timing.

bumblebee0210 · April 2021

@fifilala516. The CBADs are programmed not to go back to "low" after a "high" reading, so I'm guessing it was an error. They are basically just an estrogen threshold test, which reads high as soon as you are higher than your baseline estrogen (for me this was useless because it was nearly always high the second day I tested no matter what). Then it reads "high" until it detects an LH-surge, which is also threshold based. If you get a lot of days of high with no peak, it's likely one of two things is going on. Either your estrogen level is high or bounces around a lot, and so your "high" was sort of a false-positive, or your LH surge is low, and so you never get a peak because you never reach the threshold (I also had some of these problems). If you don't have the textbook CBAD cycle pattern, they really aren't very useful. I found that either (a) cheapie OPKs + CM (cheap option) or (b) mira (expensive option) gave me much more insight into actual O timing. As for this cycle, I'm guessing you have not O-ed yet. Keep trying!

fifilala516 · April 2021

@BusinessWife @bumblebee0210 Thanks for the insight. I ended up testing again the next morning, it went back to high and then ~12 hours later it confirmed the LH surge (the timing also mirrored last month's readings so I feel confident that that blip was indeed an error.) I haven't done BBT testing yet - that's going to be my next foray, I think, to corroborate the CBAD.

inthewoods23 · April 2021

@griffonmama the time should be as consistent as you can, but that's obviously not always possible (like on mornings when I needed to wake up at 3am for a business trip). My Flo app doesn't care at all what time your temp is taken. It doesn't change to triangles or anything like FF does if you temp off your usual time. For a while I was temping at my usual weekday wakeup time of 5:45am and then temping at 7am on weekends. There never was a major difference by temping over an hour later. I can't remember if FF likes it within +/- 30min or +/- 1hr from your default temp time. I wouldn't fret if you normally wake up for work at 6am and end up temping at 8am on a day you have off.

griffonmama · April 2021

Thanks guys!

daisy0322 · April 2021

So I’ve taken all my temps between 7 and 8 am so far.

*TW LC*** sorry i don’t know how to hide it
my youngest still sleeps awful and is up at random times every night and he nurses sometimes in the mornings.
END TW****

so I can’t get my times any closer. Does this look like it’ll be accurate enough to actually tell when I O? This is my first time temping so I think I may be over thinking this.

[Deleted User] · April 2021

You should be fine. @daisy0322. Just keep at it! The most important thing is that you keep going from here, through any fertile patches (you will generally see it keep getting gradually lower) then once it spikes up, keep going so you see a sustained shift i.e. three temps higher than the previous temps, generally speaking. You're not relying too much on any one temp, it's the overall pattern and shift you want to look for.

daisy0322 · April 2021

@BusinessWife thanks! I just spent like an hour looking at the help sheets and taking the interpretation quiz. My last attempt I got a 90% and I think I’m getting the hang of it ❤️

bows22 · April 2021

@daisy0322 I agree that you should be fine, especially if your main goal is to know if you’re ovulating versus narrowing down to a specific day. I had a similar issue (I took my temp at the same time every day but I didn’t always have 3 hours of sleep first). This is one of my charts from temping this time around, I could def see the shift even though it was a little crazy.

keikilove · April 2021

@daisy0322 You are doing well with getting the temping times within a one-hour range. FF will give you those triangles if the times are more than 30 minutes outside your average. You can always fudge the times😄 For example, you could change 7:00 to 7:15, and change 8:00 to 7:45. This should eliminate any triangles and give you solid crosshairs instead of dotted crosshairs once ovulation is confirmed.

daisy0322 · April 2021

@bows22 awesome thank you so much for sharing your chart! My cycles have been consistent at 32 days long since they started back up again a few months ago. I really have high hopes for ovulating!

@keikilove thanks! The triangles bother me haha

fifilala516 · April 2021

Me again! So I wrote earlier this month about a wonky CBAD, but then confirmed an LH surge on April 3. AF never came (I expected it around April 21).

I just started doing BBT, which was probably unwise since it's not at the start of a cycle BUT this past Saturday, I had EWCM and my BBT temp jumped .6 from Saturday to Sunday, so I am pretty sure I O'ed again (unless the earlier one was an error? Who knows at this point?)

I am sure it's happened where women have O'ed and not gotten a period, but ostensibly ovulating twice in 3 weeks? Whaaa?

EDIT: I had multiple BFNs when AF never came.

fpb2825 · April 2021

Hi all! This is my first month tracking BBT. Based on my chart, how confident should I be that I ovulated on Sunday? I got a positive opk that evening (didn’t test earlier because I was sick) and then had heavy EWCM on Monday with cramping. I know everyone says to go by temps over everything else but just wanted someone to take another look! Thanks!

fpb2825 · April 2021

Here is a more updated picture of my graph to my previous post! Thanks!

daisy0322 · April 2021

@fpb2825 I’m new to temping too so there’s lots of way more qualified people than me but I’ve been studying it a lot the today and yesterday. I would actually say Tuesday you I’d but I could also see Sunday. I know being sick can kind of make ovulating funky. I’m sure there’s someone else that can tell you more though @BusinessWife for one I think is really good at it.

fpb2825 · April 2021

@daisy0322 thank you so much for your input! I feel somewhat lost with temping so appreciate all the advice!

daisy0322 · April 2021

@fpb2825 I’d say your welcome but I’m not confident enough in my answer 😂

inthewoods23 · April 2021

@fpb2825 keep in mind a positive OPK means you'll ovulate within 24-48 hours. So if you got that positive in the evening of Sunday, you definitely wouldn't have ovulated on Sunday. I had a cycle where my first positive was around 10PM and FF had put my O date on the day of that first positive but that can't be possible. It did eventually adjust it to a day or 2 later as I had more temp data points. Charting interpretation is definitely an art you learn over time as you understand what's common for you.

fpb2825 · April 2021

@inthewoods23 that’s what I thought too. I took Another opk Monday evening and it was negative. Does that mean I ovulated on Monday? Or not necessarily? Thanks for your help!

inthewoods23 · April 2021

Alright I have a question - how many of you mark the heaviness of your flow? Does anyone not really care and just mark "yes" in FF? I'm tempted to stop caring about flow since I use a cup now. I still feel like I should check it every 6-8 hours so I can know if I'm having a heavy or regular/medium flow on CD1 and 2 but that can't be that important is it?

keikilove · April 2021

@inthewoods23 I mark the flow but really don’t care about it. What I’ve found is that doctors really want to know if it follows a normal pattern, or if it’s always heavy & full of clots, or very short & light lasting just a few days. This tips them off to whether a person might be dealing with endo, imbalanced hormones, etc. so I mark it but my pattern is almost always clearly “normal”. The one time recently that it was short & light I ended up with a lining that was too thin for transfer. So, in my case, the flow definitely gave clues, albeit retroactively.

bows22 · April 2021

@inthewoods23 is right but @fpb2825 when was your last OPK before the positive one? If it was more than 24 hours before then you could have had your first positive earlier and just not know it

fpb2825 · April 2021

@bows22 i tested Saturday evening at it was super close to being positive but not quit. Then was under the weather until Sunday pm and that’s when it was at its peak, being way darker than the control line! So I very well could have had a positive in the am but didn’t know.

fantasyflyte · April 2021

@inthewoods23 I mark the flow, but I'm also a data nerd and find it interesting to see how my cycle's changed over time. I also like the idea that if I have a weird-seeming flow, I can look back and see if it's actually weird comparatively.

acleverusername · April 2021

@fifilala516 you can't O more than once in a cycle, so it's possible you O'ed this weekend and not earlier in the month. It's also possible that you don't get a period even if you O, and the likely culprit there is a cyst. Remind me: what was the issue with your wonky CBAD earlier in the cycle?

[Deleted User] · April 2021

@kpb2825

What were the timing issues going on with the triangles? Did you mark any of those temps for illness? FF will adjust the weight of those temps accordingly. I agree if the opk was that evening, it's unlikely you ovulated the same day. I feel like this may be a case to trust the opk more over the temps, if between illness and temp times, it sounds like they may be less trustworthy. So there's a good case to be made for Tuesday, but then you've only got three temps since then, so I would wait and keep watching if the shift becomes a bit more obvious in a few more days.

fpb2825 · April 2021

@BusinessWife thanks for your reply! I unfortunately record at different times because my daughter wakes at random times depending on the morning. I do use the ovusense vaginal thermometer that I wear all night long so was hoping the time I recorded temps may not be as much of an issue since it’s been recording all night. I could Be wrong though.

fifilala516 · April 2021

acleverusername said:

@fifilala516 you can't O more than once in a cycle, so it's possible you O'ed this weekend and not earlier in the month. It's also possible that you don't get a period even if you O, and the likely culprit there is a cyst. Remind me: what was the issue with your wonky CBAD earlier in the cycle?

Hi! Thanks for the response. I was tracking my fertility following a CP, and I had low and then high for about 8 days, then low again after getting an error message - then hit an LH surge a day later. I am thinking either the stick was defective, or more likely - my body is still regulating itself and that I did have an LH surge but perhaps didn't have a mature follicle to release a few weeks ago.

I am almost certain I ovulated on Saturday, given the EWCM and the BBT jump on Sunday.

acleverusername · April 2021

@fifilala516 yep, sounds like you O'ed this weekend. CBAD is good until you're having a wonky cycle and then it's meaningless. I came across this pretty detailed guide on how it works that might help you (spoiler: it says that if you have too many days of H, then just stop testing for that cycle.) That's why I usually use cheapie OPKs for backup, but... I've also been at this for 16 months, so... 🤷‍♀️

Chart Stalk / Questions – April 2021

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