Okay guys.
I tried to track my Basal Body Temperature throughout the month of May and, well, EPIC FAIL!
For those of you who aren't sure, basal body temp is the temperature of your body once you have been sleeping for a few hours. Like four or more hours. Apparently, your BBT goes up when you are ovulating. I haven't read tons of fertility books, so that is basically all I know about it. I was sorta curious if my body was even minutely aware of its reproductive system in case this could help with the timing of some hormone testing I intend to have done sometime in the near future.
After some reading I discovered that your BBT might go up as little as .5 of a degree during ovulation. I don't have any fancy cycle-tracking, temperature-reading watch, so I got a thermometer from Safeway and printed a tracking sheet from the internet. Let's just say that I now have
photo evidence that I do not have the discipline to wake up and take my temperature before I even get out of my bed...
So I did super good for like the first 9 days. I am sure that is a record for how many days in a row I have stuck to anything in my life! But then I stopped waking up before my alarm and shoving my thermometer in my mouth before even realizing I was awake, or realizing that it was only 4:30 am and that I could sleep for two more hours (yes this really happened). I have to keep my alarm far away from my bed so that I get up, but you are supposed to take your BBT before getting out of bed. I like sleeping with the window open but sometimes it is too cold but you are supposed to have a relatively stable room temperature or your BBT might naturally shift .5 of a degree and you won't know if it is just the spring breeze or ovulation! Then I went on a wine tasting trip with my sisters over Memorial Day weekend and totally abandoned all effort to continue this experiment.
Take a look at the inconsistency of that line even right at the beginning! I was bouncing all over the place for no apparent reason. I think it would be pretty hard to see a .5 degree difference in a BBT chart like mine.
My recommendation is to either get a watch (but I have read that your wrist temp isn't very accurate) that takes your temp for you at the same time in the middle of the night every day, or to skip this whole things and go strait for the pee on the stick tests. Oh wait. I just googled and the urine ovulation tests detect the LH surge, and basically all of my gals are in a constant LH surge. That is like the definition of POF, amiright? So yeah maybe don't go for that version either.
But do any of you ever think maybe I do randomly ovulate? How can I ever know? I seriously just googled "Can you ovulate without a period." UGH. There seems to be no consensus. Some say yes, most say that no it isn't likely, and then of course there are those stories of the people that never had a period since they were like 22 and by some miracle have three kids.
I am not ready to give up on ovulation yet though!
Stay tuned for more on my journey to getting my period back!
XOXO
Dani
I tried to track my Basal Body Temperature throughout the month of May and, well, EPIC FAIL!
For those of you who aren't sure, basal body temp is the temperature of your body once you have been sleeping for a few hours. Like four or more hours. Apparently, your BBT goes up when you are ovulating. I haven't read tons of fertility books, so that is basically all I know about it. I was sorta curious if my body was even minutely aware of its reproductive system in case this could help with the timing of some hormone testing I intend to have done sometime in the near future.
After some reading I discovered that your BBT might go up as little as .5 of a degree during ovulation. I don't have any fancy cycle-tracking, temperature-reading watch, so I got a thermometer from Safeway and printed a tracking sheet from the internet. Let's just say that I now have
photo evidence that I do not have the discipline to wake up and take my temperature before I even get out of my bed...
So I did super good for like the first 9 days. I am sure that is a record for how many days in a row I have stuck to anything in my life! But then I stopped waking up before my alarm and shoving my thermometer in my mouth before even realizing I was awake, or realizing that it was only 4:30 am and that I could sleep for two more hours (yes this really happened). I have to keep my alarm far away from my bed so that I get up, but you are supposed to take your BBT before getting out of bed. I like sleeping with the window open but sometimes it is too cold but you are supposed to have a relatively stable room temperature or your BBT might naturally shift .5 of a degree and you won't know if it is just the spring breeze or ovulation! Then I went on a wine tasting trip with my sisters over Memorial Day weekend and totally abandoned all effort to continue this experiment.
Take a look at the inconsistency of that line even right at the beginning! I was bouncing all over the place for no apparent reason. I think it would be pretty hard to see a .5 degree difference in a BBT chart like mine.
My recommendation is to either get a watch (but I have read that your wrist temp isn't very accurate) that takes your temp for you at the same time in the middle of the night every day, or to skip this whole things and go strait for the pee on the stick tests. Oh wait. I just googled and the urine ovulation tests detect the LH surge, and basically all of my gals are in a constant LH surge. That is like the definition of POF, amiright? So yeah maybe don't go for that version either.
But do any of you ever think maybe I do randomly ovulate? How can I ever know? I seriously just googled "Can you ovulate without a period." UGH. There seems to be no consensus. Some say yes, most say that no it isn't likely, and then of course there are those stories of the people that never had a period since they were like 22 and by some miracle have three kids.
I am not ready to give up on ovulation yet though!
Stay tuned for more on my journey to getting my period back!
XOXO
Dani
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