Questions about Charting

Hello all

Got a couple of queries with charting i was hoping somebody might be able to help me with.

Firstly - how much difference does sticking to the same time every morning make. I have a horse so am up most mornings at 7 and take my temperature then. Some mornings i get to have a well deserved lie in until about 8.30 or 9 - should i still wake up at 7 to take my temps ?

Secondly - How much do temperatures vary in the first couple of months after coming off the pill? Mine seem to be all over the place going from 36.6 one day to 35.4 the next then back up to 36.3 and so on - don't get any sort of correlation between early mornings and low temps etc. (have got the charts from this site and this morning my temp was off the bottom of the chart!)

Does this all settle down a bit after a few months off the pill or do i have to forego my few lie-ins to take temp at same time.

Any thoughts would be gratefully apreciated.
Nicky

HI Nicola,

your temp creeps up about .05 (I think! will go and check for you) of a degree every half hour that you sleep longer. I used to set my alarm clock for the same time every day and take my temp without really waking up, it got very automatic. I think this was only really possible because I was using a digital thermometer with a memory for the last reading, so I didn't have to look at what it was, or note it down. It also had a timer so I could just stick it under my tongue and then take it out after the bleeps and go back to sleep. It was never a problem for me and I loved the mornings when I knew I didn't have to get up right away.

I can't remember what the thermometer was called but I reviewed it in the user reviews.

My temp was also all over the place at first but settled down towards the end of the second month and became quite predictable. Alcohol or a late night or lots of exercise could throw it off, but if you keep a record of all that then it's easy to make sense of.

hth
x

Hi Nicola,

As Scribbler says your temp will go up for every half hour extra you sleep in over your normal time, only it's by one-tenth of degree, not .05. If it's an occasional sleep in then you can just make a note of the different time. I didn't always take my temp at the same time, but I found when I did take it usually at the same time it was a step easier to interpret the chart. On a month where I was both erratic with taking the temps, and with alcohol and exercise then I found it impossible to detect ovulation, though it could also have been that I simply didn't ovulate that month.

A digital thermometer is definitely the easiest way of taking your temp early in the morning, I found mercury thermometers simply too much of a faff and not that easy to read when you're squinting at it in the half-light trying not to wake OH.

There's a page with lots of info on charting on the site here.

Thank you both.

I don't normally drink alcohol and i have the same amount of exercise every day with the horse so i think i will see how things go till the end of this cycle. Next cycle then i can set my alarm and have the pleasure of going back to sleep on my lie in mornings :) that way then at least i have one constant to work from.

Now to try and convince the hubby that he does want to start trying as from NOW :) after all, he brought up the 'let's have a baby' conversation up :)

We waited about 3 months, and used the charting contraceptively, mainly because I wanted to have a good idea of my cycles and knew it would take 2 or 3 before they settled down at least. Maybe he'd agree to not trying either way earlier rather than later, the 'let's just see what happens' approach. It worked well for us because neither of us wanted to get hung up about it and really start 'trying', but we both knew it could take a long time. After 3 cycles of 'contraceptive' behaviour I fell pregnant in cycle 7, so it only took 4 months really.

If you do opt for seeing what happens it's really nice, because you don't get stressed by the whole thing, but when it does happen it's great.

Scribbler - thought it might take a few months to settle, just wondered if it usually seemed so haywire :)

I am all for the 'lets just see' way of doing things but he wants to sort the house out a bit first ! ie attic clearout, finishing off little decorating bits etc, keeps finding jobs :). I know it is the sensible way but he brought it up, i have finally got my head round the idea and am quite excited by it all and now he wants to wait. We have talked about it but i think might have to bring it up again, going to spend a fortune on condoms otherwise as i am finding that i have the inclination to jump on him an awful lot at the mo! :)

lol, it can do wonders for the sex life if you don't take it all too seriously :-)

It sounds like it could all fit in together really well, if you do bring it up again then you can point out that you're unlikely to fall pregnant immediately, and even if you do, you still have months to make all those changes to the house.

I felt exactly the same as you, hubbie brought it up (more than once) and I was initially very resistant (have been for years) but once I 'got my head around it' as you put it, I just didn't see the point in waiting when it might take 18 months to fall pregnant anyway. I also had a list of things I wanted to do first, but the list kept getting longer, rather than shorter, and we both came to realise that there would never be a 'good' time, and if there were, there was no guarantee that it'd happen for us. I can completely appreciate how you feel.

oh, and sex without worrying about contraception is great!

My thoughts exactly Scribbler - would be just my luck though to say that probably wouldn't fall pregnant immediately so would have plenty of time to do all the things to the house and i would fall pregnant straight away.

I also think that if we were 'letting things happen as and when :)' then we would have more incentive to get the house done as we would 'never know' when i could fall pregnant so would have to get things done just in case :) Rather than bumbling along like we always have done, half starting something then running out of motivation to finish it.

sex without contraception IS great (had a couple of trial runs when i first came off the pill before he decided to wait for a bit)

Nicola, I forgot to say earlier that I put together the charts for the site and I made the range a bit wider than most other charts I'd seen for exactly the same reason, my first month my temp was usually off the chart!

With that range it should be a relatively infrequent occurence, but if you do find that you're often off the chart then you can try extending the range for yourself. Later I was rarely off the chart and just noted it with a downwards arrow when I was.


Godd luck in talking OH round!

Thanks Maria, I have altered the charts a little for this month as i don't seem to have the higher temperatures, only the lower ones.

Temperatures so far seem a little bit more settled than last month so will see what next month brings with more consistent timing as well.

OH seems to be ok with the idea, hooray! think the fact that i have gone through all the boxes in the attic, thrown god knows how much stuff away and completely reorganised the attic while he was at work this weekend helped. One big job to tick of the list :)

sorry for being a thick but i am quite new to all this and don't know what ny temprature should be!! can anyone help?