Basal Body Temperature Charting -- Empowering or Crazy-Making?
Thursday May 22, 2008
Charting your basal body temperature is considered a must by many in the infertility community. A doctor may recommend charting your cycle in order to make sure sex is taking place at the right time for conception. Charting is also a way to evaluate whether or not you’re ovulating regularly. If you notice that you’re not ovulating, you can take your charts to a doctor right away (as opposed to trying to get pregnant for an entire year before seeking help, the typical recommendation for infertility diagnosis.)
BBT charting, a method of ovulation detection that requires you to take your temperature every morning and record the results on a chart, is an easy and inexpensive way to track ovulation. It’s much cheaper than using ovulation predictor kits, which is another common method of ovulation detection.
Some women find BBT charting empowering, while other women feel that it is more crazy-making than helpful. It’s easy to get worried about slight variations in your temperatures, or feel like you can’t get up at night to use the bathroom “in case it’ll ruin your temp” for the morning.
Personally, I find BBT charting very helpful. I’ve learned more about my body by charting my cycles than I have learned in any high school sex ed class. I also love that I can predict when I will get my period, since my luteal phase is always 12 to 14 days. (Because I don't ovulate regularly, I wouldn't know when to expect my period unless I knew when I ovulated. BBT charting allows me to know when I have ovulated, which is great for me.)
Another huge plus for me was that my doctor considered testing for infertility earlier because I brought her my charts over a four month period, showing her that I wasn’t ovulating regularly at all.
How about you? Do you chart your cycles? Has it helped? Or does it drive you crazy? Take our poll, and share your story in the comments section below, or in our infertility support forums.
Everything You Need to Know About BBT Charting:
BBT charting, a method of ovulation detection that requires you to take your temperature every morning and record the results on a chart, is an easy and inexpensive way to track ovulation. It’s much cheaper than using ovulation predictor kits, which is another common method of ovulation detection.
Some women find BBT charting empowering, while other women feel that it is more crazy-making than helpful. It’s easy to get worried about slight variations in your temperatures, or feel like you can’t get up at night to use the bathroom “in case it’ll ruin your temp” for the morning.
Personally, I find BBT charting very helpful. I’ve learned more about my body by charting my cycles than I have learned in any high school sex ed class. I also love that I can predict when I will get my period, since my luteal phase is always 12 to 14 days. (Because I don't ovulate regularly, I wouldn't know when to expect my period unless I knew when I ovulated. BBT charting allows me to know when I have ovulated, which is great for me.)
Another huge plus for me was that my doctor considered testing for infertility earlier because I brought her my charts over a four month period, showing her that I wasn’t ovulating regularly at all.
How about you? Do you chart your cycles? Has it helped? Or does it drive you crazy? Take our poll, and share your story in the comments section below, or in our infertility support forums.
Everything You Need to Know About BBT Charting:
Comments
Charting definitely made me a crazy woman. I used this for 6 months and I was an insomniac. I love the control it gives you but apparently my body didn’t want to cooperate.