Charters Anonymous Volume 7. Charting and shagging our way to victory!

[digitalgirl]

Previous thread here

Join us in egg-hunting, cm analysing, chart-stalking and plotting our way to a bfp. Or just generally losing the plot. All welcome!

I get crazy high temps if I do it late (eg Sunday). Try not to worry and look at the pattern. Could be a progesterone surge?

Gah! Here's me and my crap knowledge [consults doctor google] what would a progesterone surge on CD18 mean?

Hey, is there any where of finding what a chart of someone who did turn out to be pregnant looks like...?

CD19 as it happens.

aghh! I just totally screwed up my chart by deleting day 1 and now I have no ovulation figures :( Oh well, I will just have to remember it said Day 14.

Well I'm back from my first gynae appointment....generally ok but she was very dismissive of my charting! . Not likely to be pcos, I don't have enough symptoms. Plan from here is: repeat progesterone (looks like they were just taken too late cos of my irregular cycle) day 17 (in case its a 25 day cycle) and day 20 (in case its a day 27!). Fanny cam - apparently they should have sent me an appointment for that prior to this appointment. Hsg to be done after next af. At least things are moving forward!
freelance try to stay calm! If you search on FF for certain criteria but it can start to make you crazy!

Faith, I'm so envious of all the swi. Hope you've hit the jackpot this month; chart's looking good. Why would your gynaecologist be dismissive of the charting?

Freelance can't you just re-enter day 1 to get your ov figures back? In response to your questions, the progesterone surge occurs one or two days after ovulation and that's what makes your temperature rise. The temperature stays up until you get your period, when it drops again. If you conceive, then progesterone continues to be produced by the corpus luteum (the cyst on the ovary which released the egg) and therefore your temperatures stay elevated. Sometimes they even jump up to a higher level ? this would be a tri-phasic chart, where for the first part of your cycle your temperatures were low, then on ovulation they jump to a higher level, then a while (not sure how long) after that they jump to a higher level still. FF says you can have a triphasic pattern without being pg and you can be pg without the third phase, so make of that what you will. (Do I sound as if I know what I'm talking about? I'm only slightly ahead of you on the learning curve, I think.)

With regards faint lines, apparently it's easy to miss the LH surge, so might indeed be better to test several times a day. This month I'm just doing it once a day to see whether anything shows up, then I might try more often in future cycles. (I've never done it before. I was going to last month but I ov'd before I started!)

I peed in a sample pot and dipped today and it was so much easier. I'm just worried about colleagues coming in and catching me doing it. If I used a clean cup, say, it wouldn't look suspicious when I was washing it out afterwards but it might look odd coming out of the cubicle with it.

You are having to pee in a pot at work Mitzi! that's hilarious! I guess I would too if I didn't work from home. It must be such a faff. Funny though, I am sure I would find myself giggling to myself as I was doing it.

Yes my chart has been restored by me doing exactly what you said I should do. I sussed it our earlier. Phew - was getting rather attached to it :) Still a raft of weird symptoms from me today but it might be down to the Prednisolone. It will be interesting to see whether I am having a a tri-phasic chart and yes you do really sound like you know what you are talking about! Sounds like it doesn't necessarily mean pregnancy or non-pregnancy though so I guess it is irrelevant. My limbs are aching a bit and I still have 'an awareness' of my ovaries every now and then so maybe it is all linked. Am tired too and low on energy.

Faith good that you don't have PCOS. Yes, why was the gynae dismissive of your charting?! Were you pleased at todays appointment or felt like you didn't actually find anything out? It's good to be in the system anyway I guess and to be having further tests.

Dismissive of charting because its 'not scientific (?!) and can cause more stress than help. However through charting body we identified I ovulate so early that my 'day 21' would be too late and therefore show a low result! Ah well. Moving forward. I feel 50/50 really. I'm now wondering if they will find anything wrong. At least the tests will give a fuller picture. I suspect circumstances rather than physical issues are why I'm not upduffed yet. Lots of things: bad health for first year including utis, me working shifts, DH's low libido at times! Maybe now we are healthier, losing weigjt, DH is much better I'll suddenly get that bfp!
The swi is unusual for us! I see other people's charts and think 'how do they manage that much?!' but mostly its down to DH feeling better :)

freelance here are my charts - Aug 28 and Dec 29 are the pregnancy ones. The rest are not. It's impossible not to scrutinise every little temp change each day but by the end of your cycle you'll get a much clearer picture of how your temps rise and fall in response to the progesterone rising and falling throughout your luteal phase. (or hopefully not!)

Decided to start charting this cycle from Monday as a) I have such long cycles I might as well give myself a break at the start b) have been drinking a bit this week which can mess up my chart.

havealittle I'm not sure how irregular your cycles are - but the only way to confirm pco is to have your ovaries scanned.
You don't have to have 'symptoms' to have pco. For example, all my hormone levels are within range. I'm not particularly overweight (well we'd all like to be thinner!), not outrageously spotty, and body hair is all within acceptable Italian heritage limits. But my cycles range from 37-50 days and my ovaries have a polycystic appearance. There's a spectrum for pcos and I'm on the mild end. An obese woman with a 5 o clock shadow, teenage acne and no periods is on the severe end. Not trying to say you have it - but if your cycles are irregular and you're not happy about it then it's worth pushing for day 2-5 tests and also mentioning it when you're having your scan.

Also gynaes don't agree with charting because they think we're rubbish at taking our temps properly. The consultant I saw at St Mary's last week asked me how long I'd been charting and I said 'Years. And I get false positives on the opk's so charting really is the only way for me to confirm ovulation.' He let me off with that one.

Anyway - ds and dh will be back from little kickers soon. So I'd better jump in the shower.

Well I am obese - only just now having lost about 9lb!! Not very hairy in any one place (well legs!). Cycles vary from 24 to 29 days in last year. In my teens af was incredibly irregular - I recall one point where af was 2 weeks long and I thought "oh well I'll be ok for a couple of weeks" and then I got another one a week later! My day 3 tests came back in normal range. I'm not very spotty in fact have never had an issue with this. I will mention it when I have my scan though, I'll be really interested to see what happens tbh.
I know what you mean about the temping. I wasn't great to start with and couldn't make sense of my charts. Now I set one alarm to temp every morning (including weekends) at 6am! I refuse to get up and wee in the night in case it affects it. Proof of point though one inaccurate temp early on in my cycle this month stopped FF from identifying my ovulation date, as soon as I discarded it, it pinpointed it!

Oh digi thanks so much for posting those charts. I've been at mil's since yesterday evening and she doesn't have wireless so I really missed my chart fix. After I had a good nose through yours though I couldn't live without it and downloaded the mobile app. So basically your preg temps stay elevated. It was really interesting to see, if not also quite poignant in the light of what happened after. I kept imagining what you must have been going through as you got those bfps. I've had another elevated temp today, can't post my link from mobile but it's on here recently if you want to check. I think it was mitzi or faith who said I appear to be having a tri phasic cycle. Either that or a fever... there are definitely weird things happening in my body at the moment. this is prob the wrong thread for this but it could be the steroids. Faith weight issues are annoying I know, especially the ones that feel out of our control. Well done for losing 9lbs though, that's a great achievement!

Hi everyone. Have some more good news in that my CD18/progesterone test results came back 'normal'. Bad news is that there doesn't seem to be any chance of cancellation appt before sept. Consultants secretary also refused to send copies of results to GP. Argh. Will be writing them a letter next week.

Anyway, haven't quite managed to get into the temping this month, which I must say feels very liberating. I've also forgotten to dip my OPK in the pee pot, but have had plenty EWCM again, so I know things are progressing as normal. Will try and remember to test this evening and tomorrow morning, as I'm expecting to ov tomorrow. My bloatiness this evening would suggest that too. Haven't managed to get as much SWI in this month, but should be enough to cover us.

digital good job for putting him/her in her place! I hate it when they treat us as though we know nothing.

mitzi I've certainly had individual temp rises before and would not worry until they stay up constantly. Let's hope it was just a blib.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. Just had a look at our list and we haven't had an update from so many of us. How are you all doing?

Glad to hear its good news scrummy. You sound fairly positive.
I know what you mean about not temping. I may not do many next week while I'm on holiday and tempted to have a break next cycle. Still undecided, its such a part of my routine now!

Took my temp this morning and FF has moved my ovulation date to cd13. Hood job I told DH we had to keep in swi! see here. If it stays there actually swi timing would be quite good!

Oh I think I have lost the will to live with TTC. Just all seems utterly hopeless at the moment.

What's up AuntieD? Maybe you need a bit of time off? We had February-March off and it was such a sense of relief! Didn't use protection just didn't actively 'try' (or even 'try to try' then get annoyed when it didn't happen!).

auntied you ok?

I'm back on the charting wagon. First temp of the cycle today on cd10. It was rather low which is reassuring (not that there's anyway I could have missed ov with my cycles). But chart looks rather boring with one dot on it. Oh well - 2 weeks from now I'll be mentalling about whether I've ov'ed or not. Must enjoy the calm...

Hi all

I have been trying to chill for a bit and avoid ttc threads. CD21 here so not much news, no symptoms but only ov'd on day 15 so prob too soon anyway, managed to swi on day 14 and 15 but swi has been well timed every other cycle tbh.

Scrummy for your test results.

AuntieD I hope you are ok xxx

Hope everyone else is ok.

can't resist delurking to say hi all. :)

have been feeling good about not temping and obsessing, also managing fairly regular SWI so far for a change.

will probably end up back here next month missing my thermometer and mumsnet too much though!

fx for this month ladies.

12 DPO. Temp dropped from 36.57 to 36.1 this morning

I guess my symptoms have all been coincidental or imaginary this cycle Just a waiting game now I think...

PS - Hi Jaggy

Am with you on that one Poppy! Mine dropped today too and am only 9DPO. Having been triphasic it has gone back down to the level of my first rise around ovulation. It's my first month of charting so all very confusing. But I can completely relate to the imaginary symptom spotting.

Any charters with more experience than me want to have a look it's here:

www.fertilityfriend.com/home/35dcaf

Hi Jaggy, Weimy, Digital, Faith and the rest. Hope Auntie D is ok! I can understand the frustration.

Just wanted to add (sorry for being whiney) I feel so depressed today, I feel like this cycle was the first that we managed "perfect" timing for SWI and after the mc last month I was really hoping for some new hope

My cycles are so long at the moment, it feels like an absolute age between ovulations (CD 36 on mc cycle and CD 28 this time) and I am never sure when it will happen. I am away without DH for the first 2 weeks of august and that may very well be the time I ovulate next time so I guess that means I am out until September.

So sorry for (second) me me me post.

Thanks Weimy Chilling sounds good. Going to try and manage that myself this month. Just passed ovulation....

auntied and poppy ((((((hugs)))))) I never knew his could be so mental so I understand how you must be feeling.

freelance have a look at my charts and you can see dips in 9/10 DPO. I always start to think it might be implantation, but not so.

Oh yeah Scrummy I went through the other thread, found your link, and checked out your charts and you do indeed have a dip around that time. Wonder what that is...? But no, sadly not implantation yet I guess.

Sorry you are feeling a bit miserable about it Poppy. It's frustrating isn't it, that we can time these things perfectly and they still don't happen. I think I am going to test in the next few days so I can come off the steroids as I am pretty sure that, although I seemed to do everything at the right time this month too, it's not going to be THE month.

freelance, your chart has an open circle for today's temp, not a solid dot, indicating it was taken at a different time from normal... did you take it much earlier or later? You never know, it might not be all over yet...