First month OPK testing... now freaking out!

[charliejane02]

Hello,

I've just started trying to chart my fertility. My partner and I are not quite ready to start trying but at 34, when we do, I want to be in tune with my cycle etc.

Anyway, I keep forgetting to take my temperature in the morning so can't provide any useful information there but my question is about Ovulation tests: I think my cycle is around 28 days and usually 3-5 days. Kit suggested I started testing on day 11, which I worked out as 11 days from the first day of my period? I actually started testing on Day 10 and got what I thought was a positive result and again Day 11, Day 12 was fainter and another faint second line today.

I've read some of the other posts about tests being negative if the second line isn't as dark as the control line. Tests on day 10 and day 11 weren't as dark as control line but they were reasonably strong lines especially compared to the fainter lines I've had over the last two days.

Can anybody shed any light? I'm now started to freak out that I'm not ovulating :(

Thank You,

x

Why don't you test for a couple of months on every day of your cycle? Ignore the day 10 thing,
You may ovulate earlier and if you test every day you can catch it.

I use clear blue as it has a smiley face when it detects the surge so I don't have to faff around with trying to depict the lines.

They are way more expensive but it gives me a bit more piece of mind.

I always get a fade in-fade out pattern when I use OPKs ie I get a faint line which gradually becomes darker then fainter again. Are you just testing once a day? I ask this because it is very easy to miss the LH surge. As Wakey suggests the digis are far better when you are starting out as you get a definite yes or no. But even with these I once got a negative around 11am, a positive at 6pm the same day and a negative at 11am the next day (I like to experiment!). My point being though if I hadn't bothered to test twice in one day I would have missed it altogether! Try persevering with the temping as this is the only way (other than a blood test) of knowing if you definitely OV. The OPKs only tell you that your body is trying to OV. Good luck!

Charlie I did opks for three months and never got a true positive result. I got more and more upset and convinced that I wasn't ovulating... I went to my gp fort blood tests and inevitably they said they couldnt find anything wrong.

I then started temperature charting - I know it is a pain, but if you do it every morning at the same time, and record it using something like fertility friend on your phone, you get a really clear picture of what is going on. I could see when I was ovulating, even though opks were still not showing a true positive. They dont work for everyone and doing one a day means you can easily miss the surge anyway.... Plus a surge doesnt definitely mean you will ovulate.

I definitely agreed with happylass about the fade-in fade-out, great way to describe it. I only started using OPKs last month and I don't necessarily agree that the test line got as dark/darker than the control line, but I definitely ovulated when I was getting those results.

I use the cheap strips you can buy from Home Health so it means I can POmanySticks!

Good luck ttc

Honestly, I really struggled with cheap OPKs. I never got a conclusive positive on them. I had more joy with the clearblue ones that give you a :) and we had lots of investigations so I know I ovulated regularly.

To be honest, if I learnt one thing from TTC it's not to put too much pressure on. You have an 80% chance of conceiving within a year and you're much better off trying to have sex three times a week, every week of your cycle to hit ovulation rather than timing it to OPK results when you do start TTC. Good luck when you do start :)