Clear Blue - Fertility Monitor Newbies!

[AJM2018]

Firstly, apologies if this post sounds like it was written by an absolute novice - it was!

Me and my wife have been trying to conceive for a month now, but decided to get a bit of help from technology and order the Clear Blue fertility monitor - we haven’t got any children already so complete newbies!

Is the Clear Blue fertility monitor easy to use? We ordered it to arrive tomorrow, but my wife’s period started today. Is it possible to start using the fertility monitor at what will effectively be Day 2 of my wife’s period? How does one get started with the fertility monitor?

Any help is gratefully received! Thanks in advance.

You may not want to hear this but if your wife has got any suspected fertility problems you probably don't need the monitor. I use the clearblue digital advance predictor sticks. It's about £20 for a pack of 20 sticks and should last a few months. It does similar to what the monitor does. Basically you pee on the sticks from cycle day 12 or whenever and for a few days it will show as low fertility, then a couple of days of high fertility then the day after it should change to peak fertility. You can buy very cheap ovulation prediction sticks that just show a line to show when the woman is ovulating, but they didn't work for me, but a lot of people like them. Good luck!

The above was just an example before anyone says I've got the days wrong!

I'm on my first cycle TTC with CBFM and so far I think it's amazing. Still waiting to see if it worked so can't comment on that yet!
Your wife will be fine getting it tomorrow, you have until day 4 of your period to start a cycle.
What I prefer instead of opks is the fact that it tells you when to test (it even sets an alarm) and tracks everything for you and continues to monitor and adapt to your cycles.
It's really easy to use, the red light flashes on a test day and then you just use your first pee of the day to test. You pee on the test stick and pop it in, wait 5 mins and you get your result. Either low, high or peak and you can dtd in accordance, and record your 'activity' on the monitor.
Mine recorded highs from day 8 then peak on day 14 and 15, if anything it was just good to know all was working as it should be. I'm told you get less highs as you go along and it starts to know your levels better.
Well worth the money (or boots points in my case!) Good luck!!

P.s watch the clips on YouTube for set up, I found them useful

m.youtube.com/watch?v=9BP42dICf1I

m.youtube.com/watch?t=28s&v=Y4aLMSDOF9M

Thanks Love2cook. We got the monitor on Day 2 of my wife's period and started it off.

We are on Day 9 of testing now and still haven't had 'Peak' only 'High'. The last day of testing is tomorrow - if 'Peak' isn't detected, does it continue to tell you to test?

Another question - the 10 day testing window started the day after my wife's period finished. Is that usual?

Hi, are you using the advanced monitor (the touch screen one?) If so...

• the first month it may ask for 20 tests even if you get a peak as it is learning your wife's cycle

• the first day of testing can vary from month to month, but if I recall correctly it did ask me to start testing early on the first month

• on a normal month it will only ask for 10 tests, if it doesn't get a peak in those 10 tests it will ask for another 10. I never had it ask for more than 20.

• have a look on eBay for cheaper packs of test sticks, there's a seller on there that just sells the opk tests (so you don't end up with stacks of pregnancy tests!)

As a pp said, if there are fertility issues the monitor won't help - I was getting the LH surge almost every month but wasn't ovulating properly. So the monitor was showing a peak, but no egg was being released.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Gah, there were paragraphs when I typed that. Honestly! Bloody phone.

That's very helpful thanks. As you can tell we are very much "fumbling around in the dark" on this (pardon the pun!!).

We are on Day 16 and still no peak so it has asked for another 10 tests. My wife is experiencing blood spotting - should we be worried?

I wouldn't worry, sometimes the LH surge that the monitor is looking for isn't high enough to register as a peak. The spotting could be ovulation spotting? Keep testing and see how this cycle pans out. It won't ask for more than 20 tests.

If you want to manually check the test sticks after the monitor has it will start off as a single dark line that gets lighter (this is the estrogen). As you approach ovulation a second line will appear and get darker (LH hormone). Ovulation should occur 24-36 hours after the LH line becomes as dark as/darker than the first line.

Thank you for all your help so far.

Had 20 test sticks in all - still didn't get a peak!

Will it tell us to do a pregnancy test at some point? Or do we just take it upon ourselves to do it whenever we want?

Thanks in advance.