BBT chart interpretation help please

[MumsN2021]

Good afternoon everyone,

I am hoping for some guidance in reading the attached charts, my dh and I have just started ttc and this is our first cycle.

From what we've read we were expecting the ovulation temperature spike to occur within 24 hours of ovulation however from what we can tell it happened this morning and ovulation was predicted as Tuesday. Are we reading this correctly?

Has anyone had this? I stopped taking the pill in mid December and I think this is the first month I have ovulated but I'm not sure.

Btw I am 40 and my dh is 41, trying for my 2nd, 20 years after my first!

Thank you for your help.

@MumsN2021 Hello - it's too soon to tell based on your temps but a first glance would make me think you ovulated yesterday on the 8th. Today is really the only temp that would indicate the start of a temp shift. If you had an LH surge late on the 5th then that's reasonable I'd say, as some women ovulate as late as 72h after a positive test.

[quote Juno231]@MumsN2021 Hello - it's too soon to tell based on your temps but a first glance would make me think you ovulated yesterday on the 8th. Today is really the only temp that would indicate the start of a temp shift. If you had an LH surge late on the 5th then that's reasonable I'd say, as some women ovulate as late as 72h after a positive test.[/quote]
Thank you, that's very helpful. My LH surge was at 11:13am on the 5th April, I was expecting to ovulate earlier than yesterday but I appreciate that my body might still be returning to normal.

What should I be looking for with my future BBT this week to confirm ovulation?

Thank you again.

Hello, I agree ovulation around the 8th makes sense. You would expect temperatures to keep rising for the next 2 days to confirm this and will stay high until af comes.

FWIW I find fertility friend a really helpful app for plotting temperatures, it will predict when you've ovulated.

@MumsN2021 Temp wise ovulation is confirmed when there are three consecutively temps that are higher than the previous six. So if you have high temps the next two days then it would indicate you did indeed ovulate yesterday.

There is something called a fallback rise which is where the temp drops suddenly at 2dpo so don't panic if that messes with your 3 high temps in a row rule as it's the exception to the rule :)

Overall your temps in the luteal phase should be noticeably higher than before ovulation.

I agree with the previous poster that Fertility Friend is much easier to chart with but perhaps that's something to try out next cycle.

@Juno231 @fallingsnowflakes

Thank you for taking the time to help me understand more easily.

My dh and I thought I was going to ovulate a couple of days earlier (partly based on the premom app) and therefore based dtd around that, we thought we'd researched extensively and really prepared considering we only started ttc last month 😂.

We're just a little worried we've left it too late in life...

I've downloaded the fertility friends app, it looks more complicated than the premom app but I'm sure we'll get our heads around it. Thank you for the recommendation.

Any other advice would be very welcome!

@MumsN2021 it looks messy and old school but actually is much more straightforward than it looks! It's really helpful in showing patterns more easily and its algorithms in determining when ovulation happened tend to be more reliable than other apps. If you track cervical mucus then do input those details also as it's a big clue to when ovulation happened.

Even if ovulation happened later than you thought I'm sure your in with a good shot regardless - plenty of women get pregnant having only DTD 3-5 days before ovulation :)

Here's to hoping you fall pregnant quickly!

@Juno231

Thank you for the encouragement, I've completed the FF up to date for this cycle. Can I just ask one question, how does FF predict my next ovulation and how does it show it in the app?

Thanks again.

@MumsN2021 it predicts it based on what happened in your current cycle. So the more cycles' worth of data it has, the better the predictions. You can see it by scrolling down in the app and press "planner" which should show you the next couple of months, or on the front page by just clicking the right arrow that would flick you through to May's dates. Anything in green is potential fertile week/ovulation window.

See the little triangles on your chart btw? Upward triangle means you took the temp later than usual, downward is earlier than usual. That will affect your pattern. It looks fine at the moment but if you ever get a wonky temp out of line with the rest because of it it's safest to use a temp adjuster to calculate what it would have been had you taken it at the same time as the rest: whenmybaby.com/basalbodytemperature.php

Just FYI!

@Juno231 Thank you so much. We were aware of the timing differences this week, I'm a teacher and on school holidays so we've treated ourselves to an extra hour in bed not realising the importance of being so precise each day, I'd read that anywhere working half an hour either side would be fine.