Basal temperature for dummies

[gotelltheoldmandowntheroad]

Got myself a thermometer. So I take the temp

every morning before doing anything
same time
record

What am I looking for exactly?

Hi! This is my first month tracking LH and BBT. I've attached my chart below, and the big orange peak was my peak LH surge, and ovulation was supposedly the blue dip right after on CD13. Temp should spike after ovulation, but mine doesn't seem to be much this month haha

I wish you all the luck in the world. I'm still none the wiser, in fact more confused. what's blue and what's orange?

So am I trying to identify a higher basal temp spike each month? And that's the optimal time to have sex? At the spike? On the same day?

The orange is charting the results of my ovulation urine tests. The orange peak is when you have your LH surge and you are supposed to ovulate 24-36 hours AFTER the surge. So DTD on the day and probably day after to be certain.

You'll see a temp rise (blue line) 2 days or so AFTER ovulation, so you can't use it to time DTD, but can use it to try and confirm when ovulation did occur :)

Hope that helps!!

Thank you again

@gotelltheoldmandowntheroad this is my chart. your looking for a temp rise after your ovulation day. Ideally there shouldn't be much variation in your temperatures but of course lots of thing can impact this poor sleep, ill health etc. ideally your temp will stay elevated after ovulation which can indicate pregnancy if it starts to drop below your cover line it most likely means AF is on her way

Thank you all, this thread is so helpful! Do you all test once a day for each test? Or twice?

@jollydollyirl do you mean temp and ovulation?

You want to see a pattern OP that’s all. A pattern that has a “lower” temperature range, so let’s say every morning you measure about 36.2 / 36.1 / 36.0 etc then one morning you
measure and the temperature has gone up out of the range so something like 36.9 / 37.0 - it’s not just gone up a little but is up significantly so it is outside of the pattern you’ve been seeing. And then it stays up in the “higher” range for some time (until your period starts).

once you can identify the day your temp has risen to the “higher” range you can identify that you will have ovulated in the day or so prior - usually like 12/24 hours before.

Basal monitoring is backwards looking, unlike OPKs you’re not predicting that ovulation is going to happen, you’re confirming it.
So in that case it’s helpful over time, if you do this for a couple of cycles you can pinpoint where your ovulation takes place in your cycle and ensure you’re having plenty of sex beforehand.

Generally you’re going to find it’s around DC14/15 but mine was cd17/18 so without BBT monitoring I was not timing sex properly - putting the effort in too early!

If you use OPKs and BBT together they are just giving you more information about your cycle so you can both predict and confirm your ovulation

good luck!

God thank you. I finally kind of get it now. Thank you for taking the time and all for taking the time to post their charts etc.