Cycle Tracking - Part 1
If you haven’t charted your cycles yet and you’re planning to try for a baby soon or you’ve been trying for some time, then going through this process can provide you with tonnes of insight.
From a personal perspective, I had started using ovulation tests a few months into my own TTC journey and I kept getting a smiley face quite early on in my cycles. I found this a bit odd as I’d always had long/irregular cycles. But this face kept flashing at me around day 11 of my cycle so we’d do the deed then and nothing was happening for months.
Then I discovered charting and realised through doing this, that I wasn’t actually ovulating that early in my cycle - in fact I wasn’t ovulating until about 1-1.5 weeks later!
Ovulation sticks can only tell you when you might ovulate (they’re called Ovulation PREDICTOR Kits) - not that you actually did.
A few months after charting properly, I got my first BFP - because at least we were aiming for the right time. Note - we had also implemented numerous health and lifestyle changes in our lives.
So, who should chart their cycles?
You’re trying to conceive
You’re planning a baby for next year - spend the rest of this year tracking your cycles so you have a good base
You’ve been trying for some time and it doesn’t seem to be working
You have signs of imbalances in your cycle including - no periods, long / irregular cycles, short cycles, heavy periods, spotting between periods, painful periods, clots.
Top tip
I would only recommend that you chart cycles a few times - around 3 times to give you a good feel for the consistency of your cycles. Then I’d suggest stopping. That’s because it can get a bit stressful when you’re trying to conceive and constantly keeping track of your cycles. It can take the fun out of it. And for some people (myself included), it can cause some anxiety. So I think it’s great to get a good overview and get you more in tune with your body, but once you’ve got that baseline, just ditch it.
What do you need to start charting?
An app - it can be done with paper and pencil, but it’s just easier on an app, there are loads of good options out there. I like and use Kindara (no affiliate).
A BBT (basal body temperature) thermometer. There are lots of newer technologies out there now to track your temperature, but to be honest, you can do it very effectively and cheaply with a thermometer off Amazon. Just make sure you get one that measures to 2 decimal places. It doesn’t matter if it’s in degrees F or C, because you only need to be able to see a pattern over time.
OPK’s. Ovulation Predictor Kits. Ovulation tests. I’d recommend just buying the cheapies off Amazon - you can usually buy a stack of them cheaply. Not digital ones. Something like these are great (no affiliate).
That’s it!
In Part 2 I will go through how you actually chart your cycles!