Adventures in Basal Body Temping

Hey all. So here's a bit of an update on TTC.  I'm still trying.  Still not pregnant.  Still frustrated.  Yeaaaaaah.

I decided to try something new this month, just for kicks.  Basal Body Temping.  I've avoiding this method thus far in our attempts, because I heard it can be tough with a lot of variables that can influence the accuracy, such as alcohol, not taking the temp at the EXACT time every day, etc...  But, I decided to give a shot anyway, because what do I have to lose?

Basically, (this is just my interpretation of how it works), you get this special Basal Body Thermometer that measures your temp down to the tenth degree.  Before you get out of bed everyday, you take your temperature by just sticking the thermometer in your mouth like a doctor would.  You wait til your thermometer beeps, get a reading, and then record it on a chart (some thermometers come with charts, or you can find one to download online).  On your chart, when you see an increase in temp, it is supposed to indicate when you have ovulated.  So in theory, if you keep doing it, you're supposed to see a pattern of when your temp raises each month and the couple days before that are when you should try (baby dance, as they say). 

Here's an example of a chart:

(source)

Here's my first month...

Not very pretty is it?  I'm actually pretty confused in looking at this on when my real "spike" that I ovulated was, since there were kind of two on here.  I got a positive OPK (ovulation predictor kit result) kind of in the middle of the first spike, and the other spike was a couple days after that.  They were both gradual, not a sharp spike like the example graph.  Also, I was under the impression that your temps usually stay elevated after you ovulate (from what I read) and I was surprised to see mine kind of dip back down to about where they were in the follicular (before ovulation) phase...  So yeah, I'm confused.

I did happen upon something when locating information for this post...  Apparently the Basal Body Thermometer I've been using sucks...  It was a Walgreens one, and a lot of people complained about it here.  Awesome.  So I might have wasted a month with a crappy BBT....

Last night, I bought a new one...

Hopefully this one is better.

Really, all of this doesn't matter that much, because as usual, we can really only try when Greg is home, which is never as often as we should be trying.  In a perfect world, he'd have two weeks off at the right time of month and we could try all during that time to optimize our chances.  I don't see that happening any time soon.  I think I just feel such a lack of control over it all that I am willing to do anything to feel a little more like I have a handle on things.  Also, if my chart is right, maybe something is wrong with me and having charts to show a doctor will help them figure out what it is so that I can actually get pregnant.  That's my theory.

In the meantime, I'll just look at other people's cute babies, and hope that I turn into a success story like they did!

Wyatt is so cute and tiny :)  I loved holding him!