Basal Body Temperature

Hello,

I am just charting for the first month here in Jan. I read the book "Taking Charge of Your Fertility."

From what I understand, you need to take your temp at the beginning of the month (when you first start your period) to get the lower temps and then when you ovulate your temp spikes. So then you need to draw your coverline. TO get your coverline you locate the highest temp of your last 6 days before the spike. Highlight the last 6 temps. Draw coverline 1/10 degree above the highest of those 6.

As long as your temp stays ABOVE the coverline for 18 days (it will still fluctuate some) then you are probably pregnant....

If you are still confused, check that book out! It's very informative.

I am also charting and taking clomid. I know when we got pregnant with our 1st that my temp stayed elevated. If you just finished your first round of clomid then it could be time to start trying to get pregnant. For example I take clomid on days 5-9 of my cycle and the doctor told us to have sex at least every other day on days 10-17. Which would mean I can’t test for baby until 10 days after that. What days are you taking clomid on? Did you get it on the internet or through your doctor? If you got it through your doctor they should tell you when to take it and when to have sex.

I also recommend TCOYF as a great book. Also, if you need an easy place to chart your temperatures and get great advice on conceiving check out fertilityfriend.com

K.-
no it doesn't rule out pregnancy cuz it's still so close to your first few readings at 98.4, and its too early to know. you need 18 days of high temps to confirm. temps can be tough to base information off of since the smallest things can make your readings seem all over the place. you ABSOLUTLY NEED to read the book "taking charge of your fertility" by toni weschler! i see lots of women have already suggested it too! it has changed my life dramatically when it comes to fertility. whether trying to conceive or use as a method of birth control! it also has some very interesting things to say about clomid, as a potential side affect of it can dry up the 3rd ingredient to making a baby, which is cervical fluid! i have given this book to so many friends and clients i can't stop talking about it....i think you'll find it really helpful! another website i just recently found was
fertility-focus.com this tool looks at your saliva under a microscope and tells u when your fertile because of the structure the saliva creates when you're ovulating. better than an ovulation kit cuz you can use again and again and really affordable! i had no idea our saliva changes around ovulation! good luck!

Like all the ladies, I recommend the same book. I did all the same things as you, same drug many times and more. The month I DID get pregnant, I assumed I was NOT pregnantlike all the other months... because I didn't see the right temp changes... but I was! I suspect now you need to be patient and wait to find out. Pretty hard to do. I recall my Dr calling to confirm my pregnancy results. He asked, "Are you surprised?" YES was the answer. I had been faxing him my temp charts every month and doing Clomid again and again.

Didn't read all the other responses so I'm probably going to repeat some. I have 3 kids and #2 was a Clomid baby. I charted and temped and used an online site called fertilityfriend.com to keep track of everything. I would input my daily temp everyday and it would determine my ovulation date once my temp would stay up 3 days over my coverline date (the middle temp determined by fertility friend.) It doesn't matter if your temp goes down past ovulation as long as it doesn't dip below your coverline temp, so just because it went down .3 doesn't mean you aren't pg. If your temp stays up for over 14 days or so it could be a good sign.
Good luck! Clomid rocks!!

I don't know if your temp confirms or rules out pregnancy, but WHEN you take it makes a HUGE difference. I thought I was being diligent enough taking my temp at pretty much the same time every morning, but the numbers were all over the place. It's important to take it at EXACTLY the same time every day after you have been lying down for at least 2 hours. I finally started setting my alarm clock for something like 6 am when I knew for sure I would have been completely rested and took my temp then, and the numbers started to make some sense. You also need to do it for more than a few days to get a good base line.

I would second Amanda's advice. You can have a little fluctuation in temp. and continue to be pregnant, but it really is helpful to know what they were before you ovulate.

The advice about taking temps at the same time each day is also right on target. For fertility it must be the first thing when you wake after sleeping for at least two hours.

I have had to do tons of temps. and charts for thyroid issues and timing in temps is crucial. Your body temp. fluctuates throughout the day. If you are pregnant, then your temps will average high all day long compared to what they were before you ovulated.

I'll chime in as another person to recommend the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler, MPH. I also seem to remember that your temperature has to be elevated for 18 days to confirm pregnancy. I don't remember reading about a drop in temperature, though I bet it's in the book somewhere. I would guess that if you're still reading in the 98's, it's still considered a rise in temperature. So, if it were me, I'd still suspect that I'm pregnant until it dropped back down to the 97's and 96's. Be careful as to the times you're taking your temp. and if you were resting. I took my temp. the other day after I sat up in bed and my temp. was about 0.3 degrees higher than usual.

K.. Have you just tried using an ovulation kit. We were in the same boat as you and used BBT this method did not work for me. For three months straight I used ovulation kits to find out when I was ovulating and it was not in the 7-14 days after my cycle like I would have expected it to be. I wound up ovulating on like day 19. We used Clomid also and wound up getting prgnant the month I stopped using it . I had told my husband that I was tired of having scheduled sex, and that I was tired of being crabby all the time from the drug.Go figure I would get preg. that month. It took one year to get preg. with both of our older kids. My husband was sent out of the country for work when our second child was 2 1/2 for about 9 weeks , he came back and we got pregnant the first week he was back. # 4 was conceived after another long out of town trip for his job. Our Dr. along with us was surprised by the # 3 & 4 pregnancies. We joked that we should have sent my husband away the first time. It was cheaper than the fertitly tests and meds.Using the ovulation kits really helped the first two times though. My cousins and I all had to use them apparently our family has a fertility issue. I think you can purchase an electronic ovulation detector If you need to use it often , we looked into it but wound up getting preg. finally. hope this helps

From what I remember, your temp change just means you ovulated it does not confirm pregnancy. The egg has to be fertilized and implatation does not happen until at least 5 days following implatation. (I know that is a fact)
If you do not get a period in 14 days, then take a pregnancy test.

I did this method when my husband and I were tryign with difficulity as well. The greatest book to help you understand it all is "Taking Charge of your fertility" by Toni Weschler. It is the greatest book in the world and I found it very helpful. (you could even check it out from your library) see the website: http://www.tcoyf.com/

From what I remember (Since I had PCOS and my temps were all over the place as well, The quick drop in your temp and then back up the next day is ovulation, but you have to watch your charting as somone can have other slight dips until their period. 18 high temps after ovulation confirm pregnancy. Which you need to watch for your lutel phase which can be between 14 to 16 high temps if I remember right. My leutel phse was 16 days of high temps. That meant that I would mostlky get my period on day 16 of high temps and then I would usually see my temp drop back down significanetly on that 16th day. When we finially got pregnant I didn't test until the 18th day of high temps and I got a postivie.

I know that this is can be very frutrating but I really got a handle on charting by using the book with my charts.

I also used ovulation detectors whith the clomid and charting, which we finally went to the doctor after three months of clomid and found out that my eggs were releasing when they were too big and hard, on the 15th day of the fourth round of clomid we went in for an ultra sound and I had an egg to be release, I was given a shot to help release the egg. My daughter turned four last september.

Hang in there I know it can be frustrating and heartbreaking. I wish you all the best of luck.

H.-

"Taking Charge of Your Fertility" by Toni Weschler, PhD is a GREAT resource!!!!!

I used clomid. Clomid can lengthen the "luteal" phase of your cycle--the number of days from ovulation to your period starting. This is typically a set number of days, with most women's being about 12 days. During that time your temperature will be up until day or so before perid starting and then return to baseline. IF you know your typical time from ovulation to period, then you will know you are likely pregnant if your BBT stays up for more than your normal luteal phase. ALSO, a woman's luteal phase is almost never longer than 16-18 days, so if temp stays up more than 18 days, you are almost certainly pregnant. I know for me, my temp would stay up 16 to 17 days after ovulation with clomid, but when I was pregnant, it would rise just a little more on about day 12 or so and stay up. That double rise is also a strong (but not foolproof) indicator of pregnancy. ALSO, important to take BBT same time every day and right when the alarm goes off BEFORE you get out of bed. Confusing?? Get the book--it is AWESOME!! Big book, great easy to read information. Every woman should have it whether they are trying to conceive (with or without fertility treatment) or avoid pregnancy more naturally. Good Luck! If the temp stays above your normal "baseline range" for 18 days, you are likely pregnant! The book also has some charts you can copy/enlarge to copy so the temperature shifts are more noticeable in their trends.