1. Kjirstyn
   Member

   I have two wonderings... I've only been using the NFP SymptoThermal plan for less than a month, so I don't have a lot of chart under my belt, but here are a couple of questions I've had since paying attention to more things:

   1) My cervical fluid is all over the map. The day I started charting was my ovulation day according to temperatures, and there is no pattern to fluids-- it's jumped around from dry to sticky to creamy and back, not necessarily in that order. Is that normal?

   2) I ovulated according to my temps on day 7 of my cycle-- literally 3 days after my period ended. Is this normal or even possible? Seems like it wouldn't be enough time for my body to turn things around and start up again. I've heard some women can even ovulate DURING their period and that's why they can't conceive, but both that and my situation seem a little odd to me. ??

   Posted 11 months ago #

2. polkadotmommy
   Member

   Cervical fluid... are you checking internally or externally? Is there a possibility you have an infection (yeast or BV can both cause discharge). Intercourse interferes with CM, in that it is hard to see what's CM vs. seminal residue... so if you are having frequent intercourse, that could explain it. It also could be your interpretation which will take a few months of charting to learn what is normal for you, to see what your fluid looks like around O vs the rest of the month. Sometimes I get slippery CM again toward the end of my cycle.

   O- you can ovulate early in your cycle, but you may also have an early temp dip (I generally do around day 5-6, so my chart looks like possible O on day 6 and then again 12-14 but I don't have O symptoms with the early dip). Other possible explanations are taking the temp at a different time (I wake up early to potty at times and get a lower reading due to that)... room temp (is it cooler than normal, are you sleeping alone, etc...). The best way to tell is to keep charting, aim for a consistent time to always take your temp (I set my alarm on the weekends and then go back to sleep after taking my temp). You will start to gain an understanding of your body as your chart, what symptoms show up on what days and that will help you pinpoint actual ovulation.

   Luteal phase defects are the biggest reasons ovulating woman don't conceive... short luteal phase, multiple temp variations/dips, etc... some women have low progesterone from lack of good quality follicles in the follicular stage so the corpus luteum isn't sufficient to produce progesterone. You will notice patterns that will indicate a defect (over a few months) if you have one. I believe (I'm not an expert, yet anyway) that a luteal phase defect is much more of a concern than a short follicular (pre-O) phase.

   Best of luck to you!

   Posted 11 months ago #

3. polkadotmommy
   Member

   You can take a look at my last cycle, see the early temp dip/spike (which Fertility Flower actually noted as O until I O'd on day 12)...

   http://www.fertilityflower.com/user_chart?username=PolkaDotMommy&type=normal&token=sw3jyh9n&date=2011-05-08

   Posted 11 months ago #

4. fertilityflower
   admin

   A few things come immediately to mind...

   First. So you're new to charting - how were you avoiding pregnancy before this? If it was via hormonal birth control - as in pills or an IUD or something of that nature - that can sometimes cause some wonky effects for a while after you stop them. If you were using breastfeeding as a means to avoid (or rather, experienced infertility due to breastfeeding) and have just recently regained your cycles, that can also have a strange effect on how the cycles 'look' as your body gets back into the swing of things. Those are just some of the first things that come to mind.

   Another thing to consider is that there will always be some vaginal moisture - regardless of cervical fluid. The way that you can tell the difference is how quickly the wetness evaporates. Cervical fluid will just stay there; whereas vaginal moisture is gone in seconds. Polka Dot is correct that sometimes it takes a few cycles to learn what is normal for you. By the way, the slippery cervical fluid at the end of Polka Dot's cycle is caused by the breakdown of the topmost lining of the uterus - which is mainly water. That's shed a day or two before she starts her period - that's normal for her. You learn all kinds of things about yourself when you chart. It's really personal research!

   Second. While it's possible to ovulate that early in your cycle, in fact it's exceedingly rare. The women who we hear about who get pregnant during their period are more than likely mistaking (heavy) ovulatory SPOTTING for a true menstrual period - which is why you also hear that many of these women experience a period every two weeks - a heavy one followed by a light one followed by a heavy one followed by a light one etc. One of those episodes is a menstrual period (the heavy one); one of them is (heavy) ovulatory spotting.

   Now, in your case - and I think what gives me the greatest pause in making any grand proclamations - is the fact that you had a temp shift the first day that you started charting. The rules for confirming ovulation via temperature shift argue that you need to see a clear temp shift that is higher than the previous 6 temperatures - and that higher level of temps must be sustained for 3 days (in order to confirm ovulation). That's a minimum of 9 charting days required to confirm. So - that could be an issue for our programmer to look into. But before that and with your permission, I would love to see your chart in order to try to figure out what it's telling you. Would that be ok?

   Posted 11 months ago #

5. Kjirstyn
   Member

   That's totally fine-- I think the program just read it as a shift because the second day I posted my temp it was higher-- and stayed higher. Other than the incompleteness because of how long I've been using it, my cycle looks just like sample ones that I googled, which is why I started taking the perceived ovulation date seriously. (At first I figured it just didn't have enough info yet to make a "real" diagnosis.) I'll link my chart below, for you.

   As for the other reasons you suggested-- I never used any sort of birth control at all. My husband and I are going on six months married and for the first 5 months or so we just used no form of protection at all and just played it careful according to what I knew about the "average" woman's ovulation-- that is, day 14. Frankly, if it turns out that my ovulation date IS so early in the cycle, I'm amazed we're not pregnant yet! We don't have any children yet, so no previous babies/breastfeeding playing with the charts.

   As for fluids-- I've always kept an unofficial eye on what showed up in my underwear and it was usually predictable-- fluids showing up meant a period was showing within a week or two. This month it's just been all over the map. I've always been super regular and predictable-- but that changed the month I started charting, too-- I was a full two weeks late on my period. So one, I don't know why that happened, and two, I don't know how many other things that threw off, or why. I might just have to withhold questions and keep charting for a few months to find a pattern.

   Of course, maybe I'm pregnant-- we did have sex on ovulation day, before I had charted further temps and the program labeled it as that. That might explain the crazy moodiness-- although I didn't think that could kick in so quickly. (That'd be 18 days ago now.) And I took a test this morning because that was the day the program said was a test day, but it was negative. BUT (I have a million questions, I'm sorry)-- my EPTs say they can detect pregnancy as early as six days before a period-- according to my general length and the program's prediction, my next period isn't until the 18th, which is 10 days off, so I don't know if I can depend on that to be a real answer.

   Okay, so sorry for so many questions-- still trying to get all the little kinks of this worked out! And what exactly is ferning saliva, anyway?

   http://www.fertilityflower.com/user_chart?username=Kjirstyn&type=normal&token=92c3r0h-&date=2011-05-15

   Posted 11 months ago #

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