Monday, April 25, 2016

Charting

I officially stopped by birth control last week.  With an upcoming girls weekend and a bachelorette weekend, we do not plan on trying to get pregnant this cycle and will be using protection when necessary.  I had decided that I wanted to come off the pill a month before trying in order to let everything regulate, so that I would be able to chart my cycles.

If you're not familiar with the term charting (which I wasn't until only a few months ago), it is a method used by women to track when they are ovulating.  Some actually use this as a natural method of birth control and many use it to help them become pregnant.

After researching various apps, I decided to use Kindara.  This completely FREE app allows you to track you BBT (basal body temperature), your cervical fluid (because who doesn't check that on a daily basis?), your sexual intercourse, menstruation, and results of any OPKs (ovulation tests) and pregnancy tests.  I know that it seems extremely overwhelming, but you can opt to track as little or as much of this information as you'd like.  Obviously, the more information you include, the easier it is to track when you're ovulating. If you decide to use this app, I'd recommend checking out "How to Read a Kindara Chart" here.

Just another couple of weeks until I go off the pill, so I'm making sure I'm ready to chart.  If you plan to track your BBT (basal body temperature) you'll want a thermometer that is accurate to the nearest hundredth of a degree.  I've purchased the MABIS Basal Thermometer.  It was reasonably priced and had decent reviews.