What can charting my cycles tell me?

When I first started charting my cycles, the goal was to postpone pregnancy. (Yes you can actually quite accurately predict ovulation so as to postpone pregnancy.) The only problem was that as I charted my cycles, I began to see that they were long and there were patches of subfertile cervical fluid throughout these long cycles. Since we were only charting cervical fluid in the beginning, this made it very difficult to identify ovulation so as to prevent pregnancy at that time. I began seeing my doctor to find out what the issue was. We suspected PCOS, but I ended up pregnant-after I threw my chart in frustration and decided to do the deed anyway-so we could not complete testing. After our miscarriage, my doctor recommended adding basal body temp and even cervical position to my charts. After reading a few books and talking to my doctor I also added more subtle signs to my charts. Over the past month, I have become more and more serious about charting my cycles. Today this is the list of symptoms I watch and what a sample chart looks like for me (I use the Kindara app on my iPhone):

So what does all of this mean? Well, lets start with cervical fluid. There are different types of cervical fluid throughout your cycle. Your cycle always begins with your period or a withdrawal bleed. So the first week or so of your cycle, you will mark down how heavy your period is. A long heavy period can indicate low progesterone. Oftentimes your period is followed by a few dry days where there is no cervical fluid. If you are ovulating, your body then begins to produce increasingly wet cervical fluid until it reaches slippery egg-white fluid. This indicates ovulation and if you want to get pregnant you better take advantage of that good stuff. My first charted cycles had patches of wet, but not slippery fluid. This indicated that I was trying to ovulate, but it wasn't working. This is quite typical of PCOS. Finally after ovulation your body should go back to having dry days.

Basal body temperature cannot help us predict ovulation like cervical fluid can, but it can help us confirm that ovulation occurred. During the first part of your cycle, your temperature is relatively low. Somewhere in the 97* range is normal. After ovulation you see a rise in temperature and the temperature remains high until your period comes back around. If your temperature remains high for 18 or more days, it is highly likely that you are pregnant! If you do not see this temperature rise, it is likely you have had an anovulatory cycle. Finally, if you have a temperature that widely ranges throughout your cycle or a very low temperature, you may be looking at thyroid issues. My constant low body temperature made me quite suspicious that there was a problem with my thyroid. My doctor ran thyroid tests, and we found that I did indeed have a slightly low thyroid function.

Cervical position and the other symptoms listed help to identify/confirm ovulation as well, and when charted over many cycles might show a pattern that helps to identify other issues along the way. Isn't it amazing how knowing and watching your body can help you to identify potential problems or when to have sex to avoid or achieve pregnancy?