Charting your Basal Body Temperature or BBT is an excellent way to help you to learn about your cycle and which days of the month are your most fertile.  It is also a valuable tool to help determine if you are not ovulating or ovulating later or earlier in your cycle than is normally expected.  In the world of fertility treatments and testing, charting your BBT is one thing that you can control and do not have to rely on anyone else to do for you.

To chart your BBT you must first purchase a BBT thermometer and either download a BBT chart or make your own.  There are plenty of BBT charts that you can download for free.  I chose to make may own chart because it was something I could have control over and I could personalize it however I wanted to.

The best time to start charting is on the first day of your next menstrual cycle.  Place the thermometer next to your bed and as soon as you wake in the morning reach over and put it in your mouth.  Do not get out of bed, sit up, talk, drink a glass of water or do anything else. The first thing you need to do every morning is to take your temperature or you will not get an accurate reading.  You should take your temperature at the same time every morning.  This means setting the alarm on the weekends so that you take your temperature at the same time that you do during the week.

As soon as you take your temperature mark it on your chart.  If you don’t do it right away and the reading is lost on the thermometer it is easy to forget if it read 97.2 or 97.4.  Each day, connect the dot from the day before.

Right before you ovulate you might see a slight drop in temperature, but not all women experience this.  When your temperature is elevated for at least 3 days, you know that ovulation has occurred.  When you are about to start your menstrual cycle, your temperature will drop again.  For me, when my temperature dropped was a hard day because I knew I wasn’t pregnant again.  However, sometimes my temperature would drop and it would be over 24 hours before I started my cycle. Since I knew my temperature had dropped, I didn’t have to play the all too familiar “am I pregnant or not” game that so many of us experience when going trough fertility problems.

After you have charted for at least three months you can begin to notice patterns.  You will be able to tell around which days you ovulate and exactly how long your cycle lasts.  It is a good idea to wait until your temperature has been elevated for about 20 days before you take a pregnancy test.

There are a number of factors that can affect your BBT and give you an inaccurate reading on a particular day.  Whether you are on vacation, have experienced a significant event in your life, the room is a lot colder or hotter than normal or you have taken your temperature over an hour before or after you normally do can all affect the accuracy of the reading.

In addition to charting your BBT, you should also chart your cervical mucus.  Cervical mucus changes during your most fertile days and becomes similar to the consistency of egg whites when you are at your most fertile days.  This information is important to note when you are charting your cycle.

Charting your Basal Body Temperature is an easy process that can help give you or your doctor answers about what is happening to cause your fertility problems.  It might indicate that you are not ovulating or that you are ovulating early or later in your cycle than expected.  Since most clinics require you to do charting when you start working with them, it is an important step that you can take now so that you will a step ahead when you go to your fertility clinic for the first time.

For those of you who are just beginning your fertility journey, one of the first places you may start before even going to a doctor is to chart your Basal Body Temperature (BBT).  Women chart their BBTs for many reasons.  Some chart it to do natural family planning so that they know when they have ovulated and when it is safe to have intercourse.  Others chart it to get to know their cycle so they know when is the best time to try to get pregnant.  If you are having problems getting pregnant, charting your BBT can sometimes be helpful in determining what the problem is.

Basal Body Temperature essentially means your body’s core temperature.  In order to get the most accurate reading, it should be measured first thing in the morning as soon as you wake up.  A woman’s BBT is usually right around 97ºF during the first half of your cycle.  When a woman ovulates, their BBT typically rises one degree or more, indicating that ovulation has occurred.  This elevation in the BBT lasts until right around the time menstruation begins.

When charting your BBT as part of the fertility process, your BBT can sometimes key you in on reasons that you might not have gotten pregnant up to this point.  Charting your BBT can help those of you who have unusually long cycles or shorter cycles to determine the best time of the cycle to try to get pregnant.  For instance, if you have a long cycle, your fertile days might not be until later in your cycle, so you would need to try at different times than someone who has a “normal” 28 day cycle.  BBT can also indicate if you are not ovulating or ovulating very early or very late in your cycle which can indicate problems.

In order to get the most accurate temperature, it is best to use a BBT thermometer that is specifically designed to show even the slightest change in your temperature.  They can be found in drug stores or pharmacies in grocery stores and discount department stores such as Wal-Mart.  They will specifically state that they are basal body temperature thermometers.  They used to be available in both mercury and digital thermometers, but the mercury thermometers are harder to find.  The digital thermometers are easier to read and give a much faster reading.

When charting your BBT, it is also helpful to chart your cervical mucus and cervical position to better understand your cycle and predict your most fertile days.  Since your BBT indicates when ovulation has already occurred, it is best to chart these other things so that you can begin to know how your body changes right before ovulation or during your most fertile times.

Charting your BBT is an excellent place to start if you are having fertility problems.  Many clinics or doctors will actually require that you chart your BBT for 3-5 months before they start treatments so that they can identify anything that is out of the ordinary in your ovulation cycle.  Therefore, if you can begin charting early on in the process, you can bring your BBT charts with you on your first visit to the fertility clinic.  By looking at your charts, your doctor may be able to determine the next course of action in your fertility process such as clomid to help induce ovulation.

Endometriosis has long been associated with fertility problems.  In my fertility support group alone 7 out of 25-30 women were diagnosed with fertility problems due to endometriosis.  What is hard to believe is that, although the link between fertility problems and Endometriosis is recognized, the exact cause or reason for this link is still unknown.

Endometriosis occurs when the endometrium lining or tissue lining of the uterus spreads outside the uterus to various places including the fallopian tubes, ovaries and abdominal cavity.  Although many women exhibit symptoms of endometriosis, it is only diagnosed through laparoscopic surgery so that the doctor can visibly see the spreading of the tissue.

Some women have endometriosis without knowing it and never have fertility problems.  About 40% of women who have fertility problems are found to have endometriosis.  It can cause the tubes to be blocked and can impede in ovulation.

While many women complain of having such things as a painful menstrual cycle or painful intercourse, some women do not know that they even have endometriosis until laparoscopic surgery is performed to look for the cause of fertility problems.  It is highly unusual for a woman with severe scarring to not have at least a few symptoms of endometriosis.

The main theory regarding the cause of endometriosis is that it is caused when menstrual blood back flows into the pelvic cavity during menstruation.  This back flow eats away at the endometrium and causes scarring.  There also appears to be a genetic predisposition for endometriosis as it is not uncommon for sisters, mothers, grandmothers and aunts to all have the disease.

Treatment for endometriosis includes surgery to remove the scar tissue, although it typically will eventually return, and hormone therapy using such medications as lupron.  Unfortunately, the use of lupron lowers your estrogen levels and impedes the production of FSH and LH which will keep you from getting pregnant.  Because endometriosis can be so painful, this is an option that many women are willing to choose to avoid the pain.

You should discuss your severity of endometriosis with your doctor before beginning any fertility treatments.  Depending on how severe it is and where it is found in your reproductive tract will greatly affect your options as far as IVF and IUI.  Blocked fallopian tubes or scarring on your ovaries require further testing and possible surgeries.

Although the exact cause of endometriosis is unknown and the reason it causes fertility problems is unclear, it is obvious that there is a link between endometriosis and fertility problems.  Going through fertility problems and discovering you have endometriosis seems to be a catch 22.  Now you know what is causing the problems, but how and why is it happening?  I encourage you to contact the Endometriosis Association for further information, suggestions and support.  One of the best ways to deal with a disease like endometriosis is to become an expert on the subject.  Through this knowledge you will better be able to decide what your next step is going to be in your fertility journey.