To Try Or Not To Try?

My hubby hasn't even officially been gone a week yet and I am already struggling. It seems like it gets harder to deal with every time he leaves for his hitch. I try to keep myself busy by doing research for the page and that has helped a lot the last couple of days. Most of you already know that I have the Clearblue Fertility Monitor. It has been extremely useful and I absolutely love it. My cycles can be so irregular and I rarely ovulate. There have been several times that I had what appeared to be a normal cycle, but I never ovulated. I saved myself a lot of time, effort and disappointment by using this monitor. For those of you that may not have heard of it before, I will give a brief overview on how it works. The Clearblue Fertility Monitor detects your LH surge, which gives your two peak fertile days. It also detects the rise in estrogen that happens before your LH surge. It usually gives you about six fertile days and tells you when you should be ovulating. They say that it is best used for women with cycles of 21-42 days, but my cycles sometimes went longer than that and it still did fine. I typically get really bad ovulation pain when I ovulate and my pain always coincided with when the monitor said I was ovulating. I also used the monitor to determine if I was ovulating when I did both of my IUI's. The monitor was spot on with when the ultrasound said I ovulated each time. The only downside is that I live an hour away from anywhere that sells the test sticks, so that tends to be a problem. Also, the test sticks are $40-60 per box and a box lasts anywhere from a month to three months depending on your cycle.

Even though I love the fertility monitor I have, I came across two others that I have been debating on trying. For the most part I just want to see if they are accurate, because they don't require that you buy test sticks every month and there is nothing that you have to pee on. The first monitor I'm looking at trying is the OvaCue Fertility Monitor. This monitor works by detecting electrolytes in your saliva throughout your cycle. It has a sensor that you place on your tongue for three seconds every morning. It's important that you do this before you eat, drink, smoke, etc. There is also a vaginal sensor that you can buy, but it is sold separately. The vaginal sensor detects changes in your cervical mucus and the shift from estrogen dominance to progesterone dominance that happens at the time of ovulation. You have to be up for at least two hours before you use it and it should be used before sex or about eight hours after. It is supposed to be able to recognize your fertile period five to seven days before ovulation. If you have the vaginal sensor, it will be able to confirm your ovulation day. It also has a free online charting website to go with it. The major downside to this monitor is definitely the price at $329 for the monitor and vaginal sensor bundle or $249 for just the monitor with the tongue sensor. If you buy the vaginal sensor separately it is $100. There are places online that you can buy it for less, but it is still pretty high. 

The last monitor I am thinking about trying is the Fertile-Focus Ovulation Microscope. It is a small microscope with a 50X magnification. You can test anywhere, anytime due to its discreet look. All you do is add a drop of saliva to the lens and let it completely dry. Turn the light on and look at the sample through the microscope. As your cycle goes on and the estrogen rises, you will begin to see a fern pattern. Once you have your estrogen surge, you will see strong fern patterns and this is peak fertility. As with the previous monitor, you should test before you eat, drink or have anything in your mouth. I have read mixed reviews and it seems that it takes some practice in learning to interpret the results, but it only costs $27.95. I don't think it would hurt anything to give it a shot at that price. 

Since I already know that my Clearblue Fertility Monitor is accurate, I will use it along with these two monitors if I decide for sure to try them out. That way I can make sure if they are accurate or not. If I decide to order them, I will let you all now and keep you updated with the results. Baby Dust!!