Charting and FAM question

[bec]

DH and I are TTC child #2! On month two I got an early positive pregnancy test (3 days before I expected my period). I was very excited. Unfortunately, I also miscarried about a week later. I was more frustrated than sad. Anyway, we are carrying on. Another month has passed, and nothing.

So, being impatient, and wanting to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, I went and checked out "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" from the library. I've been absolutely fascinated by it, and can hardly put it down. I'm amazed at how little I knew about how my body works!

Anyway, on to my question. It says not to use an ear thermometer because they aren't as accurate. But I also know that this book is 7 years old, and the technology has gotten better. So, does anyone know if it should be sufficient for my purposes? Or should I use an oral thermometer?

Thanks,

Bec

[Alstrameria]

I have the new edition, revised in 2001, and it says the same thing. She notes that although she was hopeful that ear thermometers would fit the bill, they still don't take an accurate enough temp.

I have a digital thermo, not a BBT one though, and if there's no baby this month I'm going to buy a BBT digital thermometer. I'm a slow riser and it would be nice to have another decimal place to observe!

Dh and I are also ttc #2, 2nd month and I'm 6dpo, so I'll know soon!

Not related, do you find that ttc#2 is different than ttc#1? We kept it a big secret that we were trying, and didn't tell anyone until I was 13 weeks. Now I feel like I want that secret again, but obviously we can and will reproduce! I thing everyone assumes there will be a #2, so it's just when. Anyway, do you find?:

[Elphaba]

ear thermometers can be off as much as 2 degrees.
you really need a digital basal body temperature one.
i got mine at (yikes) walmart for about $9, and it came with a free trial of TCOYF software. at our super-walmart, i found it in the pharmacy section, on the aisle with like, leg braces and stuff. weird, but that's where it was.

[bec]

I have a digital thermometer too, so I guess I'll use that. Now if I could only get 3 hours of consecutive sleep! :

In response to whether this time around is different. It sure is! We've told just about everybody important to us that we're ttc, where it was a big secret for #1.

Now that it is taking a little time, I'm kinda wishing we hadn't said anything. Oh well. Nothing for it now.

[Alstrameria]

Hi bec, we haven't told anyone specifically, but I've alluded to situations where there may be another person involved, but have gotten an almost blase reaction. I'm sure there will still be the surprised excitement if we get to make that announcement, but if I had said the same thing before there were any babies, I'm sure it would have elicited a *gasp* at the very least.

Well, serve them right for not being sufficiently amazed, I'm not going to tell anybody until they notice for themselves. And then I'm going to say "what? oh that, yes that's a baby..." hee hee.

[ma_Donna]

I've been taking my BBT with a regular oral digital thermometer (not a BBT). I like it because it's easy to read the numbers and if I'm too tired, it just stores the # so I can read it when I'm awake

I also don't fuss about how much sleep I've gotten or anything, I don't adjust the temps for differing waking times, so my charts aren't quite as pretty as the ones in TCOYF, but they still work just fine. I know just when I ovulate... which for me is a trick since they're all over the board from cd19 - 36 (hopefully on cd14 this month with Clomid).

When I was back East for Christmas it was hard to keep up with temping, but I'm so familiar with my numbers I know if i have a temp of 97.9 I haven't O'd yet, and if it's 98.4 I probably have. But... those numbers are different for everyone... i just happen to get a pretty big thermal shift from 97.9 to 98.4 so a couple tenths variation is no big deal.

Any more BBT, cm, cp questions, fire away I've learned a lot from TCOYF and making observations about my own body.

Good luck and babydust +~+~+~+~+~+~+