Who understands OPKS? What's your opinion?

I am think of doing 0+12 in 8 weeks and am trying to pin point OV I have a hunch when it should be but with time being of the essence with 0+12 then I would like to have a better idea when it happens (of course). So here is when I think it happened... on day 4.30-5pm on CD11 I had really bad cramps in my right hand side above my hip bone from 4.30-9pm and I did a saliva test and I had heaps of ferns (really ferny ones) and my temp spiked 5pm the day before (CD10) but my CM was not overly stretchy or EWish I thought it must have been in the starting to produce stage, my cervix's was hard at 7am (CD11) but soft at 9am onwards. I had my OPK positive CD10 @ 5.54pm and continued until CD11 @ 7.10pm it started to decline and continued to decline until CD12 there was barely 2 lines (T line fading). On the morning of CD12 there was no ferns on the saliva OPK tester and my cervix had harden and no CM also body temp was back down. When do you think it happened?
Please ask questions if I have missed anything

Number 5 and 6 are + the way I see it!

You have a typical fade-in/fade-out OPK pattern. Nothing unusual about that. The key to understanding OPK's is that the only one that counts is the FIRST positive. It's positive when the test line is 'as dark as' the control line (or darker). Don't even compare the darkness between positives. It's not MORE positive if it's darker on a later test. You must only look at the control line on the same test because slight variations in dye on the stick, and variations in dilution in your pee, can affect the color of the test line.

Ovulation should happen anywhere from 12-36 hours from your FIRST +OPK. If you have 6 +OPK's in a row over three days, it doesn't matter. Only #1 counts. The remainder just show you how long the surge lasts and how long the LH hormone was present in your body before being excreted. So for you, Day 10 at 11:15am was your first +OPK, putting your actual O anywhere from later on day 10 through early on CD12.

You are testing an awful lot, you really only need to test twice a day - once late morning and once in the evening. The window for the best times for OPK is 10am-8pm.

Finally, O+12 is ridiculously difficult, if not impossible, to conceive with. Timing also doesn't sway anyways. O+12 just plain doesn't work because there is NO way of pinpointing O at home any closer than a range of 36-48 hours. Not unless you have an ultrasound machine in your bedroom! You will invariably end up too early, and thus really bd'ing the day before O, or too late, and not conceiving at all as the egg simply doesn't live that long and sperm needs to be present and ready when egg shows up to fertilize. It's really rare and difficult to successfully conceive by bd'ing after the egg pops, as the egg lives at best 24 hours (and much less if you're older), and the sperm need a minimum of 4-5 hours to swim up and go through the chemical process they do to be ready to go.

I do realize the first positive is the one that matters and until this month I only took 2 a day and didn't bother testing once I got a positive but now I am getting closer to TTC I still only have a ball park figure on when OV actually happens and with 0+12 that leaves me open to an opposite. This month I charted everything and continued with the OPK's after the positive so I knew WHEN it faded out. I took up to 4 a day but I don't see the harm they are cheap enough and I am sure I am not the first women TTC who took an OPK more than once a day and continued through after a positive and I am sure I won't be the last. With all things considered my question still stands with all the information above does anyone have any idea when (accurately) I ovulated?

I'd say anywhere on CD10 or CD11 or CD12.

But not doing O+12 does *not* 'leave you open to an opposite' is my point. Timing doesn't sway. Frequency barely sways. These are IG concepts that the isn't part of the GD sway.

For more scientifically backed information on timing and frequency, please read these links:

http://genderdreaming.com/forum/gend...le-timing.html

frequency of BD for pink and blue

And particularly regarding O+12:

http://genderdreaming.com/forum/show...ntages-of-O-12



There is no way of knowing when exactly you O'ed. It's impossible to tell and anyone that says they can tell from your OPK's is just guessing. You'd have to have an ultrasound recording you at the exact moment the follicle burst to release the egg to know for sure. Short of that, you cannot get anymore precise than a 36-48 hour window. And, I didn't mean to say that there's anything wrong with testing 4 times a day if you wish, just that two is more than adequate to find your LH surge. Certainly you can POAS as many times as you like if you want to :) but no one should panic if they haven't been doing that many.

I'm sorry we weren't able to give you a more precise answer, but there's no way of pinpointing your exact time of Ov. If you had mittelschmerz (ovulation pains) it's possible you'd know, but even then there's no guarantee that the pains correlated exactly with when the egg was released.

So I thought the point of O+12 was to be able to control your PH for a more realistic time frame rather than 3-4 day cut off where you can have PH spikes while your sleeping.

You'll find that many of the IG sway concepts are disputed/debunked here on GD. PH isn't even believed to sway, at all! I know it's a huge part of the IG sway but here we don't believe it's even a factor.

http://genderdreaming.com/forum/gend...ph-pickle.html

Most of us would have like zero chance of pregnancy with a 3-4 day cutoff anyways, lol. I know I can't fall preggo with even a 2 day cutoff, I'm just not that fertile.

The easiest and least stressful way to do O+12 is forget about obsessing over all the various signs and symptoms, just DTD 48 hours after your first positive OPK. Easy peasy. The worst that can happen is that you miss O and have to TTC again next month.

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Originally Posted by 3blue?pink

So I thought the point of O+12 was to be able to control your PH for a more realistic time frame rather than 3-4 day cut off where you can have PH spikes while your sleeping.

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I really really hope you read the pH pickle essay that Lace posted - it explains in great detail why you don't need to do that. :)