Timing to sway is much harder than you may realize...

I wanted to share my experiences with OPK and charting in hopes that this will help others who are relying on timing...

I'm TTC a girl, but also have some fertility issues so I've been seeing a specialist throughout the past year. On TWO separate occasions I received a +OPK then had an US the next morning and was told I already ovulated. The second time it happened I sat down with the DR and ask him how this could be since you are supposed to get the +OPK 24-48 hours BEFORE you ovulate, not the day off, also all my temp and charting indicated that ovulation was still impending.

He said that those are just guidelines and many women ovulate on the day of a +OPK and charting and CM, etc. is just not reliable bc every women's body ovulates in a different way. Personally I was surprised by this after reading so many books about how you can pinpoint ovulation by looking at temp, CM, cervical changes. Apparently for some women (myself included) many of those indicators don't come till the day of O, not the days leading up.

So for me, this makes me realize that timing is just not a reliable method of swaying!:suprise:

it's the surge in the LH hormone -- that OPKs detect --that triggers the egg to release - that's a FACT. Some women may just be more sensitive to the rise in this hormone so OV sooner once the LH surge starts. Or you might be getting a pos OPK as the surge is falling (rather than rising) if only testing once a day

Thanks for sharing!

OPK are between 8-48 hours before ovulation, the average is 36 but yes, you can absolutely get an OPK and then ovulate that very day. Aside from that, there is also a factor of "user error" (and I'm not saying this is the case for you) but sometimes people test at the wrong time of day, their urine isn't dilute enough, they misinterpret the OPK and so on. So they might mistake a positive for a negative, and then the next day the OPK might get darker and they think "oh there's my positive" when really, the first positive is what counts and not the darkest positive. Thus they may have their surge well before ovulation and not realize it till it's too late.

Temping and charting, and cervical mucus, have been studied and found accurate only 30% of the time. Whereas OPK did predict ovulation up to 100% of the time. OPK are not perfect but they're the best we got.

I agree 110% there is no way that timing can be an accurate method of swaying for this very reason and I have an essay that discusses it here: http://genderdreaming.com/forum/tryi...9-no-12-a.html

The vast majority of the studies that claim to support timing did not use reliable methods to pinpoint ovulation. Some of them just had women DTD on CD 14, which is NOT O day for many people. The studies that use ultrasound to verify ovulation found no correlation between day of intercourse and baby's gender.

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Originally Posted by rainbowflower

it's the surge in the LH hormone -- that OPKs detect --that triggers the egg to release - that's a FACT. Some women may just be more sensitive to the rise in this hormone so OV sooner once the LH surge starts. Or you might be getting a pos OPK as the surge is falling (rather than rising) if only testing once a day

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Yes, I test 2 times per day so I think in my case I just ovulate very soon after the surge.

I think that must be the case. Doesn't give you much time does it?

2 cycles in a row I got a +OPK, went in for u/s next morning and hadn't ovulated yet...and didn't ovulate until the next day. So I guess I'm a +OPK + 48 type ovulator :).

Thanks for the info...

I've had several monitored cycles while using OPKs as well. Pretty reliably, I ovulate one day (24-30 hours) after my first positive. Maybe it's just that the time from first positive to ovulation is different in every woman? I mean, how many of us test often enough (with pee that's consistently concentrated) to really tell how many hours after the test, even *with* u/s monitoring? OPKs are really pretty reliable, but not to the hour.
I've charted for years, and my CM patterns, though somewhat reliable, are nowhere near as clear as OPKs.

Timing is the least important component of swaying anyway!

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Originally Posted by sugarNspice

I've had several monitored cycles while using OPKs as well. Pretty reliably, I ovulate one day (24-30 hours) after my first positive. Maybe it's just that the time from first positive to ovulation is different in every woman? I mean, how many of us test often enough (with pee that's consistently concentrated) to really tell how many hours after the test, even *with* u/s monitoring? OPKs are really pretty reliable, but not to the hour.
I've charted for years, and my CM patterns, though somewhat reliable, are nowhere near as clear as OPKs.

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I believe it can also be different for the same women in different months too. And then when people start swaying, it can affect that, so even if people did have a history of having had ultrasounds that seemed to indicate that they ovulate X number of hours after OPK, that can change, it's not set in stone.

All these things come together and it's why I really don't think timing can possibly sway, even when someone swears they got their boy on O day or whatever, if they didn't have an ultrasound, they really don't know that for sure.