Opk question..

So I got some cheap OPKs online and it's my first time using them. I haven't been doing them that regularly. So AF was 23/12 til 30/12. I did one maybe 1/1 and there was a faint line. There was a few super faint lines and the darkest was 5/1 morning but still not super dark. I just took another now and there's almost no line at all. Heaps of cramps etc last night and ewcm yest. We dtd almost everyday up until 4/1 using pull out. Do you think O was actually abit earlier? I'm confuse because I haven't used them before. Yikes were we in the fertile window??

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So it dried like this. Is that a positive or?

No that is not positive. You can gear up to O but not actually O. I would keep testing.

No not positive yet. You can have multiple LH surge attempts in one cycle too so it's not unusual to have the lines get darker, back off, and darken again later.

You should test at least 2 if not more times a day when it starts looking like it's getting darker though, so you don't miss the surge, and also afternoon pee can be better for picking up the LH surge.

They can get light and dark and light and dark without ovulating. Your body uses that hormone for lots of things (and even if your husband peed on it, he would also get lighter and darker lines sometimes depending on how much his body is making.

It's only when it gets as dark or darker than the control line that your body "hears" the signal and ovulates. :)

What atomic said. Also, you can have both EWCM and O pain several days (or longer, even weeks) in advance of O, so neither are particularly useful for predicting O (unless maybe you've been charting/temping for years and even then you can only guess).

Those look exactly like one of the OPKs I use (David brand? ) - the most sensitive ones that go positive first relative to my others - and I can get second lines of similar darkness many days a month, both before and after O.

How long are your cycles usually? What times of day have you been testing with OPKs? Have you only been comparing OPKs taken around the same time of day? Bc LH levels fluctuate throughout the day; for most women they are highest between 11am-4pm, though for some they are highest first thing in the morning, and rarely are they highest during the evening to night. If, for example, your levels typically peak around 2pm, you will get your darkest lines then, and they will get lighter and lighter the further before or after that you test. And it would be completely normal to get a line like you posted around your peak time, but get no second line at all if you tested 12 hours later.

Without OPKing daily from when AF ends - and every single day, not skipping days - you can't really know if you've surged, let alone whether you've Oed and when, if you did. But I'd figure out when you get the darkest lines and test daily from now on at that time, in case you haven't Oed yet. What has your CM been like yesterday and today?

Today I had some bright red spotting mixed with ewcm and it's pretty much been ewcm all week? Maybe like 5 days worth. I'll do an opk now and see! Thanks for all the info! Super helpful ����