How can you confirm ovulation if you can’t get good temperatures?

While temperatures aren’t the very most important part of the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness, they are very very useful in confirming ovulation did indeed happen.

However, there are times when temperatures aren’t quite as easy to get consistently. The big one that comes to mind for me is during the post-partum time if you have a baby that is a terrible sleeper. Despite the fact that my baby is now more of a toddler, he never left behind the stage of terrible sleep and still likes to wake up before the sun is shining, as well as multiple times a night (side note: I’M SO TIRED).

Other times temperatures may be a little harder to get would be if you have inconsistent wake times, do shift work, sleep restlessly, or travel across time zones frequently. I’m sure there are more situations that I am missing, too.

While there are thermometers now made that try to combat erratic temperature taking, like temp drop* and ava, there is now an interesting way to test your progesterone levels at home the same way you would test if you were pregnant or whether you ovulated with an ovulation predictor.

Enter “Proov” ovulation double check strips. I heard about these a while back when they were running a kickstarter campaign, and I was recently contacted with an offer to try them and write a review (so, full disclosure, I got these free in exchange for reviewing them). I get offered stuff to review on the daily but rarely accept any of it, but these seemed like they could be something you would actually be interested in, so I took them up on the offer.

It was perfect because I was still in “cycle 0” post-partum (aka, I hadn’t ovulated at all yet) and that tends to be a time that a lot of people are not temping well and are very uncertain about whether ovulation has passed when they have a peak day.

I was definitely in the majority that has a hard time temping due to their baby sleeping like crap. Wildly different wake up times, up multiple times at night, etc. There was allllmost no point in me even trying to temp, though I did start temping when I was pretty sure ovulation was about to happen (turned out I was right, too). Since I had (shoddy) temperature data and my cervical fluid/peak day was very obvious and clear, I knew when I ovulated and was able to get good data about how the test strips worked for me within the framework of knowing what my cycle was doing.

I used the test strips both for my first and second post-partum ovulation. For the first PP ovulation, I hadn’t done what I was supposed to do and taken a pre-ovulatory test to get a baseline of what a pre-ovulatory test looks like. DON’T DO THAT. It really helps to know what is going on if you have that baseline test. Here were my first PP ovulation tests. No baseline to compare:

4 days past ovulation. You can see a light second line. Ideally you see no line when the test is positive. You usually see a positive test about 3 days past ovulation, but I’ve heard PP cycles (particularly while still nursing) can keep those light lines at first due to lower progesterone levels.

I took one on 5 days past ovulation figuring I’d for sure see a positive by then, but still I had a light line.

After that I figured I should probably stop wasting the tests and do a pre-ovulatory one my next cycle before I started trying to confirm ovulation again.

Here were my results the second cycle using them and my second ovulation post-partum:

I believe that was when I ran out of tests. I wasn’t quite sure what to think so I went to the ovulation double check facebook group and asked if the tests I had would be sufficient to “prove” ovulation or if I should be seeing a completely blank test. That was when I learned from a lot of the users that it’s really common to keep seeing a super faint line post-partum. I also was able to talk to the creator of the tests and she said, with the information given and looking at these tests 5 and 6 DPO would be considered positive tests.

She told me that progression (like I saw from pre to post ovulation) is important, but ideally you do want to see a completely blank test. However, these tests measure PDG, which is a metabolite of progesterone, not straight progesterone. Because of that, some women will not get completely blank tests because they don’t produce a lot of the metabolite despite having high progesterone levels. And if you have lower progesterone levels you can also have the issue of not having a test go completely blank/positive (though that can be a boon, considering you can get feedback on whether you have high or low progesterone levels).

Saying all that, something I should stress about this company is they are very passionate about helping women understand their tests and don’t just want to leave anyone who purchased their tests confused. It’d be like if you could send pictures of a pregnancy test you took into the company and ask if it was positive or an indent or you are just seeing things. They are very very helpful and have great customer service.

The other neat thing the creator told me about when discussing my tests is that they are coming out with a digital version. This way it measures the percentage increase in PDG for you and gives you a clear-as-day result saying positive or negative.

Overall, I think these test are a great tool for some people to add to their charting toolbox, especially if you consistently find yourself wondering if you ovulated or not.

If you would like to visit the website of MFB fertility and buy test strips to try yourself, you can do so here. You can also purchase on amazon.

*This is an affiliate link AND a discount code for you if you want to purchase