Let's Talk about BBT

If the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, then BBT is the very act of insanity. I suppose for women with normal cycles it might offer some interesting insight or information. For the rest of us, BBT is mostly an exercise in frustration management.

For those who aren't "in the know," BBT stands for basal body temperature. It's your body temperature at rest first thing in the morning. BBT (theoretically) should tell you if you ovulate or not.

It order to keep the act of BBT from driving me stark raving mad, I had to reframe it in such a way that it spoke to my researcher soul. I looked at BBT as one big longitudinal study rather than an act of insanity. As soon as I wrapped my brain around my new way of thinking, I was overjoyed!

Longitudinal studies are relatively difficult to carry out because they take so much time and attrition can be high. (I know this because I currently work on a longitudinal study.) While longitudinal studies can be very informative, much more so than a cross-sectional one, it takes forever to get enough data to see what's going on. When a coupe is struggling with fertility they don't want it to take forever. They wanted a baby like, last year. Lucky for me I am a n of 1, and I can make myself stay in my own personal study.  I refuse to let myself drop out......ever.

At first I found BBT to be a big pain in my butt because it was only one lousy data point every day. I had to wait a full 24 hours to get another data point. I decided my own personal longitudinal study was lame-o. Basically I had to wait an entire month for any of it to make sense. Even then, it didn't always make much sense.

Then.....I discovered.......VIP mode.

I use a program called Fertility Friend and while you can use the free mode, you can pay, and then obsess and add more data! It's a research girl's dream!!

The scientist in mean couldn't be contained. I had to purchase the year long subscription. (I mean, why not? I'm infertile and this is going to take a while.) Once I had  resigned myself to my incredibly long TTC journey and I had access to everything, I could put in lots of data. It made me feel so much better. If I spread out my data entry throughout the day, I didn't have to wait so long to fill in another square. Granted it still takes a month to get any real data, but at least I have some way to quell my OCD data collection tendencies.

Long live BBT!