Let's talk NFP

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agapewolf said:
In all methods, mucous is the main indicator of fertility. Temps are only a secondary confirmation and should not be relied on as the main one
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I do follow the rules with respect to the mucus observations, but without the temperature, I would have a lot harder time trusting them. It’s a lot easier for me to know that my temp peaked, so I should expect mucus dry-up in a day or two, than it would be for me to use a mucus-only method. Plus temp (accompanying a dry-up) is the only way to know for sure you’ve ovulated (unless of course you’re doing hormone testing). Multiple mucus patches can happen in a month before ovulation, but the “fake” ones don’t have a temperature shift.

For situations when mucus may be unreliable (infection, taking certain drugs, etc) CCL does have temperature-only rules, though yes they should not generally be used if reliable mucus data is available (if for nothing else because they require an extra day or two of abstinence 😊).
 
Ok please tell me about this ladycomp. I am currently pregnant and have not had much luck with other nfp methods to avoid, including Marquette. I need something super user friendly with a minimal learner curve. Can this be used postpartum? I usually breastfeed for a year, and my cycle then returns toward the end of that year. Then I get pregnant:shrug:- but I need to get more serious now! I briefly checked out the link and it seemed to be relying on bbt. What is different then temps with a regular thermometer? Do you use cm at all?
 
We’ve been using Lady Comp for a few years. We are really happy with it. Prior to that, my wife charted temps. Lady Comp is high-tech charting, so to speak. But it is no glorified spreadsheet - it tracks temps, predicts red light and green light days based on menstruation history and temp history over many months. Each morning, it beeps and my wife takes her temperature. That’s it. From there, the machine gives a red/yellow/green light for the day. It can also predict the next few days.

Bottom line, we’ve had no surprises. It’s expensive - I think we paid around $500.00. Two thumbs up in this house.
 
So if you have no history to go by ladycomp won’t work postpartum to help determine return of fertility? And what about night wakings? Will usual newborn wakings mess it up?
 
Sorry - I neglected to address a question about cm, which I assume is mucus. No, the Lady Comp tracks temp only. I saw the earlier post dismissing temp tracking as insufficient, but we have had no surprises. It can be used after pregnancy as well; the manual recommends resumption of temp tracking no later than six weeks after the birth.
 
It works out of the box. For the first couple of months we did not get very many green lights. After it had additional data, it increased the green light days, as its confidence in the cycle prediction increased. It’s really pretty mindless, at least on my end. If it’s green, we’re good to go. If not, we’re assuming the risk.

As to night wakings, it favors consistency. So if there is a feeding time, and it is possible to keep that consistent, all the better. That way, each morning reading would be taken under conditions as equivalent as possible.
 
Thank you!! We may need to make the investment! It sounds simple enough - even someone like me could figure it out:)
 
My only concern would be that the whole first year postpartum would be red days! I don’t see how it could tell you either way if there were no previous cycles to go by.
 
Cathmomof6 said:
Ok please tell me about this ladycomp. I am currently pregnant and have not had much luck with other nfp methods to avoid, including Marquette. I need something super user friendly with a minimal learner curve. Can this be used postpartum? I usually breastfeed for a year, and my cycle then returns toward the end of that year. Then I get pregnant:shrug:- but I need to get more serious now! I briefly checked out the link and it seemed to be relying on bbt. What is different then temps with a regular thermometer? Do you use cm at all?
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I’ve been married for 3 years and have used the LC for that whole time to avoid. It has been successful so far.

I don’t use cm, though I guess it may be a good idea to incorporate that in to make it more accurate. I think bbt just means your temperature is taken first thing in the morning before you move around… right? The thermometer itself is the same as any thermometer.

The LC uses a standard sympto thermal method, but the cool thing about it is that it does the work for you. You don’t have to chart. You just have to take your temperature with it and tell it when you are on your period. It uses that information to determine whether or not you are fertile.

I don’t know anything about your postpartum question since I’ve never been prego, but the site should have a pretty extensive Q&A section which probably covers that.

It does cost $500 though…
 
Cathmomof6 said:
So if you have no history to go by ladycomp won’t work postpartum to help determine return of fertility? And what about night wakings? Will usual newborn wakings mess it up?
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The more you use it the more accurate it is because it gets to know you and your cycle. It turned out being very accurate for me because…
  1. I bought it 6 months before I was married and so it got to know me for 6 months before I actually started having sex
  2. For almost a whole year prior to buying it, I did keep track of my menstrual cycle. And when I first bought the machine it let me put information into it for up to a year prior. So it had a whole year’s worth of my menstrual information on it before I even started using it for 6 months before the wedding night. So it knew me really well by the time I actually started having sex.
As for the night wakings, I’d suggest you check the site for that. They explain it really well and do actually address night wakings specifically. They explain it a lot better than I ever could.

ladycomputer.com/faq_babycomp.htm

I don’t know if you’ve been keeping track of your menstrual cycle or not, but it’s really good if you have, because then you can put all that information into the LC promptly after buying it.
 
This Lady Comp sounds interesting. Especially as I am getting “older” and my cycles are likely to start getting more unpredictable. Man, it is expensive though! I hope more people chime in on this topic. I certainly appreciate everyone’s candor!
 
I work 3rd shift, so my sleep schedule is all over the place… any advice on what method would be most reliable?
 
My wife also used the LadyComp and as Debora said, they’re not cheap but they’re well worth it. Ours was originally $500 but when the first one had a glitch in it, we mailed it back and got a new one at a discount. My wife really wanted this to track her fertility and her selling point was, “It’ll track my fertility more accurately and…we can have more sex!” :extrahappy:
 
Cathmomof6 said:
We have used STM, Creighton, and Marquette. We have been married 15 years and have 6 kids with one on the way so we really haven’t “used” them a whole lot to avoid, but we have received the training. First baby was planned, next 5 were “what the heck” babies, and this current pregnancy was actually our first “unplanned”. We were using Marquette to avoid and thought we were following the rules to avoid but ended up pregnant anyways. Since we will likely need to be more serious about avoiding after this baby is born, we might try a combo of the three. Creighton during phase 1 and 2 (no relations with any cm observed) and temps until I observe temp rise to determine start of phase 3. Then my husband is a happy man until my period starts:D Marquette to cross check. I have issues with all of them. Marquette seems to be the most user friendly but like I said, not the most effective for us. For one reason or another, I cannot check cm 100% of the time before and after I go to the bathroom so Creighton is challenging. I either wait to go to long and can’t check before or I have a group of children in the bathroom with me and don’t want to explain to them why I am so interested in the toilet paper:eek: Temps worked ok in the beginning of our marriage but now with 6 little ones(and 1 in particular who likes to torment me at night), my wake up time is usually based on how long I actually get to sleep during the night. I am trying to work with someone from marquette’s website to figure out why that didn’t work for us so we can feel more confident with it postpartum. It did work well during the postpartum year, and I was able to determine when I ovulated. We waited until we got our last peak day, counted 3 full days, and used the evening of the fourth day. Not quite long enough I guess:shrug:
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I Think you must be one heck of a great mother... or Mom as you say over the Pond !
 
I was doing sympto thermal, but my temps went wild and hard to interpret after my Dad died and I stopped temping and never started again. I track cervical fluid. I use tcoyf.com website to keep track of everything.
 
I use STM. It was the only one I knew of for a while, and now that I know more about the other methods, I think I’ll stick with it. I like having the cross-checks (though I’ve never really done the cervix check) to back up what I see. Everything’s wacky with post-partum, though, so I’d be interested in knowing what the other methods teach for that time period.
 
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