Tuesday 14 August 2012

How good are Ovulation Predictor Kits (OPK)

Since the time we decided to give ourselves a break from going to doctors; I thought I just cannot give up on my natural cycle. So we decided to go the old fashioned way without thinking of what doctors have said about our slimmest chances of conceiving naturally and keep the thought that we did get lucky once with spontaneous conception so maybe we can get lucky again.

Now as I have mentioned I have been trying to conceive since past many months, so I thought this time let me try to time it with the help of Ovulation predictor kits. Until now I was using the broad range of days most of the websites help you determine. But the range is so big that there comes a time in between those days that even though you know you have to do it but you are just not in the mood of it or have had a bad day at office and are just not upto it. So many time I might end up missing on that critical 24hrs when my eggs are live and kicking.

So this time I thought of using the ovulation predictor kits. In western countries these are used very frequently however in India I had not heard of them as such even from the doctors. I asked one of the gynecologist about the OPKs and she said the results are not very assured (meaning you could be ovulating but the kit might give you a negative result). And I thought to myself that something is better than nothing. If the pharmaceutical companies making these kits advertise almost 90% accuracy, there is a likelihood that the kit can help me know when my eggs are ready to mingle ;-)

I got 2 brands of kits to test myself with. Unlike the pregnancy test kits where you need to use you morning urine sample; here it has to be sometime during the day. And I literally put a reminder on my phone to sneak away from my desk to go to the restroom for peeing on that stick and test my hormone levels. (I am sure the colleagues sitting next to me must be thinking weird about me, that this female uses a phone reminder to go to the loo :-D)
I started to test from day 13 and continued to test myself for next 6 days But on non of the days did the stick show a positive result. Possibility could be that I started late (the kit said to start from day 11 as per length of my cycles) OR I did not ovulate this time OR the hormone level was so low that it could not be detected by the kit OR the kit is not as good as the manufacturer claimed it to be.

All in all, we did what we have mostly been doing without quite knowing whether today gives me the best possible chance in getting pregnant.

Am also trying to search on what means a "healthy diet" which will enhance my chances of getting pregnant. During all these past weeks / months, I became so aware of the fact that no matter what you do, there are certain things which cannot be governed by your wishes. No matter how hard you wish for it, no matter how hard you pray; it will happen only when God thinks you are ready for it (and there is a possibility that God thinks you are not even meant for it, though this possibility breaks my heart and I don't even know if I will be able to deal with such a possibility)

I guess my best bet is to go IVF way, the natural conception that I had was probably God's way of telling me not to loose hope and just keep trying !

1 comment:

  1. An easy and quick way is using an ovulation predictor kit (OPK), which you can choose from two kinds, the urine-based OPK and saliva-based OPK.
    Ovulation Predictor

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