Okay, so here is a picture of my new fertility monitor that I have lovingly deemed The Space Ship. This thing is beyond me on the most basic level. There are two buttons, a power button on the side by my hand, and the m button which is that tiny little white button on the right side in the purple next to the "m" on the screen, and two slots, one for a data card and the one on the front for the test sticks.
When I got the monitor yesterday I was bummed because I couldn't actually set it until this morning. You have to set it basically when you normally wake up. You set it by pressing the m button within the first 5 days of your cycle. Today is day 4 for me so hence, the screen reads 4. The bar on the left tells me that I'm in low fertility right now. On day six, the moitor will prompt me to take my first test so that it can determine where I am.
Now, on a deep down level, I really do understand at least the concept of how this piece of modern technology works. However, like I mentioned before, on the basic level, it blows my mind that this simple little thing can take a stick that I've peed on, turn it into data and then interpret that data to tell me when to have sex (or in my case when to be the Thanksgiving turkey) in order to have the best chances at becoming pregnant. I mean, this complex process is carried out by a two button machine that weighs only slightly more than my iPhone...shouldn't there be an app for that?
Anyway, all I had to do this morning was hold the m button for about 8 seconds until the screen read 4 and then let go. Then my low fertility bar appeared as in the picture and that was it. I'll turn it on tomorrow for it to go to day 5 but won't have anything else to do. Day 6 is when it gets fun because I'll actually get to "play" with it and see how it works when it's testing a stick. From then on I'll test daily until day 10. If at that point the monitor still needs more information from me, I'll test for another 10 days.
On another note, I have to say that I was never the girl who tracked her period. Well, maybe when I first started getting my periods back in middle school. But once I got going, I didn't bother. I have always had regular periods that came like clockwork so unless it DIDN'T come, I had nothing to worry about. In the last five to eight years, I've been on extended birth control like Yazmin, Seasonale, and after the birth of my son, Mirena, so I either didn't get periods at all, or they were only every three months or so. Even the few times that I was on a regular 28 day cycle birth control pill, well, you don't need to track it because you know that it's going to come when you take your sugar pills.
The point is, all of this tracking is strange and kind of embarrassing to myself! Just in the last four days since I started, I already have multiple mentions of gas, bloating, and mild cramps. The thing is, I've always said that I don't really ever have PMS or menstrual symptoms but really it's that they are just mild and I was never paying attention! I'm really a walking bag crampy gas.
Oh well, c'est le vie. I suppose it's better than being moody and irritable like some women.