Today on the Podcast, I'm reviewing the Mira Fertility Tracker. I've been DESPERATE to know and understand when I'm ovulating, but I've been really picky about who I've partnered with.

One of the questions I had on Instagram was "Whaaa? You're ovulating even though you have had a hysterectomy?" and the answer is Yup! I do.

If you head to my resource library, I've put together a great eBook that talks about what happens during our cycles - it's SO important for us to understand this and I still can't believe that we aren't taught more of this in school. But essentially there are four hormones - LH and FSH - which come from our brain, and Estrogen and Progesterone which primarily come from our ovaries. I still have my ovaries and fallopian tubes, although I don't have a uterus anymore nor most of my cervix.... And I still have a brain (ha!). So I still have my monthly cycle, even though there is no lining to shed at the end of each cycle.

When I was trying to conceive, I used two methods to track my ovulation:

Tracking my Basal Body Temperature

I tracked my BBT for about 7 months, and it was really time consuming. In order to do it properly, you're supposed to do it while you're lying in bed, as still as you can be, for about 10 minutes when you first wake up (without getting up), and even though I did that, I still never got the temperature spike that showed I was ovulating.

If you're trying to conceive, it's also important to note that your basal body temperature spike is only telling you AFTER you've ovulated, so you can't use this as the signal to do the deed, you can only use it as confirmation that ovulation has occurred.

The problem for me though was that I never got that lovely graph that you're supposed to have when tracking your BBT, and so aside from the time commitment, I wasn't super keen to try that again.

Using Cheap LH Ovulation Strips

The other thing I used when we were trying to conceive (before we hit the fertility clinic) was some cheap ovulation strips that I got from EBay. What. A. Waste. Because of the short window of ovulation, I was using multiple strips per day (and probably not correctly) and never once. Not once. Had a positive confirmation of ovulation (even though I ovulated quite regularly).

So I'll be completely honest with you - I've been looking into ovulation trackers for some time now and the bottom line was that I just wanted something that was convenient and accurate. Also, I wanted something that gave me a little bit more than a really short window to ovulation so I wanted something that went beyond just a 'yes' or 'no' in terms of whether I've ovulated or not. Enter the Mira Tracker.

To date, the only other partnership I've done has been with the Mira tracker to be honest, even though I'm approached multiple times per week from other organizations.

Since walking the path of infertility, I feel like I've become much more in tune with my body and the natural rhythms of my mood and energy across the month, so I had an idea of when I might be ovulating, but I truly wanted some confirmation.

How to use the Mira

So the first thing you need to do when your Mira tracker arrives is to charge it up, and then install the Mira app on your phone so that it can sync all the data. It's pretty cool because it uses bluetooth to sync everything and then you can see and compare your results, and it also has a graph you can see (and download if you want to send to your Naturopath or anything). Once it's charged and you've got the app, you just connect your tracker and then you're good to go.

When you want to test, you use your first morning wee...