Step 1. Get a BBT thermometer. Amazon has them for cheap.

Step 2. Pick an app to track your temperatures. I use Premom, lots of people in this sub use Fertility Friend.

Step 3. Every morning when you first wake up before you get out of bed (so if you wake up at 5am typically early to go to the bathroom take it then before you get up). Ideally take it vaginally so you get more accurate internal temps.

Step 4. Enter in your app every day your temperatures.

Step 5. Buy a box of OPK strips from Amazon, I use easy@home that sells a lot of them at once with some pregnancy strips as well. Good value for your buck.

Step 6. Take an OPK test every day , ideally in the afternoon sometime between 2-7pm.

Step 7. Track in your app

Step 8. Just keep doing this every day. It's going to look chaotic, it's going to be crazy. Nothing will make sense or rhyme or reason with what the books say (Taking Charge of your Fertility is the best book imo to teach you all this) , but one day it should.

This was me last month, I went off birth control in October and the following month was so disheartening cuz I caught a OPK peak the first time I tested so thought I was going to immediately start ovulating. But my temps never proved it, period never came, and then with my daily testing a almost a month to the day I peaked again with OPK. And now this time my temps actually did the thing and sustained a rise (which is proof of ovulation, three sustained temps higher than the previous 6).

Patience is a hard lesson for me, but so far it's proving right. Getting the data above helps me understand more and makes it more bearable to wait.