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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

Can I ask why you use it? We used test strips - they're really cheap and way more accurate as women's bodies aren't clocks. That was effective for getting pregnant.

Using anything except some kind of active measures to avoid pregnancy doesn't pass my engineer brain and certainly doesn't pass my wife's Pharmacologist brain (i.e. she actually knows what she's talking about whereas I'm using applied probability theory with assumptions).

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For the opposite FYI; some aren't trying to either target or not target pregnancy, they want to have a forecast for the next 3 days so they can pack their purse.

Can I ask why you use it?

Honestly just for fun? I think girl stuff is cool and my partner indulges me. It does truly help with emotional/sexual/physical planning, but a very biological embodied flavor of fun is my real reason.

FYI - many couples track cycles because they are trying to get pregnant.

Yes but as I said in my post - it's not effective. Hormone measuring strips are and they costs very little - $2 / month - and are very effective. We wouldn't have three kids now if we relied on counting days.

You use them in conjunction with each other. For instance, if one of you travels for work, you can try to plan around when you think the next cycle will be.

A strip confirming you’re ovulating is pretty useless by itself if your partner is on the other side of the country.

What test strips are you using? It's the first time I am hearing about that, I guess it's not common in Germany.

I/we track it, mostly because she is a bit clumsy and forgets when her last period was & when the next one is. So not for ovulation tracking at all. Once she told me she thought she was pregnant because her period still was not there; I checked chats & the app and could confirm her period was still two weeks away :).

this article got me wondering where the partner app, potentially named drop?, that warns drip user's partners to be more careful in their choice of words, or lack thereof, during that special time where domestic emotions often devolve in to an irrational mess ending with a few days of sleeping on the couch until the drip has subsided

I never noticed any "special times" of irrationality with my partner. I have noticed I got the cold shoulder when I behaved like a teenage boy or didn't treat her with the respect an adult human deserves.

I've never known my partners to turn into an irrational mess because I said something they would otherwise be fine with. I actually find partners to be quite a bit more affectionate around those times. There's certainly an element of emotional volatility, but it swings both ways... And doesn't devolve into messes at all. Nothing that can't be sorted with a simple 'how are you feeling, anything I can do to help?'

I’m not sure why this is downvoted, the strips are indeed a lot more accurate.

It's because people are reading the first few words and thinking "this is an male nerd asking stupid ignorant questions".

It's that or there are people who actually think that counting days is a good way to enable unprotected sex without a risk of baby. Which is absolutely isn't - it changes the risk to 2-5% a shot. Compared to around ~2% year for condoms alone.

It's worth pointing out that due to the nature of how contraceptive studies are done, it's remarkably easy to stay out of that 2% for condoms. (Namely, if you're planning on using condoms as your choice of contraceptive, actually use the condoms).

They can burst and slip off too. That's the problem. I'm anti-abortion* so we took extra measures to avoid the argument (my wife is Pro, and I although have no right to tell anyone else what to do with their body, it would probably have ended our relationship had she done it).

* For myself, I find that the Americans who try to force everyone else to follow their personal positions to be insane Authoritarian Fascists. Our society only works if people have freedom and personal choice.

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