How to Read Your NFP Chart: A Guide to Temperature, Mucus, and Menstruation

You have the chart. You've been marking your temperature every morning. You're observing mucus. You've noted your menstruation days. But now you're looking at the paper and thinking: "What does all of this mean?"

Reading a chart is not magic. It doesn't require a scientist. It just requires attention to what you're looking at and understanding three simple signals your body sends throughout your cycle.

After 18 years of reading her own chart together with Monika, we have a simple way to do this. Every month we look at the paper and ask: "Where are we in the cycle? When was ovulation? When was it safe?"

This article is for both of you, for you reading it, and for your partner reading it with you.

Three Things You Read on the Chart

An NFP chart is not one big word. It's a combination of three different observations:

1. Basal Body Temperature (BBT), the numbers you measured every morning
2. Cervical Mucus, what you observe each day (or the lack of it)
3. Menstruation, the first day of full bleeding, which starts a new cycle

Each one tells a different part of the story. Together they create a map of your cycle.