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I attended an event with Pregnant Together where they promoted the Proov hormone test as a helpful tool for folks trying to conceive but no one was able to give a review. There was a discount code and it is a small, women-owned business so I decided to check it out and review it for clients. I paid for this kit with my own dollars so this is my honest opinion.
For queer folks, family building requires an in-depth understanding of fertility which is not taught in school or ever. Most folks don't know about cycle tracking, fertile mucus, and the ovulation temperature shift. You can use ovulation predictor kits (OPKs) to try to confirm ovulation based on a spike in the luteinizing hormone and many do while trying to get pregnant. Proov seemed like a more in-depth hormone test option.
I bought the Proov Complete test which promises "full cycle fertility insight." You get a kit for about that includes 20 urine test strips:
3 follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) tests
17 multi-hormone tests that measure estrogen, luteinizing hormone (LH), and progesterone
It costs $75 dollars on sale, which is not cheap. I reasoned that it would be cheaper than a copay to a specialist for hormone testing and allowed the ease of being able to do it in my own home. It felt like a good step to do to gather more information beyond what I can tell from my own at-home fertility tracking methods.
Each day, you need to catch some of your first morning urine. The app only allows you to test once per day, which is frustrating if you feel ovulation occurring at other times. The reasoning is that first urine is the most concentrated and therefore most accurate.
You then let the test strips sit for exactly 10 minutes. I sure did waste one that I left at home and went to a client's house only to return hours later to a fully overdeveloped strip - set a timer! After the 10 minutes is up, you use the app to take a picture. I stressed about how much light seemed important for the photos but there is no guidance on that so I tried not to worry too much. The app "reads" the test strip and converts the visible lines into concrete numbers. I also felt a bit skeptical about that and the accuracy with uncontrolled lighting, but I had no choice but to go with it.
You need to download an app and use it to track your cycle so that it can tell you when to begin testing. My kit instructed me to begin testing on cycle day 5 (Jan 16), five days after the first day of my period. The dots underdeath the date are color coded to match the test you should take, but this changed as the app gathered more data. The initial stage is to test FSH with the intent to tell you if you have a healthy egg supply or "reserve" that makes the likelihood of pregnancy high. You can see from the green dot that I took this test on cycle day 5, 7, and 9.
As someone in my 30s who is still undecided about having my own children, being able to check my egg reserve felt very appealing. In the app, there is a graph of hormone levels as well as a tab called "test ranges" which contextualizes the numbers you are seeing as either inside or outside of normal range. I'm not going to lie, the first few days of FSH testing were stressful. I felt like someone was about to tell me if I could have children and it brought up a lot of feelings, but the initial numbers were reassuring (lower is better).
Luckily, I had a fellow doula (Leila Walker) who was doing it at the same time and who I could text when I was freaking out. Unfortunately, the results that I got were conflicting. My FSH was considered normal, so I should have gotten a reassuring result, but the end-of-month summary claimed my eggs are possibly depleted based on my higher estrogen levels.
Of course, the next step is to buy another kit and test again to see if there is a pattern. Seeing the words "possibly diminished" come up did not feel good. I struggle to trust a company that is pushing its products quite this hard. If the product is good, you don't need to be such a tryhard.
After 6 fraught days, FSH testing is done and you move into the multi-hormone tests. These are the strips that test progesterone, estrogen, and LH.
This part of testing felt much more innocuous to me. I know roughly what to expect and I was excited to graph my hormones. Based on your levels, the kit tells you when to take another test. This is where I became frustrated. I know my cycle very well (sort of my job description) and I know the signs of ovulation in my body: I know what my most fertile mucus looks and feels like, I know the raging uptick in my libido, and I know the feeling of an egg being released, or what the Germans call mittelschmerz.
On cycle day 8, which not a drop of fertile mucus in sight, the app told me that -based on my hormones- I had missed ovulation and would not be able to conceive. It told me to stop testing. I was upset that I had wasted a kit on a month where ovulation would not occur. I texted Leila in disbelief. I rarely miss ovulation in a cycle and I hadn't done anything particularly disruptive during the previous weeks or days.
Lucky for me, Leila is a FEMM certified educator and talked me off the ledge. On cycle day 12, as my ovulation signs started to uptick, I started testing again against the app's advice. I felt both worried that I was wasting the test strips (about $4.50 a pop) and totally gaslit by the app. It was honestly a stressful experience, but I could tell from my "PLEASE ANYONE FUCK ME" attitude that I was fertile. Sure enough, I just caught an LH surge on cycle day 15. I wish that I had started testing sooner, but I initially thought that the app didn't allow you to test on days when it didn't call for one, so it took me some time to figure out that I even had the option of ignoring the app.
At the end of the whole ordeal, you do get a PDF that you can share with your provider if you do decide that you would like more assistance with your fertility. Naturally, Proov also offers the opportunity to talk to their specialists for a fee. This graph is basically why I paid for the test kit and I hate how incomplete it is leading up to ovulation.
I am so glad I listened to myself and my body instead of the app. One of the most appealing parts of this kit to me was to have a full graph of every single day of my cycle, but with only 17 tests that is not possible. I do think the kit would be better if they sent you 30-35 strips so that you could test continuously for a month. I had some spares so if you decided to do 2 months, you could go light on one month and heavy on the next in order to get a more continuous line. I can't help but wonder, what was going on on the days I didn't test? What information did I miss?
Most problematic: if I was using this kit for at-home insemination, I would have seen the message that ovulation / fertility was not possible during this cycle and canceled my plans to try to conceive. The only reason that I did not miss my ovulation completely is that I listened to my body and ignored the app's advice. I reached out to Proov to explain how damaging that could be for a queer person trying to conceive (or anyone without easy access to sperm). I got a fairly dismissive email back telling me that I was so lucky to have caught my own ovulation without acknowledging how I caught it.
Secondarily problematic:
The customer support left a lot to be desired
Any no optimal hormone level is paired with an ad to buy their supplements to rectify the situation
The app may give you incorrect or conflicting information about your hormones
You can't test more than once per day
Overall, I cannot recommend the Proov test kit. I bought it with my own money and I was frankly unimpressed. I don't think my experience was unique - Leila also had a lot of feedback about the test. After customer service dismissed my concerns, I set a much longer email explaining why their algorithm was problematic for DIY'ers trying to conceive without access to sperm. After that, they seemed a bit more understanding and did end up sending me a free replacement kit. I didn't love that I had to do all of that free education for them, but I am appreciative that they replaced my kit.
As always, please reach out if you would like more support on your fertility journey. If you are just starting out as a queer person trying to conceive (TTC), I would recommend this blog post as a good jumping off point for all the many factors you might want to take into consideration.
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