Understand Your Ovulation Cycle And Get Pregnant

If you are trying to get pregnant and start a family, it is important to know about your ovulation cycle so that you can predict your ovulation and have sex on the optimal days for conception. We consider the first day of your period to be the beginning of your menstrual cycle, since it is a date that can be determined with some certainty. That is also why doctors use it for projecting a future due date if you get pregnant, since most people don't know for sure when fertilization actually occurred.

It would be so much more convenient if we could actually see what's going on inside! Ovulation gets triggered by the release of a hormone called the Lutenizing Hormone, often abbreviated as LH.

The level of LH increases dramatically previous to ovulation, so most ovulation tests check for ovulation by testing the level of LH in your blood stream via proxies such as urine or saliva, thus the “pee sticks”. An egg then gets released from the ovary 12-24 hours after the LH surge, so monitoring the hormone levels is a good way of predicting when the ovulation will occur. Charting, which involves checking the basal (resting) temperature of the woman as soon as she wakes up, preferably at the same time every day, also relies on the changes in the normal body temperature related to the hormone levels for indications of ovulation. However, as the fluctuations involved is rather small, usually only a degree or two at the most, it can be difficult to accurately read the charts. At ovulation, the mature egg pops out of the ovary and travels down the fallopian tubes towards the uterus, which then has a new layer of lining prepared.

The sperm needs to meet and fertilize the egg while it's traveling, so the optimal fertile times for the woman range from a day or two before ovulation to a few days afterwards, since the sperm can survive in her body for up to a couple of days. Predicting your ovulation can be a complicated and frustrating process if you are not used to it or if your body doesn't behave 100% like the textbook says, so for an easier way to determine your fertility level, you may want to consider a digital ovulation predictor such as the Clearblue Fertility Monitor that will do all the thinking for you.
Trying to conceive? Make sure you check Jenny Bella's excellent information on Clearblue Fertility Monitor , and other pregnancy information .

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