How To Determine Your Ovulation Schedule

If you are trying to get pregnant, the best time is when you actually ovulate as the lifespan of both the sperm and egg are limited.  So, how do you determine your ovulation schedule?

Ever since you entered puberty, you’ve always known the end of your ovulation cycle, and maybe you were told everyone has a typical number of days when that end occurs.  Many experience the typical 28 days and others experience anywhere from 24 to 35 days, give or take. Knowing the number of days in your ovulation schedule helps you to guess when you actually ovulate, and therefore the best time to have intercourse if you are trying to get pregnant faster, which is typically halfway through your ovulation schedule.  So if your cycle is 28 days, a good guess of when you ovulate would be 14 days from the start of your ovulation cycle.  Not an exact science, but gives you a starting point.

A more precise way to determine your ovulation schedule is taking your temperature with a basal thermometer.  When you ovulate, your temperature slightly increases over your normal temperature when you ovulate.  Each morning when you wake up, you take your temperature and log it for a few months to see your pattern and therefore know at what point during your ovulation schedule you actually ovulate.

Cervical mucus also provides a means to know when you are getting toward the middle of your cycle.  The consistency of your cervical mucus will turn clear and stretchy (like raw egg whites) as you approach ovulation.

There are also kits you can purchase that can determine your ovulation schedule, and even fertility monitors.  The kits and monitors look for changes in your hormones that indicate when you are approaching actual ovulation.  These are very reliable but also more expensive.

Better the Odds To Help in Getting Pregnant

Whatever approach you take to determine your ovulation schedule, you will want to have a strategy on when to have intercourse to increase your chances of getting pregnant.  The best strategy is of course to have as many sperm as possible waiting for the egg to be released.  Since the sperm can live about 5 days inside your body, the best tip while you are trying to get pregnant is to have intercourse every day as soon as you know your ovulation is about to occur.  This allows for a constant flow of sperm to be there waiting for the egg to ovulate.  This is very important because the egg has an even shorter lifespan in that it only lives 12-24 hours after ovulation.

So, as you can see, between the 5 day lifespan of the sperm and the even shorter 12-24 hour lifespan of the egg, there’s a very critical timing required in order to increase your odds when trying to get pregnant.  Now you understand why it’s not always that easy to get pregnant!

For more information on this and many other topics related to difficulties trying to get pregnant, click on one of the e-books on the right to see the review and decide which one suits you best. Or click here to get your own copy of our recommended e-book.