Conceiving with the Help of an Ovulation Calendar

Are you currently trying to conceive? If you are anything like most couples who have decided to ditch the birth control and procreate, you can hardly wait for your positive pregnancy test. Many couples wonder why they are not pregnant yet after a few months of trying. Of course, there is no sure-fire recipe on how to get pregnant, and it often does take a while. But there are steps that every couple can take to boost their chances of conceiving during every cycle. One of those is looking after your health by eating well, exercising regularly, and avoiding things like alcohol and cigarettes. The other step you can take to make a swift pregnancy more likely is familiarizing yourself with your menstrual cycle and your ovulation dates. How?

There are numerous ways in which women can find out more about their cycle, and determine when they are fertile. These methods include fertility charting using basal body temperature, monitoring cervical mucus, and using ovulation predictor kits. Another very popular method that can be of great help is using an ovulation calendar . An ovulation calendar is an online tool that takes the math out of calculating your fertile window. A basic ovulation calendar will ask the user to provide data about her last menstrual period, and the average length of her cycle. The ovulation calendar then works out when ovulation is likely to occur, usually by counting back 14 days from the expected day of the next menstruation.

This will give women a vague idea of when they can expect to be fertile, but the calculation is missing one crucial piece of data. Not every woman’s menstrual cycle is the same — the length of different women’s menstrual cycles vary, but the cycle day on which ovulation takes place isn’t the same for every woman either. That’s why good ovulation calendars also include the possibility of inputting the length of your luteal phase. This refers to the time between your ovulation and the day of your next period if you do not get pregnant, in other words the second half of the menstrual cycle. Armed with this (little known) information, you will get a very reliable ovulation predictor.

Ovulation calendars make a great combination with ovulation tests, too. If a test tells you that you are ovulating one month, you will find out the exact length of your luteal phase, which will help you predict your fertile days with a lot of accuracy in the next month. Knowing when to expect your ovulation in advance, vs finding out on the day, offers one big advantage. That is because you can consider yourself fertile from up to five days before the actual ovulation.

Your body’s natural signals can also confirm your ovulation, something women who know they are about to ovulate may be more attuned to because of the calendar. Watch out for fertile cervical mucus (egg-white and stretchy), ovulation pain, ovulation bleeding, and tender breasts. Ovulation calendars can be one of the tools in the fertility tracker’s toolbox, but they can also be useful for more relaxed couples who would simply like a free and easy pointer in the right direction. The flexibility of ovulation calendars makes them appealing to almost anyone who would like to conceive… though you’re obviously hoping you won’t be needing to predict your ovulation very long!