How to Tell when You Are Ovulating

Ovulation is very important when trying to conceive. After all, without the egg, there can be no baby. Knowing when you ovulate is one of the most important factors in getting pregnant. There are a lot of different methods of finding out your ovulation time. Here I am going to briefly cover a few of those methods.

A simple way to know when you ovulate is to use an ovulation predictor kit, otherwise known as an OPK. An OPK works like a pregnancy test in that it will most of the time give you one line for a negative and two lines for a positive, but there are some key differences. An OPK will often times give you two lines, and one will be much lighter then the other. This does not always mean that you are ovulating. Be sure and read the instructions that come in OPK's before using or interpreting them. OPK's will tell you when the ovulation hormone is in your system. This is useful because the OPK is used to predict that you will be ovulating soon. To know that you already ovulated would be to late to have intercourse in order to get pregnant.

A little bit more complex way of checking for ovulation is checking your cervical mucus. This can be done by simply wiping a piece of toilet paper across the opening of your vagina and seeing what is on the tissue. Cervical mucus changes a lot throughout your cycles. Usually, right after you end your period, the cervical mucus will not be abundant and will be sticky. As you get closer to ovulation, that cervical mucus will thin out and eventually resemble egg whites. This fertile cervical mucus allows the sperm to survive longer in the usually harsh and acidic vaginal environment while waiting for an egg to be released. After you ovulate, your cervical mucus will begin to dry up and, if not pregnant, you will eventually start your next period.

Another way to check for ovulation is to simply check your calendar as well as your body. If you have a regular cycle, meaning it is the same length each month, checking the calendar is a great way to detect when you ovulate. All you do is check the last day of your cycle, and count backward fourteen days. That will most likely be the time that you ovulate. So when you come to your next cycle, you will need to have intercourse on the few days preceding your ovulation in order to increase your chances of becoming pregnant. Also, around your ovulation time, some women will experience some slight pain, known as ovulation pain. This varies from woman to woman.

Ovulating is a complicated thing but once you become familiar with your body and the signs it gives you each month, you should be able to track it fairly regularly. Nobody will know your body better than you, so pay attention and before long you will be able to detect your ovulation without any problems!