Predicting Ovulation Made Simple

Predicting ovulation is of utmost importance most especially for women who are having some problems becoming pregnant.

It is not uncommon to hear questions like ” when does ovulation occur?”
or ” when Do I ovulate?” from women are seeking to know the optimal time
for intercourse to achieve a baby.

The simple yet relevant
information presented in this page is meant to not only give you the
basic information you need to know about predicting ovulation but also
the essentials of the major methods available to women today.

The Importance Of Predicting Ovulation?

There is no doubt pregnancy will only occur during your fertile
days.The main feature that rules fertility is ovulation, that is, the
release of the egg. No ovulation, no pregnancy.Its that simple.
Identifying the date the egg is released is of utmost importance
especially for women who are having fertility issues and want to
maximize their chances of becoming pregnant.

Given the difficulty
in identifying the exact time of ovulation, one can only predict a
range of time during which ovulation is expected to occur. This time is
the fertile period. Remember that once the egg is released, it does not
stay there forever! In fact, it remains alive for just 12 to 24 hours
after ovulation. The implications of this are obvious-if any pregnancy
should occur, it must occur within this time frame. This means the
fertile period takes into consideration the likely time of ovulation and
the lifespan of the egg. Both of these features cannot be determined
precisely at the moment and so you will often be given a range of time
during which you have the highest chances of having ovulation and a
living egg.

The bottom-line of predicting ovulation is to know the
optimal timing of sexual intercourse. Sperms must meet a living egg for
pregnancy to occur. Intercourse must occur within 12 to 24 hours of
ovulation to optimize the chances of pregnancy.

Methods Used In Predicting Ovulation

There are many methods now available to determine your likely day of
ovulation, ranging from simple to sophisticated. The simple methods are
generally not as accurate as the sophisticated ones but they are free!
The more advanced methods are generally better but with increasing
costs. The most expensive are really worth it if you can afford it
especially for those who have tried the simple methods for a long while
and still cannot conceive.

Important point to note here is that
fertility is not all about being able to detect your ovulation day. Many
women with fertility issues have some problems that might require
medical evaluation and treatment. Many fertility doctors will also
recommend some of these ovulation detection methods to increase your
chances of conception. Therefore if you have not yet had a medical
evaluation for infertility issues, it may be best to start there because
you may not even be ovulating! Or sometimes, there may be some simple
cause like unidentified low sperms count of your partner.

The methods of predicting ovulation are, from simple to sophisticated

1. Manual ovulation calender. This
   is the most elementary technique. In fact it will be needed even with
   the advanced methods because it gives you a broad picture of your most
   likely period of ovulation. It estimates the ovulation period using the
   length of your menstrual cycle and your luteal phase length.
   Luteal phase length is usually about 12 to 16 days. If you do not know
   yours, you may use the average of 14. By subtracting the length of your
   luteal phase from the length of your entire cycle, you get the
   approximate cycle day you may be ovulating. Example- Your cycle
   length is 32 days and your luteal phase length is 12 days. Your likely
   cycle day to ovulate= 32-12 =20. That means on Day 20 of your cycle, you
   are likely to ovulate. Since this is a crude and most often imprecise
   method, adding about 2 days before and 2 days makes a good allowance for
   any error.This will be from Day 18 to Day 22 of your cycle. NB. Day 1
   of your cycle is the first day of menses and does not follow calender
   dates like 1st or 3rd each month!Women whose cycles are very
   irregular present a special challenge and this may not be very good for
   them. To have a very broad range, use your longest and shortest cycle
   lengths and get the approximate dates. This will be very wide and not
   very useful per se but may help give you an important time frame to use
   predictor kits. For example if your cycle varies from 24 days to 33 days
   sometimes, you may want to use the 14 day average for your luteal phase
   length. That means the ovulation will occur on the Day 10 of your short
   cycle( 24-14) and Day 19( 33-14) of your longest cycle. Putting them
   together, between Day 10 and Day 19 of each cycle, you may expect
   ovulation, since you may not be able to predict the length of the cycle
   from the beginning. Now adding a 2-days allowance before and after
   leaves you with Day 8 to Day 21 as your likely fertile period! You can
   realize this is very wide and reason why women who use ovulation kits
   with irregular cycles may have to test over longer times.
2. Ovulation calenders and predictor softwares. There
   are currently softwares that can generate an ovulation calender for you
   or predict the likely date of ovulation using the menstrual cycle
   information you put in. Remember that these are just softwares and will
   be very unreliable if your cycle is irregular as noted above. They can
   save you the headache of calculations if you have a regular cycle!
3. Fertility charting. Another basic method of checking the day of ovulation is using the major signs of ovulation,
   which are the Basal Body Temperature(BBT), Cervical mucus and cervical
   position. By monitoring one or two of these signs every day and
   recording them on a chart, you can easily learn how your body works and
   predict what is happening during future cycles. Yes, women have told me
   this is messy! However, it does help you to learn how your body works,
   like no fertility specialist or software will tell you.BBT
   monitoring is ‘less messy’ but will only detect ovulation after it has
   occurred. By the time you note the increase in BBT, it means ovulation
   has already occurred and therefore many women do not like using it
   because of this limiting of predicting ovulation only after it has
   occurred. Cervical mucus is the ‘messy one’ but can be very useful in
   predicting ovulation before it occurs.
4. Ovulation Predictor Kits. These
   are more specific if used properly than the first two, especially for
   women with regular cycles. They are simple urine strips that detect the
   hormone that precedes ovulation, that is, Luteinizing hormone( LH). Once
   an increase in LH is noted, ovulation is likely to occur within the
   next 24 to 48 hours. That sounds good to many women but requires you use
   urine each of those days you will be testing. However, they are
   especially useful for women who do not want to use BBT or cervical mucus
   charting. You may purchase cheap kits online from early-pregnancy-tests.com or Amazon( First Response or Clearblue Easy )
5. Saliva test with a microscope. During
   ovulation, hormonal changes causes some changes in the body fluids,
   also reflected in the saliva. When saliva is taken from a woman in her
   fertile period and left to dry to a glass slide, it will produce a fern
   pattern, like the fern plant. this pattern can be seen using a small
   microscope. Cheap commercial microscope are now in the market for this
   purpose.Women who use it mostly do so because you can use the
   microscope over and over again as many times as you want without the
   need to purchase additional accessories. However, this test may not be
   very accurate for many women though and the issue of using a little
   microscope scare some women away.You may want to see some saliva ovulation tests from Amazon like Ovulite and Fertile Focus.
6. Fertility Monitors. These
   are the most convenient and sophisticated methods now available in
   predicting ovulation. They come with a price too but worth it if you
   really need it. There are two categories now in the market- those those
   use urine and those that use saliva. If you have been having fertility
   issues and really want to monitor ovulation closely with greater
   scrutiny, these monitors may worth the investment for you. You may
   purchase Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor from Amazon or the OvaCue monitor from Early-Pregnancy-Tests.com

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