So you’re ready to start trying to get pregnant and take the plunge into becoming parents! Deiciding that you’re ready to have a baby is often the hard part, so hopefully you’ll be on your way to motherhood soon.
After you’ve made the decision, the next step is to start tracking your ovulation to optimize your fertility window and get pregnant fast!
Unfortunately, getting pregnant isn’t as easy as you may think it will be. For some women it can take months or even years, but for the lucky, it can happen right away.
Conceiving a baby is not just luck, but knowledge and preparation should go into it as well. Preparing your body and learning about how pregnancy actually happens will help you to increase your chances.
You can get a jumpstart on quickening the process by preparing yourself. Determining your most optimal time of fertility by tracking ovulation can make getting pregnant quicker and less stressful.
Finding your fertility window
There is only a short window of time that, if you have sex, you may actually get pregnant. This span can typically be up to 6 days per month.
It includes the day of ovulation, 1 day after, and about 3-4 days before. Figuring out your day of ovulation can help you to determine the whole period of time that you could potentially get pregnant.
Below I listed methods to find that window of time where you are most fertile. This is the optimal period to have sex in order to conceive.
Recommended Strategies to Track Ovulation
There are several methods that can help you accurately determine your day of ovulation. Using more than one of these methods is the best option to really pinpoint the exact time that ovulation is occurring.
If you can, plan a month or two in advance of when you will start trying to conceive. This will allow you to use all the data you collect from every method to determine if your cycle is regular and specify the actual day before you start trying.
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1. Tracking LH surge
The following methods detect the presence of LH (Luteinizing Hormone) in your urine which signifies that ovulation is ready to occur or has already begun. This is one of the best ways to find and track your fertility window.
Mira Fertility Tracker
The Mira Fertility Tracker will tell you exactly when your fertile and infertile days are by tracking your hormone levels through a digital analyzer, test wands, and a synced app on your phone.
The Mira method of ovulation tracking gives you specific fertility hormone (LH) concentration levels rather than just a yes or no. This prediction system learns your changing hormone patterns and gives fertility advice specific to you.
Testing is simple: First, you immerse the test wand into urine for 10 seconds on specific days which the app will tell you. Then, you insert the wand into the Mira analyzer. After a couple of minutes of analysis, your fertility hormone concentration results will automatically sync with the Mira app. With advanced algorithms, the app provides personalized and accurate insight for your fertility window.
Mira also eliminates the need to test every day. Automatic Bluetooth syncing to the Mira App lets you know when you should test based on the previous testing analysis.
With this link, you will receive $20 off your Mira Fertility Tracker. Use code: JUSTSIMPLYMOM
Clearblue Advanced Digital Ovulation Test
This is a great way of tracking ovulation for a relatively affordable price. The ClearBlue Digital Ovulation Tracker identifies 4 or more fertile days instead of just the day that ovulation occurs.
It does so by not only detecting the surge of LH, which tells you when ovulation is starting, but a rise in estrogen, signifying that ovulation will be coming in the next few days.
Therefore, you can be prepared for knowing that ovulation will happen soon and start trying immediately. This may give you more chances in that month to conceive.
I love the digital feature of the Clearblue test because there is no questioning whether you see a line, a faint line, or no line. It’s easy to read and gives you fast, simple results.
Pregmate Ovulation Test Strips
These Pregmate Ovulation Test Strips work the same way as Clearblue, but are much less expensive. However, they can be tough to read.
If you’re on a tight budget, make sure you at least get these strips because determining the LH surge in your urine is the most important method to tracking ovulation.
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2. Cervical mucus
Another method is to check the amount and consistency of cervical mucus in the vagina. Throughout a woman’s monthly menstrual cycle, the fluid inside her vagina will change from barely there to thin, thicker, slippery, or sticky.
During and around ovulation, the mucus becomes much more abundant in the vagina. It appears to be transparent, like raw egg white, stretchy/elastic, liquidy or watery.
Each day, use 1 clean finger to swab inside your vagina to check your cervical mucus. You may also see the mucus in your underwear without needing to check yourself.
Once you see and feel the increase in cervical mucus and determine it to be the consistency of stretchy, raw egg whites, you can start getting busy because you’re fertile!
Read more about Cervical Mucus Monitoring here.
3. Basal Body Temperature
This is a method that should be done before trying to conceive as the data will tell you once you have already ovulated. This makes it a poor option to use if trying to conceive that month. However, it does give you insight after-the-fact of whether you indeed ovulated.
A basal body temperature (BBT) is your body’s temperature at rest. Throughout your menstrual cycle, your BBT will remain pretty steady. During ovulation, this temperature will slightly increase by .2 to 1.2 degrees.
When you are charting your temperature on a graph (or through an app), you will be able to see the rise in temperature right after ovulation has occurred.
Once you see that increase, you know that you have ovulated. You are most fertile 2 days before the rise in temperature, therefore it is probably too late to try to conceive that month. However, you can have confidence that you are ovulating and be prepared at the same time next month.
Using a digital thermometer, you will take your temperature orally first thing in the morning. Plot and graph your temperature each day of your cycle using the Ovia Fertility app to visually see when the temperature shows an increase.
You don’t want to use just any digital thermometer. Due to the fact that the rise in temperature can only be a few tenths of a degree, you need a very accurate thermometer.
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4. Record Data Through An App
You will need a place to collect and record all of the information you will be getting from several different tracking methods. Let an app keep all of your data in one place and predict your upcoming most fertile days for you.
Ovia Fertility App
It’s highly useful to record all the data you collect by using an app. Ovia Fertility is the perfect companion with many features to record all kinds of data from physical and emotional symptom to data you have collected from the above methods.
It then uses it’s technology to make predictions to when you are the most fertile.
Inputting information like basal body temperature, cervical mucus, and LH surge can let the app predict the length of your cycle and when you will be ovulating.
However, if you are just using this method to record when you get your period every month, you may not receive good results. This way, the app will only take into account the average woman’s menstrual cycle.
As you know, not every woman is created equal and may not ovulate at exactly day 14 like some apps predict. Some may ovulate on day 4 or day 25. That’s why this method can be the least accurate.
However, if you use several didn’t methods of tracking your ovulation, using the Ovia App this is an extremely helpful resource to keep all that information in one place.
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. . . . . .
For myself, I used a combination of detecting my LH and estrogen levels rising, cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and an app to keep track of all the data. They all provided me with different information to pinpoint what day I was ovulating and made trying to conceive much easier.
Using all of these methods while trying to conceive can be time consuming and anxiety-inducing so try not to take it too seriously. The most important thing is for you and your partner to enjoy each other and not stress yourself out too much with the many struggles of fertility.
If you’ve tried these strategies of finding your fertility window for several months, it may be best to talk to your OBGYN for a referral to a fertility specialist. It doesn’t mean that you have a problem, but all of your options and potential issues can be best discussed with a medical professional.
Marissa is a Pediatric Occupational Therapist turned stay-at-home mom who loves sharing her tips, tricks, and ideas for navigating motherhood. Her days are filled starting tickle wars and dance parties with three energetic toddlers and wondering how long she can leave the house a mess until her husband notices. When she doesn’t have her hands full of children, she enjoys a glass (or 3) of wine, reality tv, and country music. In addition to blogging about all things motherhood, she sells printables on Etsy and has another website, teachinglittles.com, for kid’s activity ideas.
