What is ovulation?

Ovulation is when you release an egg from one of your ovaries. From the five days earlier ovulation through to the day that you ovulate, y'all're potentially fertile. But your chances of getting pregnant are highest if you lot have sex in the last three days of this six-mean solar day window.

When do you ovulate?

By and large, you ovulate in the middle of your menstrual cycle. If you have an average 28-day cycle, you may ovulate around day 14. Still, lengths of normal cycles can vary from 21 to 35 days. Some women ovulate around the same twenty-four hours each cycle, just for others the timing is hard to pinpoint.

Learning how to identify and track ovulation symptoms can help you program when to have sexual practice if you want to go pregnant.

Ovulation symptoms

Near all women take these iii ovulation symptoms:

  • Changes in basal torso temperature (BBT). Your BBT is your everyman torso temperature in a 24-hour catamenia. On the day afterward you ovulate, your BBT will get up by 0.5 to ane.0 caste Fahrenheit and stay elevated until your next menstruum.
  • Changes in cervical fungus. Cervical mucus is the vaginal discharge you sometimes find in your underwear. During the few days before y'all ovulate and immediately after ovulation, you lot may detect an increase in cervical fungus and a alter in its texture.
  • Changes to the neck. During ovulation, your cervix is softer, higher, wetter, and more than open.

The following symptoms are non as common or consequent as the ones described higher up, so you may have all, some, or none of them. They may include:

  • Chest tenderness
  • Mild cramps or twinges in the belly, or a one-sided backache, known as mittelschmerz (German for "middle pain")
  • Very balmy spotting (vaginal haemorrhage or discharge that may occur when an egg is released)
  • Heightened sense of smell
  • Increased sex drive (some women say they feel sexy, flirty, more sociable, and more physically attractive)
  • Changes in ambition or mood
  • Fluid retention

graphic explaining 10 signs of ovulation

How to calculate ovulation

There'south no foolproof method to predict when you'll ovulate. But hither are a few ways yous tin can approximate when it's most likely to happen, then y'all tin try to time sex or intrauterine insemination (IUI) appropriately and heave your chances of getting pregnant.

(If that egg gets fertilized by a sperm and implants in your uterus, you're pregnant!)

Try the agenda method

If your bicycle is regular – the aforementioned number of days each fourth dimension – you tin can effort the agenda method (likewise known every bit the Standard Days Method).

To gauge when y'all'll ovulate:

  1. Observe your expected ovulation twenty-four hours: To exercise this, count back xiv days from when you expect your next flow.
  2. Calculate your fertile window: This includes the solar day you ovulate and the preceding five days. So, for example, if day 1 is the start twenty-four hour period of your period and day 28 is the day before you expect your next menstruation, you'd be fertile on days 9 through 14.
  3. Emphasize the last 3 days: You're much more likely to go meaning during the terminal 3 days of your fertile window than during the days immediately after you ovulate. This is because your egg survives in your fallopian tube for 24 hours subsequently ovulation. And although sperm tin can survive in a woman'due south trunk for up to five days, they are more likely to fertilize your egg within 3 days of having sexual practice.

This method is the easiest fashion to judge your fertile window, simply it's non very accurate, even if y'all have a good idea of when your adjacent period will first. That's because ovulation rarely happens exactly 14 days before menstruation.

In one big study of women with 28-day cycles, the solar day of ovulation varied from vii to 19 days earlier menstruation. Ovulation happened xiv days earlier a period only 10 pct of the fourth dimension.

So y'all can see how it's possible to miss your fertile window altogether using this method. On the other hand, it'south simple, free, and worth a endeavour, specially if yous're not in a hurry to excogitate.

Employ an ovulation calculator

Y'all can employ BabyCenter's Ovulation Calculator to observe out which days you're likely to exist fertile according to the calendar method and what your due date will be if you conceive. It's ane quick and easy way to figure out how to increment your chances of getting pregnant

Use an ovulation predictor kit

Testing your hormone levels with an ovulation predictor kit (OPK) is a more dependable way to identify your fertile window, though information technology doesn't piece of work perfectly for all women.

At that place are two kinds of kits:

  • Urine tests: This is the most common. The pee-on-a-stick test indicates when your level of luteinizing hormone (LH) has gone upwards, which usually means one of your ovaries volition soon release an egg. Some tests measure the level of some other hormone, estrone-3-glucuronide (E3G), that also goes up around the time of ovulation.
  • Saliva tests: With the saliva examination, y'all use a microscope to spot a pattern in your dried saliva that indicates the rise in estrogen that happens in the days before ovulation.

Both types of tests evidence a positive effect in the days before you ovulate, giving you time to plan ahead for baby-making sex activity.

The kits are available at drugstores or online without a prescription. They can toll between $10 and $50 each.

Chart your cycle by monitoring ovulation symptoms

You can rail subtle changes in your basal trunk temperature, cervical mucus, and cervical firmness for a few cycles to try to decide when you ovulate.

If you pay attention to these clues and note them on a chart or app, you lot may see a pattern that can help y'all predict when y'all're probable to ovulate next. (If your periods are irregular, however, you may non discover a pattern.)

Charting is costless (afterward yous buy the thermometer), but this method takes fourth dimension and endeavor to practice accurately.

Here'southward how you track each symptom:

  • Basal trunk temperature: You utilize a special basal thermometer (that you lot tin buy online or at a drugstore) to measure your BBT every 24-hour interval, right when you wake upwards and after you've had at least three hours of uninterrupted sleep. After ovulation, your BBT will rise 0.5 to ane.0 degree Fahrenheit and stay that way until you get your catamenia. The change in temperature doesn't tell you when you're going to ovulate, only that you lot have ovulated, so it's important to use this method in tandem with observing the changes in cervical fungus throughout your cycle.
  • Cervical mucus : For virtually of the month, you may have very footling cervical mucus, or information technology may be thick and pasty. Only in the few days before, during, and immediately after ovulation, you'll notice an increase in cervical fungus and a modify in its texture: It will turn clear, slippery, and stretchy (like raw egg whites). This is the time, only before ovulation, when intercourse is most likely to lead to conception.
  • Cervix changes: As you lot arroyo ovulation, your cervix will become soft, high, open, and moisture – you tin remember this with the acronym Show. Later ovulation, these signs reverse and the cervix becomes firm, low, airtight, and dry. You lot can feel these changes if y'all reach inside your vagina with a finger. Read on for more than in-depth information on checking your cervix.

It tin also assist to exist aware of other ovulation symptoms you might have, such every bit spotting or cramping. Although this isn't a precise fashion to make up one's mind when yous're ovulating, it may be helpful to be enlightened of these symptoms (if yous have them) while using the calendar, OPK, or charting methods.

How to cheque your neck for signs of ovulation

If your other fertility signs are obvious – you produce fertile-quality cervical mucus leading upwards to ovulation and have a sustained temperature shift following the buildup of cervical mucus that confirms ovulation – you shouldn't demand to check your cervix. But if in that location's whatsoever ambiguity, your neck offers good data to support the other ii signs.

Many women aren't familiar with touching their cervix. And when they do, they may not know exactly how information technology should feel. (How soft is "soft," for instance?)

Here's what you need to know about checking your neck:

  • Cheque when your mucus changes consistency: The best way to larn near your cervix is to first checking it once your cervical mucus changes consistency and to continue checking for a few days later your temperature has risen. That phase of well-nigh five days is when you'll notice the nearly precipitous change.
  • Insert finger to middle knuckle: To cheque your cervix, insert your clean middle finger into your vagina upward to at least your centre knuckle or even farther. Notice how the cervix feels to the touch. Just before ovulation it may feel similar your lips. After ovulation it volition feel harder, like the tip of your olfactory organ.

Learn more virtually ovulation tracking

Find out more than nigh how keeping rails of your BBT and ovulation symptoms can help yous predict ovulation. Then follow the steps to charting your BBT and cervical symptoms.