Understanding your cycle

[littlestgirlguide]

I can't make sense of it. Can somebody explain in words of one syllable my monthly process? Think my brain has gone on strike. When an I fertile? How do I test for ovulation? DD was a happy accident and I'm new to actually TRYING to get preggers!

You generally ovulate 12-16 days BEFORE your next period. If you have a textbook 28 days cycle, that will be mid-cycle, but it's not for everyone. You really want to have swimmers in their waiting for the egg as they can live for a few days so dtd every other day from the end of your period until a couple of days after you think you have ovulated should cover it.

Many women get fertile mucus (stretchy like egg white) just before or around the time of ov. This should be a cue to get to it.

Right. So if I have a 28 day cycle, then :

Day 1 AF starts (last Thursday)
Approx day 12-16 ovulation (Monday-Friday next week)
Day 28 AF due again

But if I start getting the egg white mucus stuff I could be ovulating outside of these times... Am getting this now. So I could be about to ovulate a bit early? I have no idea how long my cycle is; have only had 2 periods in the last 3 years due to being on depo then implant, which was removed last week...

OK, I think the best thing to do is to have a couple of cycles so you can let your cycle get into a rhythm and you can then have a better idea of what is going on.

It should go something like this:
Day 1 AF
Random period of time that differs from person to person.
Ovulation
10 - 16 days
Day 1 again.

The time between your period starting and your ovulation can be anything really. It depends on your body. This can even vary from cycle to cycle. However, the time from ovulation to your next period will be something from 10 - 16 days. This is rarely differs by more than a day.

So this is the tricky bit. Ovulation is something of a movable feast.
One option is to have sex every other day from one period to the next, that way you can be sure of hitting the right time.
However that is not always possible, so there are ways to detect ovulation.

The most popular are the cheap OPKs you can buy on Amazon or ebay. They are a dipstick type test where you need to wee in a pot then dip the stick in. For these to be positive the test line has to be darker that the control line. The downside to these is they can be tricky to use, weeing in a pot, needs to be done in the middle of the day; and tricky to read. However they are very cheap, about £5 for 30.
The other option is the Clear Blue Fertility Monitor. These take all the guess work out of it and you use your first wee of the day, much more practical. However they are much more expensive. £100 for the monitor, although you can get them on ebay for £30, and £17 a month for the sticks.

What a lot of women do along side these options is to chart. This involves using something like the Fertility Friend website to chart your cycles, intercourse and temperature. Tracking your temperature tells you when you have ovulated, however it tells you after the event, not before. So it is best used with OPKs or the monitor. Here is my chart so you can see how it works.

TBH I would start by charting your period and sex for the first couple of months before you start using anything else. This will give you an idea of how your cycles work. Then move on to OPKs etc. Who knows, with any luck you might not need them.

Thank you so much pipbin, that's really helpful. I'm not going to buy sticks or anything - just can't justify the cost for the expensive ones and song fancy weeping in a pot in the staff loos every afternoon! I'm not worried if this doesn't happen straight away - wasn't expecting it to, so I think I'm just going to start keeping a chart for a bit, meanwhile having as much sex as I can talk DH into, and see what happens. Thank you.

Generally speaking you are more likely to be ovulating if your periods are regular in nature. If they are irregular you are less likely to be ovulating.

Ovulation is not an exact science and a woman can ovulate earlier, later or not at all in ANY given cycle. It is certainly possible to have periods without ovulating, even normally fertile women have the occasional anovulatory cycle.

Please do not get too hung up on this, "ovulation happens between 12-16 days before your before your next period" because ovulation does not work on such precise lines. Only around 12 percent of all women have a 28 day cycle.

Do not put undue pressure on either of you; make love when you both feel like it and if you were to use OPKs and the like set yourself a strict time limit on using e.g no more than 3-6 months. They can stress people out unduly so such methods too can be more unhelpful than otherwise.

Hiya, not sure if this will help but saw forum post a while back from a natural fertlity expert on how to tell when you are fertile, recognising body signs for fertilty so may be worth a look?! I will put link at the end of message. I know when I was trying I had my dates wrong and was trying at the wrng time!! Amyway hope this helps, best wishes xxx forum.prideangel.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=537