Will I only conceive whilst ovulating?

[StringTheory]

We have decided to start trying for our second child after falling unplanned with our previous, so I've never had any experience with the "trying" part. My question is will I only fall pregnant when ovulating? Or could it happen any time throughout the month? The reason I ask is I'm pretty impatient and not a huge fan of the "act" (more usually too tired and can't be arsed to do it) so want to know if it's worth lying back and getting on with it or working out when I'm next ovulating.

Ovulation releases the egg so without an egg there will be no baby.

Hi string

Your egg will have a 24-48hr time frame to be fertilised, once it's been released. One of the easiest ways to track this is noting changes to your cervical mucus each month. It will be watery on the build up and like egg whites when you're ovulating. Track this on an app such as Ovia, along with your period dates, and it will predict your best fertile window.

So you might think that's a bit crap, only having two days out of every cycle where you can conceive, but sperm can live up to 5 days inside you (given the right conditions). Some people even say up to 7 days. Anyway, the optimum is to have sex about every 24-48 hours. If you do it more than once a day, you risk not allowing the sperm to replenish fully.

We TTC #2 on and off since May last year. Our successful cycle was when we had sex on the morning of the first day of Ovia's predicted fertile window, then every other day for a week. By that point, we were tired of 'the act', so kept it very mechanical. 11 weeks + 4 today!

Good luck!

You can't get pregnant until you have ovulated, but you need to be having sex every other day so that there is ideally sperm waiting to fertilise the egg once it's released.

You are more likely to conceive if you have sex in the days leading up to ovulation rather than waiting until the day you ovulate.

Regular sex. Ideally every other day. Good luck!