Silly, obvious question - DPO?

[FloraLora]

Hi all :)

I'm really new to all this, just beginning to chart things and pay attention to my period dates and things....I never really have before so a lot of the working out isn't obvious to me.

I'm sure the answer is REALLY obvious but to my poor, addled brain I can't figure it out...

I put my dates in a fertility calculator and let's say it said my period of ovulation was between 31st October and 5th November. OK, that's cool, makes sense. But then I see people talking about 12 DPO (for example) - which I'm taking to mean 12 days past ovulation? But if there's a range of days of ovulation, which day to you take it from?

I've read and read and read up on it, but all the literature assumes a certain level of knowledge that I don't have What is the start of days past ovulation? It's totally out-foxing me and I must know the answer otherwise I will go crazy. It's probably not even that important - I just can't figure out. How are these women working out their DPO? From which date in that 5 day period? Aaarrggh!

(Thanks in advance for any help with my miniature breakdown over something so little :) )

hi Flora, I'm afraid I don't know the answer, but didn't want you to go without any comment.

My best guess is that ovulation is taken to be the middle day of the ovulation period? So day 3 of 5, say?

You ovulate on one day, less than one day really and it will be towards the very end of your fertile period. Once the egg is released, it deteriorates very rapidly and will be of no use around 12-24hrs post actual ovulation. So you need to know when you ovulate really which you can often find out by temping and charting your cervical mucous. You'll find that you're fertile for a few days ie producing cervical fluid which is sperm friendly, you'll then ovulate and the cervical fluid will quickly disappear/dry up/change.

But really if you have no known fertility issues, having sex every other day or every 2-3 days will cover your bases.

I suspect you're using a calculator which just looks at the length of your cycle and tells you the window in which most women will ovulate, not when you ovulate. But as it depends on the woman, to be more specific you need to know your own cycle much better.

For example, most women have a luteal phase (time between ovulation and period) of between 12 and 16 days (though over 10 days is considered 'normal'). So if you tell one of these calculators that you have a 28 day cycle, it will tell you that you probably ovulate, going with the law of averages, between day 12 and day 16. It's giving you a general window based on what we know about the average woman. Find out when YOU ovulate and you can start counting DPOs.