Baby Dust

You have a few choices when it comes to narrowing down the most fertile days of your cycle. Some of them require detective work on your part, (and you have to be comfortable with your own bodily parts and fluids), and some of them require nothing more than a trip to the drug store, and some pee.

As your body goes through the phases of it’s cycle, it gives off physical clues to help you identify what is happening. If you would like to try mapping out your cycle the old school way, the first thing you can do is chart your basal temperature. The change in your resting temperature changes throughout your cycle, and by becoming familiar with the pattern each month, you can predict the days you are most fertile. Your temperature will remain relatively constant during the follicular phase, and will rise after ovulation. In conjunction with your basal temp, your cervical mucus and cervical position changes monthly as well. Just before ovulation, your cervical mucus will resemble egg whites, nice and sticky, and stretchy. This is what the sperm will live in on its way to finding your egg. Your cervix also changes position, moving up inside the vagina, and becomes softer and more open. Knowing how your mucus and cervix feel around the time of ovulation will help you narrow down your fertile time of the month. By combining these three methods, you can increase your chances of having sex at ovulation. Please see this link for more complete information:

http://www.ovulation-calendar.net/fertility-indicators/basal-body-temperature.php

Science and technology have gotten into the ovulation game as well, and there are kits available at the drug store that measure hormone surges in your urine, and pinpoint ovulation within 24-36 hours. I found this much easier, much more reliable, and it is about 98% accurate. I did a video journal about ovulation predictor kits, in which I go into detail about the different types available, how they work and their costs. (Please visit http://www.dailystrength.org/people/5307/journal/290098 to view my video journal).

Now, I understand some women want to do things naturally, and getting to know your own body’s signals is extremely helpful. I even started to notice a disturbing but anthropologically understandable trend in my monthly. When ovulation was near, I noticed men a lot more, and my husband didn’t irritate me as much, in fact, he was cuter than usual. My body’s effort to get me close to a man at the right time of the month to procreate.

However, the OPK does pinpoint the window of ovulation without the guesswork, so that is my favorite. Once you know your window of opportunity is coming, you can time your sex so that sperm is ready and waiting when that egg is released.