Beyond having sex, there are things you can do that will help you get pregnant faster. Because a woman is only able to conceive for a few days each cycle, identifying ovulation and the fertile window is extremely important. Though some women may have extremely regular cycles and highly predictable ovulation within each cycle, most women's relative ovulation dates and fertile windows can change from cycle to cycle. Luckily, the body shows certain signs of when ovulation might happen, including basal body temperature (BBT), cervical fluid, and physical symptoms. Regardless of the length or consistency of a woman’s cycle, there are only as many as six days during each cycle on which intercourse can result in conception. These days are known as the fertile window. Although you may not have heard the term “Fertile Window," chances are you may be familiar with ovulation. Ovulation is the phase of your cycle in which one of your ovaries releases an egg into a fallopian tube, where it awaits the company of one of your partner’s sperm for fertilization. Once released, an egg only has a lifespan of about 24 hours to be fertilized. If the egg is not fertilized, it disintegrates, and instigates your next period. Even though the egg is only viable for 24 hours, your partner’s sperm are able to survive and fertilize it for up to five days after intercourse, so any intercourse within five days of ovulation (the fertile window) could result in conception. However, the closer to ovulation your intercourse is, the higher the likelihood of conception will be.
When is the fertile window?
Old rules of thumb will tell you that ovulation occurs about halfway through a cycle, or 14 days before you get your period. Although applying these generalizations will usually put you in the right ballpark, the relative ovulation date can differ greatly from woman to woman, and even cycle to cycle. The fertile window generally begins anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after the end of a period, depending on the length and consistency of a woman’s cycle and any outside influencers like stress or malnutrition, and ends the day after ovulation, which for a woman with a perfectly regular 28-day cycle would leave about two weeks before the start of the next expected period. While this sounds nice and straightforward, in practice it is rarely this easy, as women and cycles vary.
Accordingly, women must look beyond their period information to figure out when they are ovulating, and pay attention to their body’s signs and signals to truly zero in on their fertile windows. Though some women may have such regular cycles that they have no trouble determining their fertile windows, for most people, accurately predicting ovulation is far trickier. Women in the past have relied on a number of different methods and tracked several different metrics to predict fertility, but Ovia Fertility is the first ovulation predictor capable of making accurate predictions by collecting and analyzing all of these different data points, and more:
  • Cervical fluid: Cervical fluid becomes more thin and stretchy as your approach ovulation
  • Physical symptoms: Women often notice different physical or emotional symptoms at certain times during their cycle. Establishing a pattern with ovulation can help predict the fertile window
  • Basal body temperature: Body temperature often dips immediately prior to ovulation, and spikes shortly after
  • Ovulation tests: Also known as OPKs, these test strips search for the presence of luteinizing hormone (LH), the hormone that triggers ovulation when released. OPKs can tell you when ovulation is imminent, and when it has arrived.
Ovia Fertility is the first ovulation predictor that allows you to easily enter all of the pertinent data points listed above in order to make the most accurate projections possible about your fertile window. Ovia collects your data and aggregates it across millions of data points, and tens of thousands of users to best determine the date of your ovulation, and fertile window.
You can read more here.