Pregnancy Signs & Symptoms, Week by Week Pregnancy Guide

Although during the majority of their life women try to avoid getting pregnant, when they decide to have a family they find out that it is more difficult to get pregnant than they may have thought. This is why they could be interested in an ovulation tracker.

Use the calendar

The first thing that you need to do is to determine the length of your menstrual cycle. This means the number of days between the beginning of your menstrual period and the last day before the beginning of your next period. This is important because as you may know ovulation takes place at the middle of your cycle.

On average the women’s cycles last for 28 days. This means that they have their ovulation on the 14th day of their cycle. However it is possible for the cycle to be longer or shorter. In the same time you also have to be prepared for the fact that you don’t always have your ovulation on the same day.

Tracking your ovulation is a very good idea. All you have to do is to write on a calendar when you have your menstrual period. This way you will see a pattern and it will be easier to determine the moment of ovulation.

BBT and how to track ovulation

There are a lot of women who have irregular periods. If this is the case it is a lot more difficult to predict your ovulation. In this case you could track your BBT or basal body temperature. For this, you need a special thermometer. You have to measure your temperature in the morning before you get out of bed.

When it comes to tracking ovulation, you should know that it is the LH hormone that triggers it. During the majority of the cycle, the LH levels are low, but before ovulation there is a peak. When this happens, the body temperature rises and this can be seen with the help of the thermometer.

The changes are also caused by the change of the estrogen and progesterone. At the beginning of the cycle, the estrogen levels are higher. After ovulation these levels drop and the progesterone levels increase.

Cervical changes

When you are trying to monitor your ovulation, you should also think about the cervix. Before ovulation it is harder and closed. As the body prepares for fertilization as a result of the hormones, the cervix gets lower, it softens and it also opens up a bit. This way it is easier for fertilization to take place.

Naturally the cervical mucus also changes to make it easier for the sperm to reach the egg. This is a change that you could track. All you have to do is to check the characteristics of the mucus. Before ovulation you should see that it is less sticky and it has a clear color.

About 20% of women find ovulation monitoring easy because they also feel some pain or cramping in the lower abdomen. In some cases they could also see spotting.