Ovulation

What is ovulation?

Signs and symptoms of ovulation include mittelschmerz, light pelvic pain on one side of the pelvis, spotting, changes in cervical mucus, breast tenderness. Learning about signs and symptoms of ovulation help you predict fertility and find out if and when ovulation happens and when you should have sex to get pregnant. Women trying to get pregnant often become frustrated when they miss their period but have a negative pregnancy test. What most don't realize is that when trying to conceive, the single most important factor is finding out if and when ovulation happens. Ovulation is when the egg is ejected from the ovary. If you miss your period and you know if and when ovulation happened then there are only 2 possibilities. Either you are not pregnant and your period comes 15 or so days later, or you are pregnant and your period does not come 15+ days later.

If you don't know if and when ovulation happened, then you don't know when your period is supposed to come. Women who don't ovulate usually do not get their periods or they have irregular spotting and bleeding. There are several ways to find out if and when you ovulate. Some methods of finding out when you ovulate can be easily done at home, while others require more sophisticated testing. If you have a regular menstrual cycle, a fertility or ovulation calculator and calendar may be helpful. Your "fertility window" consists of the 5-6 fertile days of your menstrual cycle 4-5 days before and the day of ovulation when intercourse is most likely to result in pregnancy. This fertile window starting 5 days before the day of ovulation until the day of ovulation. Your most fertile of these days are the 2 days before plus the day of ovulation.