Pregnancy: Trying to Conceive

How do you figure out when you're fertile and when you're not? Wondering if you or your partner is infertile? Read on to boost your chances of conception and get help for fertility problems.

 

Fertility Awareness

 

• Fertility awareness (also called natural family planning or periodic abstinence) is a way to check the changes your body goes through during a menstrual cycle. This information can help you learn when you ovulate. You can then time sexual intercourse to try to become pregnant or to try to avoid pregnancy.

A woman is usually able to get pregnant for about 5 days each month, around the days when ovulation occurs. On average, ovulation occurs 12 to 16 days before the menstrual period begins. So ovulation would occur on about day 10 of a 24-day menstrual cycle, day 14 of a 28-day cycle, or day 21 of a 35-day cycle. Sperm can live for 3 to 5 days in a woman's reproductive tract, so it is possible to become pregnant if sex occurs 2 to 3 days before ovulation.

See a picture of the menstrual cycle .

For fertility awareness to be used as birth control either you must not have sex or you must use a barrier method of birth control (such as a diaphragm or condom) for 8 to 16 days of every menstrual cycle. To use fertility awareness, you must prepare each month, be familiar with your body changes, and talk with your partner about your cycle.

Fertility awareness is not the best method of birth control to prevent a pregnancy. The number of unplanned pregnancies is 25 out of 100 women who typically use fertility awareness. But this method can be very helpful to time when to have sex to become pregnant.

There are several basic methods for determining the time of ovulation. For fertility awareness to be most effective, you need to use all of these methods in combination. Check your body changes using these methods for several months before using them to avoid pregnancy. See full article at http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/fertility-awareness

Charting your fertility pattern

• While some lucky people may get pregnant almost as soon as they start trying, it takes longer for many couples. One good way of increasing your odds is to chart your menstrual cycle -- that way, you'll better understand when you have the best chance of becoming pregnant. As you go through your cycle, your body gives you all sorts of clues to indicate when it is going into ovulation. You just need to know how to look for them.

Why Bother Charting Your Menstrual Cycle?

Charting your menstrual cycle may seem like a hassle. Obviously, people have managed to get pregnant without the assistance of charts and graphs for most of human history. But by keeping track of a few different things every day, you can improve the odds of knowing when you're most fertile and becoming pregnant. Charting involves:

• Taking your basal body temperature.
• Examining your cervical mucus.
• Noting when your menstrual period began.
• Noting when you had sexual intercourse.

Knowing this information can make a difference. Although the average couple conceives after about five or six months of trying, people who know how to determine when the woman ovulates and who have sex regularly during that time can conceive in less than three or four months. Charting your menstrual cycle can make you more in touch with your body. It's also helpful if you have questions for your doctor, since he or she can see what you've been doing. Please see full article at http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/guide/charting-your-fertility-cycle

 

Basal body temperature method

 

• Take your temperature every morning for several months just after you wake up. Do it before eating, drinking, or doing any other activity. Use a special ovulation thermometer or digital thermometer that shows tenths (0.1) of a degree. Your temperature may be taken orally or rectally, but be sure to use the same location and the same thermometer each time. Leave the thermometer in place for a full 5 minutes. Record your temperature, then take clean the thermometer and put it away. Any activity can change your basal temperature. Record your temperature on a chart or graph. Ovulation usually causes your BBT to rise by 0.4°F (0.2°C) and to stay high for over a week. 

 

Calendar method

• For the calendar method, you guess your next ovulation time after recording your last few months of menstrual cycles. From the record, you guess which days of the month you are most likely to ovulate (be fertile). Your fertile days start 5 days before ovulation. This method works if your menstrual cycle is regular because then you will ovulate on a certain day of the month. But very few women have regular 28-day cycles. Even women who have regular cycles can have irregular periods from time to time. Also, a woman does not always ovulate right in the middle of her cycle and is more likely to ovulate between 9 and 17 days before her next period. So the calendar method alone is not the most effective method of guessing when you might be ovulating.

Cervical mucus method

The amount, texture, and look of mucus made by your cervix changes during your menstrual cycle. By watching, feeling, and recording this information for several cycles, you may be able to guess when you will ovulate.

• Right after your menstrual period, you will not have much cervical mucus and it is thick, cloudy, and sticky.
• Just before and during ovulation, you will have more cervical mucus and it is thin, clear, and stringy.