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Starting a family is a really exciting time for a lot of couples, but getting pregnant isn’t as easy as many of us may have thought when we were teenagers. A lot of things have to happen at the right time to result in conception.
This article is for any couple that is looking to become pregnant this year! Understanding how your body works and working with the signs it gives you can help you achieve success much faster. That is why we are breaking down the best way to track ovulation. Get ready to ditch whatever form of birth control you are on and lets have a little fun!

Key Takeaways:
- Every woman’s body is unique and menstrual periods will vary.
- Using multiple tracking methods are much more successful than trying one method alone
- There are a lots of different ways to understand your fertile window and optimize conception
Table of Contents
When is My Fertile Window?
It is important to understand what a normal ovulation cycle looks like to better understand when your fertile window occurs to optimize fertility. If you are timing sexual intercourse during your fertility window you will be much more likely to conceive during that cycle.
That fertile window is roughly 6 days every month. This is due to the life span of the sperm and a mature egg. Sperm have a much longer life span than the egg, staying alive for roughly 5 days within the body after ejaculation. The mature egg however only lives for 12-24 hour before it is reabsorbed within the body. So you are fertile for 5 days before ovulation and the day of ovulation resulting in 6 days every month.
Why is it Important to Track Your Cycle?
Seems simple right, but no woman’s cycle is the same. There are varying degrees of cycle length and when ovulation occurs during each cycle. So the methods below will help you identify your unique rhythm and how to act accordingly to increase your odds of conception naturally. It can also be helpful to prevent a pregnancy if that is something you aren’t ready for.
Another great reason to track your cycle is to identify changes that could signify a deeper health issue that you may want to address with your medical provider.
Common Signs of Ovulation
Again this will be unique to every individual. You may have all of these signs or just a few.
- Clear and sticky “egg white like” cervical mucus
- Cervical changes (higher, softer, more open, and wet)
- Incline in basal body temperature
- Bloating
- Light bleeding or spotting
- Tender breasts
- Mood changes
- Appetite changes
- Heightened sense of smell, taste, or sight
- Increased sex drive
- Minor pelvic or abdominal pain.
What are Fertility Awareness-Based Methods?
Using a fertility awareness methods of fertility tracking allows you to get to know your body more intimately and understand your typical cycle. There are many options to tracking your cycle to determine your fertile window. You can also combine methods to increase your likelihood of success.
The Calendar Method
The calendar method, also known as the rhythm method, is a very common easy to use method of tracking your fertile window. It looks at your menstrual cycle’s history to determine the best days to have sex to conceive or avoid unprotected sex if you are not ready to conceive. So how do you do it?
- Start tracking your cycle for 6-12 months to get a baseline. This means tracking the first day of your period and when the next cycle begins. If your cycle is less than 27 days this method will not be effective.
- Then find your shortest cycle. Subtract the number of days in that cycle by 18. If your shortest cycle was 26 days then, 26 -18 = 8 days. In your current cycle you will count 8 days from the first day of your period. Then mark that date with an X.
- Then find your longest cycle. Subtract the number of days in the cycle by 11. If your longest cycle was 32 days then, 32 – 11 = 21 days. In your current cycle you will count 21 days from the first day of your period. Then mark that date with an X.
- The dates in-between those two X’s are your fertile window.
During your fertile window it is best to have unprotected sex every 1-2 days for highest likelihood of conception.
Pros:
- It doesn’t require a lot of steps or complex tracking.
- Inexpensive option
- This can be an effective method when paired with other methods.
Cons:
- Need to track your period for several months before you can start using this method
- This method doesn’t work well if you have irregular menstrual cycles or cycles lasting less than 27 days.
- It cannot give you an exact fertile window, just a general suggestion for the most likely fertile days.
- Least effective method
Cervical Mucus Method
This is a great method to pair with the calendar method to verify your fertile window. Your hormones influence your cervical mucus and will change the texture and color of your mucus throughout a woman’s menstrual cycle. Through varying times of your cycle you will see:
- Dry or no cervical fluid
- Sticky like paste
- Creamy like yogurt
- Slippery stretchy and resembling raw egg whites
- Wet watery and clear in color.
When your cervical mucus is clear and slippery like an egg white it is easy for sperm to swim up to meet an egg in the fallopian tube at ovulation. This is the cervical mucus you are looking for to verify your fertile window.
Here is an example of what your cervical mucus should look like throughout your menstrual cycle based on a 28 day cycle with ovulation day on day 14:
- Day 1-4: Dry or tacky. It can be white or yellow tinged.
- Day 4-6: Sticky, slightly damp and white.
- Days 7-10: Creamy, yogurt-like consistency. Wet and cloudy.
- Days 10-14: Stretchy and resembles raw egg whites. Slippery and very wet.
- Days: 14-28: Dry until menstruation occurs.
As you can see your cervical mucus will change before ovulation so you should time your unprotected sex around that change to preload your body with sperm to increase your change of conception.
Pros:
- Inexpensive
- More accurate than the calendar method
- As a form of birth control it is between 97-99% effective at preventing an unwanted pregnancy when done correctly
Cons:
- May take several months to see a pattern and differentiate the different types of cervical mucus.
Cervical Position/Feeling
Another tracking method is to manual check your cervix. You will be assessing the position, is it soft or firm, opened or closed? This is again a method you can pair with the previous methods to increase accuracy. So how do you check your cervix:
- Wash your hands thoroughly. You do not want to introduce any bacteria as it can cause an infection. If you already have a yeast infection or UTI wait until it clears before you check your cervix.
- You will want to get into position like you are inserting a tampon or menstrual cup.
- Insert your index finger into your vagina as far as you can reach upward. Aim up and back, in the same direction you put in a tampon.
- To find your cervix you are looking for something firm. Your vagina should feel soft and spongy, but your cervix is much firmer.
- Keep track of how it feels. Is is soft or firm? What position is it is? Is it open or closed?
- Check it about the same time every day and avoid checking it after sexual intercourse as arousal can impact where your cervix is.
This takes some time and practice to get comfortable and confident with, but once you are it can be very effective in understanding your ovulation date. When you are ovulating your cervix will be at it’s softest, slightly open (if you have given birth or lost a pregnancy your cervix may always be slightly open), and often higher than usual.
Pros:
- Inexpensive
- More accurate than calendar method
Cons:
- Risk of infection
- Takes time to learn and assess accurately
- Variability if you have had a child or miscarriage.
Basal Body Temperature Tracking
Basal body temperature tracking is checking your body’s temperature when you are fully at rest. During ovulation there is typically a slight increase in basal body temperature. By tracking your BBT daily you are able to predict when you will ovulate and time your intercourse to when you’re most likely to conceive. It can also be used as a way to detect a new pregnancy, as your basal body temperature will have a rise following ovulation and a rise in that temperature lasts for about 18 days or more is often an indicator of a positive pregnancy.
There are many things that can impact your basal body temperature, such as:
- Illness/fever
- Stress
- Shift work
- Interrupted sleep cycles or oversleeping
- Alcohol
- Travel and time zone differences
- Gynecologic disorders
- Certain medications
So talk to your doctor before you try to use BBT for conception or prevention of pregnancy.
How to do it:
- You will need to get yourself a special thermometer to accurately check your BBT. Take your basal body temperature every morning before getting out of bed. You will need to get at least 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night to ensure you have an accurate reading.
- Track your readings to see a pattern emerge. You can chart this on paper or on a digital platform. If your temperature has increased by 0.5 degree F and stays steady for 3 days or more than you have likely ovulated.
- You can then plan your intercourse during those fertile days. Your most fertile days are 2 days before the rise. However, if you can remember from above your sperm can live for about 5 days in your body so you can preload prior to those fertile days.
*If you are trying to use this method to prevent pregnancy. You will need to abstain from unprotected sex from the beginning of your menstrual cycle to 3-4 days after your BBT rise.
Pros:
- Fairly inexpensive
- Requires no peeing in a cup or examining cervical fluid
Cons:
- Has to be done everyday before you get out of bed
- It only identifies the ovulation time after the fact so would be best to combine with other methods
- More extensive tracking
- Least reliable method for pregnancy prevention
Which are the Best Apps for Ovulation Tracking?
There are a variety of ovulation tracking apps with different abilities to combine with these methods and provide better data to help you conceive. They should not be used alone to provide data for when you should time intercourse, because it is just an estimate when used alone. However, they can be very helpful to understand your normal menstrual cycle, is it irregular or regular, and combined with other tracking methods can lead to a positive pregnancy test.
What are the best apps for ovulation tracking:
- Flo – you can use this app to track your period for free but has a premium paid option to get many of the added features. You can track other symptoms throughout your cycle so it can be a place to keep it all in one place. Many women continue to use it into pregnancy as it provides a lot of support and information.
- Clue – this also has a paid and free option. It can give you general information about your typical cycle length, average period length, and cycle variation. It also gives you an estimated fertile window based on the data you have input into the app.
- Cycles – is another great app to help you track your period and ovulation. You have simple and easy ways to track additional information like BBT and cervical mucus that can help you use multiple tracking methods and keep all the data in the same place. This is one of my favorite options!
Ovulation Predictor Kits
An ovulation predictor kit is a tool to predict fertility to improve your chances of conception. Ovulation kits use urine testing, like a pregnancy test, to see a rise in a hormone called luteinizing hormone, which causes the release of a mature egg. This can help you predict the most fertile days of your cycle to increase your chances of conception. To make your time most worthwhile it is great to pair this with a calendar tracking method or use a cycle tracking app to help your determine when to start testing. Once you have determined roughly your fertile window you will start testing on that first day of your window:
- Collect a urine sample at the same time everyday.
- Take the ovulation test strips and insert one test strip into the sample (follow the directions for that particular brand for how long to leave it in the sample).
- Take the strip out and allow it to sit for as long as recommended.
- There will be a control line on the strip to compare your test to. If the test line is equal to the control line or darker you are having an LH surge and will ovulate in the next 24-36 hours.
Always check your package instructions to ensure that you are following your products directions.
Pros:
- Fairly easy to use
- Helps you time sex to preload your body with sperm before ovulation happens.
Cons:
- Can become expensive
- Results are not always clear
- Not 100% accurate
- Can’t confirm that ovulation occurred
Fertility Monitors
Some of these options above might still feel overwhelming for you and even a little messy. A fertility monitor may be a better option for you if that is the case. I’ve rounded up some of the best and most popular fertility monitors to choose from:
- OvuSense – Works with all cycle types including PCOS and other irregular cycles. It is FSA/HSA eligible and has a 99% correct in-cycle ovulation prediction and 99% accuracy for confirming ovulation. You insert the monitor into your vagina each night and take it out in the morning (much like a tampon) to sync the data in the morning to the Ovusense app. It confirms ovulation and then displays your most fertile days. It comes with different payment options from a 1 time fee $399, an annual fee $279, or a monthly fee $35 (w/ $99 up front fee) that you can cancel when you get pregnant or want to stop.
- Daysy – is a smarter version of the basal body temperature method for determining fertility. It gives you a red light when you are fertile or possibly fertile and a green light when you are not fertile. Just like the basal body temperature you wake up measure your temperature under your tongue. It connects to a free app that you can insert your menstrual dates, and from those daily temperature readings and cycle data will give you a simple easy to understand yes or no, with a 99% accuracy rating.
- Tempdrop – If remembering to take your temperature is too much for you before you get out of bed this may be a better choice for you. You wear this simple device on your upper arm while you sleep. It continuously monitors your data so you don’t have to get up at the same time everyday to check your temperature. It is HSA/FSA eligible and FDA approved was to track your basal body temperature for natural family planning or timing intercourse for conception.
- Ava – is a basal body temperature method of tracking that also includes some other data points to ensure you time intercourse for conception. It also takes into account your heart rate, heart rate variability, breathing rate, sleep quality, and skin perfusion to better understand your body and your cycle. You simply wear this simple bracelet when you go to bed at night and wake up and sync the data, similar to many of the other fertility monitors. It then allows you to identify 5 out of the 6 most fertile days per cycle. it’s that simple.
- Kegg – is a insertable device that tracks cervical mucus. Cervical mucus is often a more accurate way of tracking fertility than urine tests, calendars, or temperature tracking. It is a one time cost with a free app that will increase your chances of conception. You simply place it in your vagina around the same time every day. You will hear two beeps to let you know when it starts taking data and when it is complete (takes roughly 2 minutes). Then it will connect the data to the free app. The data then helps you determine when you are most likely to conceive. You can also track additional data on the same app if you want to use this in addition to other methods.
- Mira – uses urine hormone concentrations to predict the time of ovulation and your most fertile days. It checks 4 hormone levels: LH (to predict ovulation), E3G (to identify your full fertile window), PdG (to confirm ovulation happened during your cycle), and FSH (to know if your body’s fertility is healthy). Similar to pregnancy tests you will take a simple strip and dip it into a urine sample daily and insert it into the Mira device. That then uploads your data in an easy to read format to give you the optimal time for conception.
How Do I Track Ovulation in Special Circumstances?
Now very few women have the regular 28-day cycle, but have something very similar. There is however a growing number of women that have situations that could affect their cycles to cause them to be irregular. In those cases you can’t rely on many of the above tracking options. This can be so frustrating for women with irregular cycles trying to conceive and having no success. Understanding the best time to conceive with an “irregular cycle” may require using multiple tracking methods.
Irregular Cycles
If you are someone that has irregular cycles this may be an indication that there is a deeper medical issue going on such as PCOS, endometriosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, thyroid disorders, uterine or ovarian cancers, or bleeding disorders. If this is the case consider consulting with your medical provider to determine if there are any underlying conditions you need to address before continuing on the path to conception. This issues might affect your ability to become pregnant or impact the health of your pregnancy.
PCOS
PCOS is a common issue that impacts the ability to get pregnant for women that have irregular periods. Polycystic ovarian syndrome is when you body’s reproductive hormones are out of wack and often you have too much androgen. This causes you to have very irregular periods. With PCOS you have several small fluid filled cysts around your ovaries of immature follicles that sometimes fail to release a mature egg. Therefore you may not be ovulating with every period decreasing your chances of conception.
If you have PCOS you can still use many of the options listed above to track your cycle, but you may need to use multiple methods to ensure that you are in fact ovulating with every cycle and using cervical mucus and BBT to determine when to time sexual intercourse to increase your chances of success. Learn more about how PCOS can affect your ability to conceive, through pregnancy, and delivery.
Miscarriage
Your first day of your next period is when the bleeding starts from your miscarriage. Ovulation can occur as soon as 2 weeks after a miscarriage. You can try to track your menstrual cycle based on previous data, but it is likely that the length of your menstrual cycle and ovulation time may vary for the first several months. Your hormones are still trying to regulate after the pregnancy loss. Take all these things into consideration as you move forward with your family planning.
Some women may choose to take those first few months to mentally, emotionally, and physically recover from the miscarriage and you should! That time frame will look different for everyone. Some may choose to wait 6 or more months while others are ready to start trying again after one cycle. The WHO recommends waiting a minimum of 6 months but my OBGYN and many other providers recommend waiting at least one cycle and trying again soon thereafter. There is some recent research that supports that your body is more fertile shortly after a miscarriage.
Breastfeeding
If you are trying to conceive while still breastfeeding it can indeed affect your ability to conceive. Breastfeeding exclusively in the first 6 months often inhibits your regular cycle and prevents ovulation. This is natures way of allowing ourselves to heal and recover before getting pregnant again.
Typically after 6 months it is no longer an effective form of birth control and your ability to get pregnant increases. However, if you still haven’t had a period, how do you track your ovulation or encourage your cycle to return? You can find actionable tips to increase your ability to conceive while breastfeeding. You will likely get back to regular periods shortly after 6 months when your baby starts sleeping longer stretches at night and starts eating solid foods. Remember, you can get pregnant before your first period as you may ovulate prior to that first cycle day.
Final Thoughts
Trying to conceive can be very challenging mentally and emotionally. Every month that your period returns can be heartbreaking when you are trying to start your family. The best thing you can do is understand your options, choose a method that works for you and your situation, and try to make it fun. Stress impacts your likelihood of conception so try to ease some of the tension. You now have all the information you need to support you through this process and I wish you great success. Here’s to many positive home pregnancy tests!!

Jess is a registered nurse with over 6+ years of critical care experience for patients young and old and is the mother of two small children. After having her own children she felt inspired to provide mothers with real actionable guidance and education to make informed decisions throughout their pregnancy and postpartum experience.
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