Healthy living

A very good way to find out when you are going to ovulate is with the use of a fertility calculator. Unlike regular calculators, fertility calculators are wonderfully cheap and natural way to track your ovulation is with a plain calendar and knowledge of your own body. Also, there are many helpful websites available online that will calculate this for you. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.

There’s only a short window of time to conceive in your cycle, so fertility calculators offer a simple way to target your conception efforts to reach your goal of getting pregnant fast.

So, how do you use a fertility calculator to get pregnant? Whether or not you decide to do it yourself with a calendar or use software available online, you will still need to know some very important dates and numbers. Most fertility calculators online ask you 2-3 questions and these questions are straight forward they must be accurate to calculate ovulation correctly.

You’re most likely to be asked when your last period started, the number of days in your menstrual cycle and sometimes these calculators want to know information about your luteal phase.

Hopefully, you’ll be taking records of your menstrual cycle (this is important if you’re planning on getting pregnant) so it will be pretty easy to use the calc program. The cycle length is worked out by counting the days in between each period, so that’s no big deal for you.

Figuring out your luteal phase can be a little tricky. Most women have never heard of a luteal phase, let alone know when it occurs. If you don’t know this at first it is okay, a good rule of thumb is 14 days. The luteal phase is the time between ovulation and the beginning of your next period; usually lasting 10-16 days with 14 being the average.

The good news is there are not many sites that ask for this information; most fertility calculators only ask for the first day of your last period and the amount of days in your cycle.

The ultra low tech way to get your fertile dates is to use your diary or pda, and enter your cycle start dates as a diary entry. Then, all you need to do is subtract 14 from the predicted date of your next period, and voila - you have an ovulation date. Of course, this is not accurate, so assume you might be fertile + or - a couple of days of that date.

To get best results, combine the use of a fertility calculations with charting your basal body temperature and identifying when this rises, keeping notes of changes in the way you feel mid-cycle, and checking your cervical mucus every day.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in increasing your chances to conceive. There’s so much information I want to share with you, but there isn’t enough space on this article! You can combine the use of your fertility calculator with other natural fertility techniques, so you can get pregnant in the shortest time possible.