3 Easy Ways to Predict When You Are Ovulating

If you’re trying to get pregnant, you need to predict when you’re ovulating. These three ways to predict ovulation are easy and effective – and they don’t involve stretching your cervical mucus between your fingers!

“Ever notice that sometimes your underwear is really wet and sticky?” write Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel in What to Expect Before You’re Expecting. “It’s your cervical mucus at work…it reflects the normal hormonal ups and downs of your cycle, which you can use to help you pinpoint ovulation day.”

Click on What to Expect Before You’re Expecting to learn more about how to get pregnant, and read on for easy ways to predict when you’re ovulating…

3 Easy Ways to Predict When You Are Ovulating

Saliva Tests. Saliva tests predict when you’re ovulating by monitoring the levels of estrogen in your system (estrogen rises before ovulation, before the LH surge). By tracking estrogen, you’ll get an early indication of when ovulation will occur – which increases your chances of getting pregnant.

Before you eat, drink, or brush your teeth in the morning, you’ll dab a bit of saliva on the lens of the saliva test. When it’s dry, you’ll look at it with the test’s eyepiece. “When you’re about to ovulate, your saliva will reveal a microscopic pattern that resembles the leaves of a fern plant or the frost on a window pane,” write Murkoff and Mazel. “The rest of the time, you’ll just see random dots. Once you see your fern, get ready to start baby dancing!”

Click on the OvuLite Saliva Ovulation Predict for more info.

Fertility Monitors. Fertility monitors predict when you are ovulating by testing for both LH and estrogen in your urine, giving you a six day window of fertility opportunity. This is lots of time to get pregnant – many ovulation tests only give you a 24-36 hour advance prediction of optimal conception time.

You can start with your fertility monitor from day one of your period. So, you’ll test your urine until the monitor tells you when it’s time to start using the urine test strips (they come with the package). “When you get the heads-up signal from the monitor, you’ll pee on the test strip, insert it into the monitor, and wait for the monitor to indicate whether your fertility status that day is high, low, or at its peak,” write Murkoff and Mazel in What to Expect Before You’re Expecting.

Click on the Clearble Fertility Monitor for more info — I used (and liked) the Clearblue Ovulation Predictor Kits, myself!

Ovulation Predictor Kits. This is probably the least expensive, most common way to predict when you’re ovulating: I describe them fully in How Ovulation Predictor Kits Work.

For more info on fertility treatments that don’t involve infertility clinics, read An At-Home Fertility Treatment.  And, Early Pregnancy Tests.com also has a wide variety of Ovulation Predictor Kits, fertility monitors, and test strips.

If you have any thoughts or questions on these easy ways to predict when you are ovulating, I welcome you below!