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You can also check cervical position. Close to the time of ovulation the cervix becomes softer, moves higher, and opens up. After ovulation it moves back down and becomes hard and closed. Wash your hands before checking your cervix.
Another way to monitor fertility, and an expensive one, is ovulation predictor kits (OPK's) They have become the rage for women trying to conceive. A kit usually contains about 5 tests and costs $15 or more. You use one a day around the time you expect ovulation to occur. They look much like pregnancy tests. You dip the stick in your urine and lay it in the counter and wait for the results.You will see a control line show up as the urine moves across the window. You will also see a second line, called the test line, as ovulation approaches. An ovulation predictor test differs from pregnancy tests in that with a pregnancy test even a faint test line is positive and indicates that HCG has been detected and you are likely pregnant. With OPK's the test line needs to be as dark or darker than the control line to show that ovulation is imminent. I found OPK's to be a waste of money. I have irregular cycles and so I could easily run 10-15 of these per cycle before I got a positive. It was draining my pocket book using these each month and I found it much easier to keep a temperature chart, and monitor other signs that ovulation was approaching. Not using OPK's left some of the fun and spontinaity in doing the baby dance since I wasn't quite sure when the egg was going to arrive. Of course using the saliva detector is much cheaper and easier to use so why waste your money.
Check out FertilityFriend.com. Fertilityfriend.com allows you to record your temperature every day. It also asks you what your cervical position is as well as what your mucus is like (you can choose not monitor those if it makes you feel uncomfortable) among other questions. It will tell you when you are fertile each cycle, when to test for pregnancy, it will alert you to signs that you may be pregnant, when the baby will be due, along with other valuable information. I have charted on paper (which works very well too) for years and I still learned new things on fertilityfriend. You get 30 days free so try it at the beginning of a new cycle. By the end you'll have a much better understanding of your fertility. If you decide to continue with on-line charting you are offered a membership at $10 a month, $25 for 90 days or $45 for indefinite use. You can continue to use it free but with less options. It's fun and you'll learn a lot. BabyMed.com provides a similar free service.
© Karen Squires
Credits: Family Content
