How to know when you ovulate

Why knowing your ovulation time is so important for you? Because this is a period when you are most fertile. Your ovary releases the ripest egg into the fallopian tube for fertilization. If you want a child, ovulation tells you when to go for baby making sex. For detection of your ovulation time try the following:

• Try to find out the length of your menstrual cycle. When you start menstruating, it is the first day of the cycle. Count all the days till the next month when you are having your periods again.
• But watching out for just two consecutive periods will not help you much. To get a better idea, keep the records of your menstrual cycles for few months. This will provide you a better idea of your average menstruation period. Suppose your cycle lasts for 30 days. Subtract 14 days from this cycle. It means you will ovulate on 16th day after the first day of your menstruation. So your partner and you can plan sex (or not to have sex) around these days.
• Counting days will not be of much help to you if your periods are fairly irregular. And subtracting 14 days from the first day of your period is not an accurate yardstick. Sometimes your period dates alter due to stress, emotional upheaval, medicines or hormonal changes. Under these circumstances you can resort to ovulation tests. They can pinpoint the ovulation period for you.
• You can try another method for ovulation. You can note down your BBT (Basal Body Temperature) everyday. After ovulation the hormonal surge in your body increases your temperature between 0.5 to 1.6 degrees. This increased temperature lasts till your next menstruation. But BBT tells you when you have already ovulated. This situation compels you to make a chart of your BBT for several months to develop an accurate pattern for your ovulation period.
• Increase in cervical mucus, slight swelling in breasts and pain in lower abdominal area are some other tell tale signs that you are ovulating.