Getting Pregnant: What You Need to Know
To achieve a pregnancy, it helps to understand your menstrual cycle and time intercourse accordingly. Arming yourself with the right information can make your efforts more successful.

Your Menstrual Cycle: An Overview
Each woman is born with all the eggs her body will ever have; some estimates suggest a woman may have up to 450,000 eggs when she is born. These eggs are stored in the ovaries, inside of individual sacs called follicles. At puberty, a young women’s body begins producing hormones that cause the egg to mature and ovulate from the ovaries monthly, this in turn causes the menstrual cycle.

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Every month, your ovaries begin to mature a number of follicles during days 1–14, known as the follicular phase. With each cycle, the number of active follicles can vary, but normally only one follicle per month becomes dominant over the others, so usually just one egg completely matures. When the follicles mature, estrogen levels rise. As you approach mid-cycle, the pituitary gland releases LH (luteinizing hormone), which causes the dominant follicle to ovulate.

The next phase, the luteal phase, occurs form ovulation until menses, days 14–28; during this time, estrogen levels begin to fall and progesterone levels rise. Ovulation usually occurs around day 14, but this can vary from person to person. At this time, the follicle releases the dominant egg, which is drawn into the fallopian tube on its way to the uterus. The ovulation process leads to a host of hormonal secretions, including estrogen and progesterone, to thicken the uterine lining in preparation for a pregnancy. If fertilization does not occur, your body sheds the extra lining, which results in your period.

Short movie about the female reproductive cycle at Fertility Lifelines

For Conception, Timing is Everything
Because a woman is only fertile for about 24–48 hours around the time of ovulation, having intercourse during that window plays a crucial role in conceiving a child. Many fertility experts recommend that you have sex every other day right before and right after ovulation. For example, if a woman has a 28 day cycle and she ovulates on day 14, her most fertile time would fall between days 10 to 17 of her cycle. However, every woman’s body is different; the key to getting pregnant is discovering the length of your own cycle so that you can determine the approximate time of ovulation.

How to Predict Ovulation
Figuring out exactly when you ovulate can be a challenge. Several tools exist to help you with this task, but none of these methods is 100 percent accurate.

Charting Your Cycle
Although this method is simple, it can also be the least effective. The average menstrual cycle is 28 days, beginning on the first day of a regular flow. Ovulation usually occurs between days 10 to 17, but many women have shorter or longer cycles.

Taking Your Basal Body Temperature
An easy and inexpensive way to determine when you ovulate is to monitoring your basal body temperature. This involves taking your temperature each morning and charting the numbers. Your temperature will be lower before your ovaries release the egg and higher after ovulation. Documenting your temperature each month will tell you if ovulation has occurred and help you time intercourse at the best time in your cycle. Because your basal body temperature only indicates that ovulation has happened, some women utilize this tool and monitor their cervical mucus so that they can determine when ovulation is approaching.

Monitoring Your Cervical Mucus
Checking your cervical mucus throughout your cycle enables you to become familiar with your body, empowering you to understand your cycle and boost the odds for a pregnancy. Just before you ovulate, the cervical mucus changes to create a better environment for the sperm and recognizing this difference helps you identify when you are about to ovulate.

In general, cervical mucus follows this pattern:

Dry or sticky in the early cycle
Creamy as you prepare to ovulation
Wet as ovulation gets close
Raw egg white consistency immediately before you ovulate; indicates the best time for intercourse to facilitate conception
Dry or sticky in after you ovulate

Using Ovulation Predictor Kits
Available at any drug store, ovulation predictor kits will measure increases in your luteinizing hormone (LH) level and can usually predict ovulation 24 to 36 hours before it occurs. Detecting the LH surge allows you to time intercourse close to ovulation, increases the chances of becoming pregnant.
Watching Your Body’s Signs
Some women experience changes in their bodies around the time of ovulation, including breast tenderness, spotting, and/or one-sided pain or cramping in abdomen near an ovary.