When do I ovulate?
It is difficult to predict when you're ovulating, but many women actually are in tune with their bodies, such that they know changes that occur. Women can go as far as to actually feel when they ovulate. I've had many patients that can describe kind of a pinging, cramping sensation that they feel in their ovary, and they can tell which side they ovulate from - the left or the right. Other women can tell by the cervical mucus; it becomes more stringy, clear and stringy. It's called spinnbarkeit. Women can sometimes predict ovulation based on that. Also, there's sometimes mood changes that people experience, and they can kind of get a sense, based on some of the other symptoms - the mucus changing and a little twinge of pain and a mood change - that they can predict when they're ovulating. But often times you can't do that, and there's some other methods that we utilize. Basal body temperature, where you can actually check your body temperature in the morning - first thing in the morning before you do anything - you wake up, you lift your head off the pillow, you grab for the thermometer and check you temperature. There are certain surges during the month that suggest ovulation; they don't promise ovulation. There are actually kits you can buy nowadays from local drugstores where you actually pee on a stick, or you can order them online as well, and you pee on a stick and it suggests when you may ovulate within a twenty-four to thirty-six hour window.
