As a kinesiologist who uses natural remedies to help women get pregnant, I always recommend you use some form of fertility calculator to short-cut the time it takes you to get pregnant. They’re actually not very difficult to use and at the end of this article, I’ll show you a way to calculate your most fertile days for free.
There’s only a short window of time to conceive in your cycle, so fertility calculators offer a simple way to target your conception efforts to reach your goal of getting pregnant fast.
So, how do you use a fertility calculator to get pregnant? Whether or not you decide to do it yourself with a calendar or use software available online, you will still need to know some very important dates and numbers. Most fertility calculators online ask you 2-3 questions and these questions are straight forward they must be accurate to calculate ovulation correctly.
The questions are: first day of your last period, days in your cycle and average luteal phase.
Hopefully, you’ll be taking records of your menstrual cycle (this is important if you’re planning on getting pregnant) so it will be pretty easy to use the calc program. The cycle length is worked out by counting the days in between each period, so that’s no big deal for you.
Figuring out your luteal phase can be a little tricky. Most women have never heard of a luteal phase, let alone know when it occurs. If you don’t know this at first it is okay, a good rule of thumb is 14 days. The luteal phase is the time between ovulation and the beginning of your next period; usually lasting 10-16 days with 14 being the average.
Fortunately it’s quite rare to be asked about the luteal phase, as the majority of programs will only want to know the date your period started and your cycle length.
The ultra low tech way to get your fertile dates is to use your diary or pda, and enter your cycle start dates as a diary entry. Then, all you need to do is subtract 14 from the predicted date of your next period, and voila – you have an ovulation date. Of course, this is not accurate, so assume you might be fertile + or – a couple of days of that date.
If you want to incorporate the luteal phase in your calculation, then monitor the daily changes in your cervical mucus as well as your BBT. These two basic pieces of information can really help the accuracy of your fertility calculation.
There are tips and tricks to realizing when you are ovulating which I explain on my website and books. Once you become more in-tune with your body using a fertility calculator to get pregnant will be as easy as 123!