Preconception Basics – Three Basic Fertility Rules

How can you increase your chances of conceiving quickly? By following a few basic fertility rules, you can greatly increase your chances of getting pregnant in the shortest amount of time possible. According to statistics, 50% of couples will conceive within the first six cycles of trying, and about 85% of couples will conceive within the first 12 cycles of trying. When it comes to trying to conceive, the old saying that "Timing is everything" holds true.

The first basic fertility rule is learning how to count a woman's cycle days. This is actually very easy to do, and is needed for the fertility rules that follow. For a woman to count her cycle days, she must first understand which day of her cycle is day one. The first day of a woman's cycle is the first day of actual menstrual flow, not spotting, no matter what time of the day it starts.

The next basic fertility rule is learning how to recognize a woman's most fertile days, or the days leading up to and the day of ovulation. Women should not rely on the myth that all women ovulate on cycle day 14, as this is just not always the case. If you have been timing intercourse for cycle day 14 and have not yet conceived, then there is a very good chance that you do not ovulate on day 14. You could ovulate earlier or later in your cycle.

To determine when a woman is most fertile, there are three things you can do. You can spend money on a lot of ovulation prediction tests, you can chart all of your fertility signs (cervical fluid, cervical position, and basal body temperature) or you can keep track of your cervical fluid and make note of any mittelschmerz or ovulation pain. The easiest to do is the ovulation prediction tests, but to be as accurate as possible, you will need to test twice a day for up to two weeks depending on your cycle length.

To properly use ovulation prediction tests, a woman should know how long her cycle is, and use the following as a guideline for testing. For a woman with a 24 to 26 day cycle, testing should be started on day 8 of the new cycle and should occur between 8 and 10 in the morning, and again between 5 and 7 in the evening. Testing should continue each day until a strong positive result is seen on the test. Once the strong positive result is seen, ovulation should occur within the next 24 to 36 hours.

For a woman with a 28 to 32 day cycle, testing should be started on day 10 of the new cycle. A woman with a longer cycle of between 34 and 36 days should start testing on day 14 of her new cycle. If a woman has a cycle that is longer than 36 days, testing should be started on cycle day 14 and continue until a strong positive result is seen, which could take two weeks or more of twice a day testing. Testing should always be done twice a day, as it is easy to miss the lutenizing hormone surge that signals ovulation is about to take place if a woman only tests once a day.

Now that the first two basic fertility rules for conceiving quickly have been explained, we can finish with the last basic fertility rule, correctly timing intercourse for conception. This does not mean that intercourse should only happen when a woman is most fertile, far from it. What it does mean is that the couple should be particularly aware of when a woman is most fertile and make sure that intercourse happens during that window of opportunity.

For the best chances at conceiving, if the man has normal or better fertility, intercourse can happen every day of the fertile window. For a man with low or sub-fertility, intercourse will need to be better timed and should happen no more often than every other day, but no fewer than every three days, making sure that the day of ovulation is one of the days when intercourse occurs.

By following these three basic fertility rules, you can increase your chances of conceiving quickly, up to as much as 30% each cycle. Most couples that follow these basic rules conceive within the first four to eight cycles of trying versus the average of six to twelve cycles.

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