Ten Tips to Get to Know Your Menstrual Cycle

For women who are thinking about how to get pregnant, the very first step in the right direction is getting to know their own menstrual cycle. Few women know their own cycle well before they start trying for a baby, apart from perhaps the dates their periods are expected. Here are ten tips to help you get to know your menstrual cycle. They’ll be useful if you are trying to get pregnant, or if you hope to avoid pregnancy.

1. Track both the length of your cycle, from one period to the next, and the duration of your menstruation. With reusable menstrual cups like the Diva Cup, you can even find out exactly how much blood you lose during your period, because it is essentially a measuring cup! This might not be of help to most women, but if you are suffering from heavy periods, the information could be useful to your healthcare provider.
2. Watch out for your pre-menstrual symptoms. Some women get tired before their period starts, and many feel crampy and have tender breasts. Mood swings are also notorious. When you know what is normal for you, you might be able to identify a pregnancy before you even miss a period.
3. Cervical mucus can give you a wealth of information about your cycle. While you are ovulating, your mucus is likely to look like a raw egg white; thin and slippery. During the second half of your cycle, the so-called luteal phase, your mucus will be white and much thicker. Tracking mucus can be a natural (and free) way of determining when ovulation takes place!
4. Not every woman ovulates at the same point during her cycle. With the help of an ovulation calendar and ovulation tests, you can find out which cycle days are most likely to be ovulatory for you. After a few months, you will see a pattern emerge.
5. Did you know that your bodily temperature shoots up when you ovulate? That is why many women measure their temperature daily before they get up. This fertility-monitoring technique can help you either conceive faster, or avoid an unwanted pregnancy.
6. Ovulation symptoms can include tender breasts, tiredness, and ovulation pain and bleeding. If you are using ovulation tests, paying additional attention to what you are feeling when the test is positive can help you recognize ovulation naturally in the future.
7. The length of the luteal phase, the stage in your cycle after ovulation takes place, is important. The average length of the luteal phase is 14 days, but it varies from woman to woman. If you have a luteal phase that lasts shorter than ten days, it is called a luteal phase defect, or LPD. This means any fertilized egg hasn’t got enough time to nestle into the uterus before menstruation comes along – making it impossible to maintain pregnancy. Detecting a LPD is yet another reason to carefully monitor your cycle.
8. Don’t be worried if your cycle does not have a textbook length of 28 days – cycles do vary in length. If your period is absent sometimes, or you have highly irregular periods, getting pregnant can be more difficult. The first thing to pay attention to is whether you are actually ovulating, though.
9. Did you know that sperm can survive in the female body for up to five days? That means that doing the deed starting five days before ovulation comes along can be a sound strategy to conceive.
10. Research shows that a third of newly pregnant women experiences an implantation bleeding. This light vaginal spotting can last up to two days and occurs six to twelve days after ovulation. If you notice this, it is your very first pregnancy symptom!

Would you like to read more about fertility and how to get pregnant? Olivia’s blog Trying To Conceive is dedicated to everything from conception to baby. Image by rbmay