Fertility and Pregnancy

Timing Intercourse to Get Pregnant

When is the best time to have intercourse for fertility and pregnancy? To many couples trying to conceive this is a huge question. Myth has it that you have intercourse on day 13, 14 and 15 to get pregnant. But myths aren’t always right. Truth is each woman’s cycle is different and ovulation can occur at any point from day 6 on.

Hormones are responsible for when ovulation occurs each cycle. The reproductive hormones are:

• Estrogen
• Follicle-stimulating Hormone or FSH
• Luetenizing Hormone or LH
• Progesterone

These hormones play an important role in what happens during the fertility and pregnancy cycle. Illness, mental and physical well being and stress also can hinder the ovulation process. The body can attempt several times to ovulate and any of these can come up and halt the process altogether.

You can pinpoint ovulation if you chart your fertility signs. Charting the basal body temperature, cervical fluid and cervical position are the most effective way of knowing exactly when ovulation happens.

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When you determine the time ovulation is to occur you should be having sexual intercourse on the days before and the day of ovulation. Just to make doubly sure it’s advisable to have intercourse for up to 3 days past the point where you see the rise in your basal body temperatures.

The only exception to this is if your partner has a low sperm count. In this case you need to have sexual intercourse every other day to insure he has a good amount of sperm built up. If his sperm count is normal it’s okay to have sex every day.

If you become pregnant, you may have symptoms to let you know that pregnancy has been established. Around 4 to 12 days post ovulation you may experience implantation spotting. This happens when the fertilized egg burrows into the uterine lining. Not all women experience this. You may notice a cramping sensation during this. You may see your basal body temperature take a dip – then rise up to a third level. Again, these are possibilities and not every women will experience these. For a lot of women early pregnancy symptoms can also be PMS. Thus is can be hard to determine pregnancy for certain before you see that positive pregnancy test.

Around 10 days post ovulation you can possibly receive a positive result from a sensitive home pregnancy test. This will prove that you timed sexual intercourse for fertility and pregnancy correctly. But keep in mind that some women may not test positive until up to 17 days post ovulation. Some may see a positive as early as 8 days post ovulation. This all depends on when implantation took place and how much hCG (the hormone detected in the pregnancy tests) is being produced. If you chart your fertility signs, you can assume you are pregnant if you go one day past your longest luteal phase (the time from ovulation to menstruation). Again, this is not carved in stone. The best proof is the positive pregnancy test and missed period.