How To Identify Ovulation

What is it, and how do I know when I'm ovulating?

There’s a massive transition happening where people are beginning to realize the importance of their menstrual cycle for their health and well-being. People everywhere are ditching their hormonal contraception to reunite themselves with their natural cycles and take back control of their health and fertility. 

Did you know that hormonal contraception is so effective because it prevents women & people with cycles from ovulating?

In fact, many of us are told that hormonal contraception is regulating our cycle when in fact it’s actually shutting down the communication between our brain and our ovaries to prevent ovulation.

Ovulation is when the egg leaves the ovary. In the first half of the cycle, the brain uses hormones to tell the ovaries to ripen the follicles that house our eggs. As the follicles grow, they release estrogen. Eventually, a follicle in a random ovary will secrete enough estrogen to trigger ovulation and release it’s egg. The follicle, now eggless, transforms into the corpus luteum. The corpus luteum releases progesterone. The progesterone prevents ovulation from happening again until the whole cycle starts over with menstruation.

Why Is it Important to Identify Ovulation?

Ovulation is the main event of your menstrual cycle. It’s what drives your whole cycle and is the first indication of a healthy cycle. 

Ovulation divides the cycle into the Preovulatory Phase and Postovulatory Phase. (Luteal Phase)

A healthy Postovulatory Phase is consistently the same number of days from cycle to cycle.

so once you learn how to determine your post-ovulatory phase by identifying ovulation, you will know when to expect your period and have a great biofeedback tool for your health. 

Identifying ovulation is an important part of understanding when you’re fertile and when you’re not so you can confidently avoid or achieve pregnancy without the use of synthetic hormones.

Fertility awareness is a life skill that people can learn to understand their unique cycle of ovulation and menstruation. It involves tuning into your body and paying attention to the signs that are happening every day. These signs, or biomarkers, include cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and cervical position. 

How to Identify Ovulation

1.

Peak Day

One way of identifying ovulation is to identify Peak Day. Peak Day is the last day of peak-type cervical mucus, followed by a “Count-of-3” during which there are no peak-type cervical mucus observations present at the vulva. Peak-type cervical mucus is any cervical mucus that is clear, stretchy (stretches past an inch), or lubricative.

A common error people make is to call the day of the most amount of mucus Peak Day or ovulation. However, in this case, it’s not the quantity but the quality that counts. Any one of the three peak-type characteristics (clear, stretchy, or lubricative) in any combination or amount determines peak-type mucus. 

An important factor in identifying Peak Day or ovulation is the abrupt change in the cervical mucus from peak-type back to a non-peak mucus (any mucus that is not clear or stretchy or lubricative) or dry (no mucus). This change is caused by high levels of progesterone that rise dramatically after ovulation. 

The next time you’re using the bathroom, fold your toilet paper into a square, wipe from front to back and notice the sensation you feel. Then observe the toilet paper for cervical mucus. If you see any, pick it up between your fingers and pay attention to the consistency and the colour. Make a habit of doing this before and after you go (#1 and #2!) and note your observations at the end of the night. Do this every day to identify your Peak Day!

2.

BBT Shift

The second way to identify ovulation is with a sustained basal body temperature (BBT) shift. The BBT remains at the lower level until ovulation, when it rises to about 0.2 °C (0.36 °F) or more. The rise usually takes place abruptly between one day and the next and usually corresponds with Peak Day or up to 2 days before or 3 days after. The temperature remains high until the next menstruation.

Your BBT is your temperature at rest. So in order to record it, you have to take your temperature every day first thing in the morning before you get out of bed. You’ll want to take it after 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep, around the same time each morning. For an accurate BBT reading, put a glass thermometer under your arm or in your mouth for 10 minutes or use a digital BBT thermometer but wait to press the on button after the 10 minutes. 

So, set those snooze alarms, folks! Here’s your permission to stay an extra 10 minutes in bed!

3.

Change in Cervical Position

Change in cervical position is another way you can confirm ovulation. Detecting and charting cervical changes is particularly useful for people with very long or irregular cycles, who are breastfeeding or perimenopausal, or recently off hormonal contraception.

Your cervix is the gateway between your vagina and your uterus. It’s the lower portion, or the neck, of your uterus and protrudes out into your vagina. If you squat and insert your longest finger into your vagina, you’ll feel it at the very end. It feels like a little grape with a dimple on it. 

Generally, the cervix is soft (like your lips), tilted toward the opening of the vagina, and open when you’re in your fertile time. Once ovulation has occurred, the cervix will change back to feeling firm (like the tip of your nose), tilted back toward the rectum, and closed. It’s important to focus on how these changes relate to your personal experience since we’re all different. My advice is to focus on one or two of these characteristics that are obvious to you. 

So before you go to bed tonight after you’ve done your last cervical mucus check for the day and washed your hands, go ahead and see how your cervix feels!

4.

Physical and Emotional Signs

Paying attention to physical and emotional signs can also be helpful in identifying ovulation. 

Some women experience abdominal pain during ovulation called mittelschmerz (German for middle pain). It can feel like acute, stabbing pain near the ovaries or a dull ache in the abdominals or lower back and may last from a few minutes to several hours. 

Ovulatory bleeding can also accompany ovulation. The bleeding usually only lasts one or two days and is a slight reddish/brownish spotting sometimes staining your cervical mucus. 

Emotional signs during ovulation might include increased libido and increased energy. Then following ovulation you may experience a shift in interest toward low-key or introspective activities and a melancholy or reflective mood. 

All of us will have our own unique physical and emotional signs so I encourage you to notice and jot down which ones you experience.

5.

True Menstruation

The final way to confirm ovulation is with a true menstruation! A true menstruation is a bleeding event that follows ovulation. The bleeding will start off medium or heavy and follow a decrescendo pattern until it tapers off. It’s a bright red wine or cranberry colour, lasts 4 to 7 days, and is 30 ml in total on the lighter side and up to 60 ml or more on the heavier side.

The observation of one or more of the previous 4 signs followed by the appearance of menstruation within 10  to 16 days is a clear indication that ovulation occurred. 

You will start to develop the confidence in identifying ovulation once you repeatedly experience these signs followed by your variation of a Post-Ovulatory (Luteal Phase) and menstruation. 

Are you ready to chart and identify ovulation confidently?

Book a free 30 min session with me and let’s talk!