Tracking when you ovulate can be an important part of trying to conceive. The fact of the matter is that a sperm can only fertilize an egg during ovulation. This means that there is exactly one day a month that you can get pregnant. Fortunately, sperm can live inside a woman’s body for as many as five to seven days prior to ovulation, so you don’t actually have to have intercourse on the day that you ovulate in order to conceive. Having said that, having intercourse on the day of ovulation does produce the most likelihood that you will conceive.

There are many ways to keep track of when you ovulate. You may use ovulation predictor kits (sometimes known as OPKs) to know when you are about to ovulate. You might use a saliva-based ovulation test. You may track your basal body temperature in order to watch for the spike that occurs during ovulation. Keeping record of these things from one cycle to the next is the best way to keep track of when you ovulate.

There are even software programs that can help you keep track of when you ovulate on your computer. By using your own cycle history, you can use this software to not only track when you have ovulated in the past, but to make a good guess about when you are going to ovulate again. In addition, this software will help you to know which days you will be the most fertile, and therefore which days you should have intercourse in order to conceive.

The best way to keep track of when you ovulate is probably through a combination of methods. Over several cycles, you should be able to pinpoint when it is that you are going to ovulate. Even if you have an irregular cycle length, or if your cycle varies from one month to the next, after a few cycles you should be able to make a decent guess about when you are going to ovulate using some or all of the above tools.