Trying to conceive isn’t always as easy as it sounds. For many couples, it can take months or even years of trying before they are able to become pregnant. However, there are things that you can do to track your fertility so that you can optimize your chances for success.

One of the ways that you can track your fertility to help conceive your baby is by tracking changes in your cervical mucus and your basal body temperature. It is important before you start charting your cervical mucus to know what exactly it is that you are looking for. During your monthly cycle, your cervical mucus can change greatly in its color, its consistency, and in its volume. When you are ovulating, you will have the most cervical mucus. The cervical mucus should be about the same texture and have a similar appearance to an egg white; at this stage, it is often referred to as “egg-white cervical mucus.” This is the time, during ovulation, when you are most likely to become pregnant.

By checking your cervical mucus each day, you can help to figure out exactly where in your cycle you are. By charting changes in your cervical mucus for several months, you can get a pretty good idea of exactly how many days from the end of your period that you will ovulate, and thereby determine when is the best time for conception.

Many women combine charting changes in their cervical mucus with charting basal body temperature. Basal body temperature refers to the temperature of your body the first thing in the morning. Using a Basal thermometer, you can check your temp in the morning before you get out of bed. A Basal thermometer will monitor small changes in temperature that a regular thermometer will not measure. When you are ovulating, you will notice a temperature spike that will probably last until your next period. By combining a BBT chart with your cervical mucus chart, you can increase your chances for conception.

Another way that you can track your fertility to help yourself conceive is through the use of fertility monitors. Fertility monitors, such as Clearblue, allow you to be able to track and identify when exactly it is that you are ovulating during your monthly cycle.

Fertility monitors look for something known as Luteinizing hormone, or LH for short. Luteinizing hormone is always present in a woman’s system. However, around 24 to 48 hours before you ovulate, your body will experience a surge in your LH levels. It is this surge of LH levels that actually triggers your ovaries to release an egg, and for you to ovulate. When you are ovulating is, obviously, the time of your cycle that you are most fertile, and when you are most likely to be able to conceive.

Fertility monitors are somewhere around 99% accurate when it comes to detecting this LH surge. If you are monitoring ovulation for several days, and there has been no LH surge, it is likely that you have not ovulated. If this is the case, you will probably want to use another fertility monitoring kit to watch for the time when you do ovulate.

Once a fertility monitor detects the LH surge, the rest is up to you and your partner. The best time to try to conceive is the three days right after you get a positive test on a fertility monitor. However, just because you ovulate and because you try to conceive while you are ovulating does not guarantee that you will become pregnant. It can take some couples several months of trying to conceive using a fertility monitor before they are able to become pregnant.

There are several factors that can create an inaccurate fertility monitor result. If you are pregnant or have recently become pregnant, obviously, you will not be ovulating. The same is true if you have reached menopause. Some fertility medications, such as Clomid or Pergonal, can affect the results as well, and you should talk with your health care provider about timing your fertility monitor in relation to these medications.

By combining tracking methods, you might be able to conceive sooner rather than later.