Once you have a positive ovulation test, you will need to have intercourse with the next 24 hours to maximize your chances of getting pregnant. At this point, you may be very tempted to take a pregnancy test to see if the sperm fertilized the egg or not. Unfortunately, you do have to wait at, very least, a little over week before your body will have produced enough hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) to be detectable by a home pregnancy test.

Before you see are able to get a positive pregnancy test result, several things need to occur. The fertilized egg will travel down to the fallopian tube to the uterus. Once in the uterus, the egg will implant into the uterus wall. At this time, you may see some bloody spotting, which is called “implantation bleeding”. This does not occur with every woman. The journey from the time the egg is fertilized until it implants in the uterus is usually about 6 to 12 days. After the fertilized egg has implanted, hCG (the pregnancy hormone) production starts.

For couples, who have been trying to get pregnant for a while, it can seem like sheer agony waiting for the start of their period to take a pregnancy test. This waiting period is commonly referred to as the “Two Week Wait”. There are pregnancy tests out there that will allow you to test before your period is due, however, waiting is still the most accurate way to determine if you are pregnant or not.

The best practice is to wait until period is due to start or even wait until your period is late. The highly sensitive pregnancy tests on the market do make it quite difficult to wait when you feel you have been waiting so long anyway. If you do decide to take one of these tests and it comes back negative, keep in mind you may have tested too soon or that you did not have enough of the pregnancy hormone, hCG, in your body to result in a positive test. On the other hand, you may not be pregnant after all and the test is letting you know that early on.

If you just CAN’T WAIT, there are many home pregnancy tests on the market which may quench your desire to test earlier than recommended. Typically, the pregnancy tests on the market now will detect between the range of 20 mIU to about 50 mIU. If you are pregnant, the hCG in your urine will usually be about 25 mIU around 4 days before your period is due, about 11 days after your positive ovulation predictor test. This, of course, depends on when your fertilized egg actually implanted. Whether or not the pregnancy tests shows a positive at the 25 mIU level will depend on the sensitivity of the pregnancy test you are using.

If you have an unlimited supply of money, you could take a pregnancy test every day from about 8 days after your got positive ovulation test until you either get a positive result or your period comes. If you are on a budget, you can find inexpensive dip strip pregnancy tests online that will allow you to do this without the guilt of spending tons of money at the drugstore. You also could also save your money and buy a pregnancy test if your period doesn’t arrive when expected.