How do people know their exact day of ovulation?

[Anonymous]

I see on TTC forums discussions about how many days post ovulation (DPO) to test. How do people know the exact day they ovulated?

I use the Clear Blue ovulation test sticks. For me, I get the flashing smiley for a few days, then the solid smiley. Should I count the day of the solid smiley my specific day of ovulation? I assumed that whole window of time was "ovulation" aka your fertile window.

We had sex like three times in a five-day period. The first day was sex + no ovulation, blank circle (Feb. 3). The next day, flashing smiley + sex (Feb. 4). The next day, no sex + flashing smiley (Feb 5). The day after, solid smikey + sex.

I ask because I really want to test but I have no idea how many DPO I am?

[Anonymous]

Use a period tracking app.

[Anonymous]

uh, it's obvious. Read up on what your body tells you. I can always tell.

[Anonymous]

The truth is, nobody can really know without an ultrasound. For most women, ovulation actually happens 24-36 hours after the LH surge that turns an OPK positive. For some women, it’s 12 or 48 hours, but “ovulation the day after peak” is a good rule of thumb. And it doesn’t REALLY matter unless you’re both a real outlier on the curve and also mistime sex. But if you have sex when you get a peak reading, sperm is there for the next 12-48 hours.

You probably ovulated on Feb 7 and are 8 DPO today. Test if you want, but 10 DPO is likely safer to start testing if you want to avoid false negatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The truth is, nobody can really know without an ultrasound. For most women, ovulation actually happens 24-36 hours after the LH surge that turns an OPK positive. For some women, it’s 12 or 48 hours, but “ovulation the day after peak” is a good rule of thumb. And it doesn’t REALLY matter unless you’re both a real outlier on the curve and also mistime sex. But if you have sex when you get a peak reading, sperm is there for the next 12-48 hours.

You probably ovulated on Feb 7 and are 8 DPO today. Test if you want, but 10 DPO is likely safer to start testing if you want to avoid false negatives.

Okay, if that's the case I hope that Feb. 6 sex did the job because we didn't do it for several days after that, thinking my window was over.

[Anonymous]

Unless you get an transvaginal ultrasound, you do NOT know. People often confuse the day of the LH surge/peak with the day of ovulation. Tracking apps do not confuse the two: the day of ovulation is arbitrarily designated as the day AFTER the LH surge/peak.

Ovulation, in the medical research literature, is thought to occur anywhere from 12 hours to 36 hours after that first ramp up of LH, which means you could technically ovulate on the same day, or two days after your LH surge, depending on timing.

The distinction between the start of the LH surge, and the peak of LH, is an important one for some women, because they have an LH plateau for multiple days. The day your LH starts shooting up is the same you have to count as being the "LH peak". This also poses problems for women with multiple small peaks of LH during their follicular phase, particularly those with PCOS. What counts as a surge?

There are also two ways to count the days of the luteal phase. One goes by the day of LH surge, and counts in DPP, or Days Post Peak. The other assumes that ovulation occurred 24 hrs after this peak, and counts in DPO, or Days Post Ovulation.

Finally, a rise in LH does not automatically mean you ovulated this cycle. Women can have anovulatory cycles with LH surges but no egg release. It has been shown that the corpus luteum (remains of follicle after egg is released from ovary) starts producing progesterone about 3 days after ovulation. The rise in progesterone (or its urine metabolite PdG) in the days after the LH surge is considered a near fool-proof way of confirming ovulation, since if the egg is not released, a corpus luteum will not form. Some trackers test for all these hormones so women can know whether they ovulated or not, before proceeding to pregnancy tests, progesterone supplementation, etc.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:uh, it's obvious. Read up on what your body tells you. I can always tell.

All women are different and some have no external symptoms like temperature variations, cervical mucus changes, or libido increases. More importantly, sometimes these signs are slightly misaligned with actual ovulation and lead to poor intercourse timing.

You are very ignorant.

[Anonymous]

OP, do you really not know? My discharge tells me . ALWAYS. that's how i got pregnant post age 37 twice because I knew. Look it up.

[Anonymous]

not sure why several people are being so rude here, but I have heard Tempdrop is helpful to confirm ovulation dates.

I personally use a hormone tracker (Mira) and like that it actually confirms the ovulation with a progesterone spike.

[Anonymous]

Also not sure why people are being rude. I've been tracking ovulation on and off for 4 years with OPK sticks, and still can't tell anything for certain with my discharge or other bodily signs.

OP, I normally assume that I ovulate the day after the solid smiley, but it's obviously an assumption. I typically would try to have sex the day before the solid (which is, of course, a guessing game) or else at some point while I'm getting the flashing smiley and then the day of the solid smile. Sperm sticks around for a couple days, but the egg doesn't. So, you want the sperm to already be there when you ovulate. If I were counting DPOs, I'd use the day after the solid smiley as the day of ovulation for counting purposes. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:uh, it's obvious. Read up on what your body tells you. I can always tell.

Same!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, do you really not know? My discharge tells me . ALWAYS. that's how i got pregnant post age 37 twice because I knew. Look it up.

This. Egg white consistency and a bit stringy. Sorry if TMI but you had to ask!

[Anonymous]

I used a TempDrop. Used it to track for months before trying. Pregnant first try mid 30s. I think the ovulation-associated temperature drop is extremely accurate.

[Anonymous]

Solid smiley is when you need to have sex to have a kid. Ask me how I know, twice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Solid smiley is when you need to have sex to have a kid. Ask me how I know, twice.

The ask me how I know thing is stupid. Just say it worked for you twice. No need to try to be “cute.” It’s annoying.