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All About Ovulation
The Inside Story to Help You Conceive
By Kelly Burgess
Before she tried to get pregnant with her first child, Lynne Ticknor, a parent educator from Clarksville, Md., read Taking Charge of Your Fertility (Collins, 2006) by Toni Weschler. She was fascinated by this in-depth look at ovulation and started tracking her cycles.
"After charting three cycles on paper for practice, I definitely started to notice a trend," she says. "During the fourth cycle, I charted and followed Weschler's advice for getting pregnant with a girl and – boom – I got pregnant with my daughter. I followed the same path for my additional children and, although it took longer than one month to get pregnant the subsequent times, we now have four children."
All women should be as well-informed as Ticknor. Although ovulation is the clock that regulates our reproductive systems, most women are completely unaware of how it works and how it can be manipulated, tracked and predicated.
The following are a few of the most frequently asked questions about ovulation, answered by Dr. Jill Powell, assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women's health at Saint Louis University.
Q. Do women ovulate every month?
A. Most women do ovulate every month but some things can prevent it, such as stress or significant weight loss or gain or certain conditions.
Q. Do you get a period if you don't ovulate?
A. No. However, if you don't get a period as planned you can still sometimes have breakthrough bleeding. In fact, breakthrough bleeding is not uncommon for someone who is not ovulating regularly. When you do ovulate, about 14 days later your body gets a signal to have period. If you don't get that signal, you can get very thick and unstable uterine lining, and that may result in a discharge that may be mistaken for a period, but isn't one.
