Thanks a lot,
A female who wants to know

Women tend to ovulate mid-cycle; however, it is more accurate to say that they ovulate fourteen days before menstruation. Women have been known to ovulate at any time during their cycle, including during menstruation, although this is unusual. In terms of conception, fertility depends on three factors: a healthy egg, healthy sperm, and favorable cervical mucus. A woman ovulates once a cycle. The egg lives twelve to twenty-four hours and then disintegrates if not fertilized. Under favorable cervical mucusconditions (cervical mucus nourishes and guides the sperm, which would otherwise die in about a half-hour or never reach the egg), sperm can survive as long as five days within the body.

The symptothermal method of fertility awareness is the most exact way to determine the best times for conception. This method has two parts: 1) before a woman ovulates, mucus observations are combined with predictions based on past cycle history (using a calendar calculation), and 2) to confirm ovulation, changes in basal body temperature are combined with cervical mucus observations. If you want more information about the details of determining your monthly fertility, try "The Ovulation Method Cycles of Fertility" published by the Ovulation Method Teachers Association, 4760 Aldrich Rd., Bellingham, WA, 98225.

You owe it to yourself to learn as much about your body as possible. Alice has found the best book source is, Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century, by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective. If you are at Columbia, you could make an appointment at Primary Care Medical Services with a provider specializing in women's health.

Alice

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