Natural Birth and Baby Care.com

Timing for Conception (is Day 14 Right?)

by Christopher
(Newark Delaware, USA)

My wife and I just began trying to get pregnant. Her period began on December 2, 2009. Saturday December 5, her period ended. We have read some information about trying around the 13th 14th or 15th day but what is the start date?

Is it from when she started menstruating or do we begin counting when she finished menstruating?

For this example let's say the 14th day is ideal! So do we say the 14th day is December 16th or is the 14th day December 19th? December 14th would be fourteen days from when her period began....December 19th would be fourteen days from when her period stopped.

Please let me know. P.S. any other advice would be helpful regarding timing. I guess I'm asking you which day(s) we should try to conceive?

Sincerely,

Chris

Answer:

Hi Chris,

I'm really glad you asked this question, because I think a whole lot of couples are confused by it.

To answer your question, you need to start counting from December 2nd, the first day of your wife's period.

So December 16th will be Day 14 of her cycle.

Now for some more info: Day 14 is the ovulation day of the "average" cycle. In other words, if you were reading a health textbook in high school, all the women talked about in the textbook would ovulate on Day 14, and they'd all have 28 day menstrual cycles.

In reality, not all women ovulate on Day 14!

How many days long are your wife's menstrual cycles, normally? That's a good way to figure it out.

Her period usually starts 14 days after she ovulated.

So if she ovulated on day 14, her period would start around day 28-29. But if she didn't ovulate until say, day 20, her period would probably be around 34 days long! And she ovulated nowhere near day 14, so trying for a baby then wouldn't work out. Your sperm can't live from day 14 to day 20!

It can get confusing - if your wife normally has cycles around 28 days long, there's a good chance that by making love on days 13, 14, and 15 you'll get close to her ovulation.

But it's also possible you could be missing it, so it's good to look at her own cycles.

There are different ways your wife can learn when she's ovulating. She can chart her cycles by watching her fertility signs, and she can use ovulation predictor kits or a fertility monitor.

I won't go into all of that here, but if you'd like to learn more, the sister site to this one, Getting-Pregnant.com, is a great place to start.

Here's some links to get you started:

Menstrual Cycle Basics

Trying to Conceive Basics

And there's a free 7-day email course that covers a lot of the basics:

Natural Fertility Mini-Course

Best of luck to you and your wife as you TTC! Let me know if you have any further questions.