Welcome to Premom’s Sex-Ed 101 course! Today, we will be discussing everything you learned in high school, but without the birthing video (we’ll leave that one for the OB/GYN). Let’s begin learning about the journey to conception.
To get pregnant, it’s important to know the basic reproductive anatomy of a woman’s body and how it can support a pregnancy. A woman’s sex cell is called an egg or ovum, and a male’s is called a sperm. For conception to occur, a single sperm must meet an egg, a process known as fertilization. But, how does this happen? Sex — or as the trying to conceive (TTC) world calls it — “baby dancing” (BD)!
What is Ovulation?
Each month, a woman’s body releases an egg, and this happens during a woman’s ovulation day. An egg is housed in two tiny sacs called ovaries. Ovaries release the eggs. An egg only lives for about 24 hours outside of a woman’s ovary, which means there’s a small window for fertilization to take place.
Sex and the Release of Sperm
A sperm enters a woman through the vagina (base of birth canal) and travels up the cervix, which is the base of the uterus. The uterus is better known as the womb, where a fertilized egg will implant. A sperm can live 3-5 days inside of a woman when supported with good cervical mucus. Without the presence of cervical mucus, a sperm will die within minutes. Mucus is what keeps the sperm protected as it begins its journey to the egg.
Fertilization or No
As the egg travels through the Fallopian tubes, a canal for the sperm and egg to meet, it hopes to meet a sperm by the time the egg implants itself into the uterus. If an egg is not fertilized by the time it reaches the uterus, the woman’s body sheds its uterine lining, which results in a woman bleeding for a few days of the month. This process of shedding the uterine lining is called menstruation. If an egg is lucky enough to meet that special sperm, then it will attach itself in the uterus and begin growing into a healthy zygote (earliest stage of building a baby).
How to Get Pregnant Fast
Now, the real question is knowing how this natural process can get you pregnant faster! Well, the fact is that you only have about 5 days every cycle to get pregnant. These days are the four days leading up to ovulation day and the day of ovulation. In order to know the best time to do the deed, for your best chances of success, it’s best to use a method to track your ovulation cycle. The best method is using ovulation tests.
Ovulation tests are the best indicator of when ovulation will occur, and pairing them with an app like Premom to read and track your results will give you an even higher chance of knowing when your peak fertility days are.
If you have been trying for more than a year, you understand how conception works, and you still haven’t experienced success, we recommend that you see your doctor. There might be complications that are inhibiting your success of achieving pregnancy.
Premom helps make interpreting, tracking, and predicting your ovulation day a whole lot easier. Download Premom today to get started on creating your bundle of joy!
Check out our next blog on what the ‘Key to Getting Pregnant‘ is as we look at the patterns of recorded pregnant woman to find out what they did during their cycles.
References
https://www.usccb.org/topics/natural-family-planning/nfp-basic-information
