Written by: Dr. Amy Beckley, PhD, Founder and Inventor of the Proov test — the first and only FDA-cleared test to confirm successful ovulation at home.
Trying to conceive can be an exciting time during your life! But sometimes the information on the internet can make it feel overwhelming and confusing.
To make your life just a little easier, we’re breaking down two critical pieces of getting pregnant: predicting and confirming ovulation. With the new Proov Predict and Confirm kit, you can now predict and confirm ovulation with just one hormone test kit!
Tell me more!
We are so excited to introduce our brand new Predict and Confirm test kit! The Predict and Confirm kit is designed to not only predict peak fertility, but also confirm that you have successfully ovulated — which is critical to successfully conceiving.
Each test kit includes 15 ovulation (luteinizing hormone) tests and 5 PdG (progesterone metabolite) tests. About 18 days before your next period, you can start using the LH tests to identify peak fertility. As you near ovulation, you may want to test multiple times per day so that you can accurately catch the LH surge that predicts ovulation. Luckily, 15 tests is plenty for one cycle!
Once you get that positive LH test, you’ll then count 7 days and test with the PdG tests on days 7, 8, 9, and 10 after peak fertility. While a single positive PdG test confirms ovulation, four positive tests during this window confirms “successful” ovulation, meaning PdG levels remained adequately elevated for long enough to allow for the best possible chance at conception.
Predicting and confirming ovulation will help you get pregnant faster!
Why should I predict ovulation?
Conception can only occur when sperm and an egg are present, and your body only releases an egg during ovulation. Eggs can only survive for up to 24 hours after they’ve been released, meaning the sperm has a very small window in which it can get to and fertilize an egg.
So how can you make sure the sperm is ready when ovulation occurs? By predicting ovulation to find your fertile window. Your fertile window (a.k.a. peak fertility) includes the few days leading up to and the day of ovulation, when intercourse is most likely to result in conception. Predicting ovulation and finding your fertile window allows you and your significant other to time intercourse correctly to ensure you have the best possible chance at conception.
Great, so how do I predict ovulation?
Good question! There are several methods you can use to predict ovulation. Here are just a few:
Ovulation (luteinizing hormone) tests: Ovulation tests measure luteinizing hormone (LH) levels in urine to predict when ovulation is going to occur. LH surges about 36 hours before ovulation and triggers the ovary to release an egg. Once you get a positive LH test, your fertile window has begun.
Cervical mucus monitoring: Cervical mucus monitoring involves tracking the changes in cervical mucus consistency to predict when ovulation is going to happen. During the majority of your cycle, cervical mucus is sticky and thick. About 5 days before ovulation is going to occur, cervical mucus becomes watery and stretchy, often resembling egg whites.
Basal body temperature (BBT) tracking: Basal body temperature tracking involves monitoring the subtle changes in your body’s lowest resting temperature that occur right before ovulation occurs. Right before the ovary releases an egg, BBT will slightly dip.
It’s important to choose the best ovulation prediction method for you! Once you get a “peak” reading from any of these methods, you know ovulation will occur soon and it’s time to start having intercourse.
Okay — I’ve predicted ovulation and timed intercourse correctly. What’s next?
After predicting ovulation, you may know that you have to wait until after a missed period before you can take a pregnancy test. So what are you supposed to do during that two week time period?
The next step is to confirm that ovulation did in fact occur and that you even have a chance at conception (after all, without an egg conception just isn’t possible). There are a few ways to confirm ovulation:
Progesterone blood test: A cycle day 21 progesterone blood draw will confirm if ovulation has occurred. This is because progesterone is only produced by an empty follicle (also called the corpus luteum) after ovulation has occurred.
BBT tracking: Yep, BBT is back! Remember how we said BBT dips right before ovulation? Well after ovulation, BBT will rise and remain higher than the previous 6 days’ temperatures for a few days. This shift in temperature is due to the previously mentioned rise in progesterone.
But, these tests don’t actually give you a complete ovulation picture. Progesterone needs to rise and remain adequately elevated after ovulation because it prepares the uterine lining to receive the embryo. If not enough progesterone is present or it drops too early, it can be more difficult to successfully conceive.
While a shift in BBT can confirm ovulation, it doesn’t give an accurate progesterone level. A progesterone blood test, on the other hand, confirms ovulation and gives an accurate progesterone level, but only shows levels at one point in time.
So what’s the missing piece to this ovulation puzzle?
When trying to conceive, you should predict and confirm successful ovulation in order to complete the ovulation puzzle.
When trying to conceive, it’s important to have as much information about ovulation as possible, including timing and health. This is why you should confirm successful ovulation. Successful ovulation refers to an ovulatory event in which post-ovulation hormone levels remain elevated for a long enough period of time to allow for the best possible chance at conception. “Unsuccessful” ovulation can make it more difficult to successfully conceive.
Luckily, you can track successful ovulation with Proov PdG tests! Proov is the first and only FDA-cleared PdG test kit for ovulation confirmation at home. PdG is the urine metabolite of progesterone and only rises when progesterone is also elevated.
Proov testing is non-invasive and allows for PdG tracking over several days. Studies show that elevated PdG levels on days 7-10 after suspected ovulation confirm that successful ovulation did in fact occur.
Luckily, the Proov Predict and Confirm kit makes predicting and confirming ovulation easy and convenient, so you can get pregnant faster!
Written on 10/4/20
