How to Track Your Fertile Window

It’s funny how SO many things change as you get older and when you look back on some of the ideas you had as a younger woman, you just have to laugh. One thing that most certainly changes over time is our knowledge about our bodies as it relates to fertility. Birth control is a huge topic amongst younger women who often worry that having sexual relations even once will most certainly knock you up. Then we look at women who are more in the childbearing years whose worries become more about how hard it actually is to get pregnant and how many times it will take. Well, this post is all about how to track your fertile window so definitely a topic for the latter group!

Getting pregnant for some may be easy but for many it’s not. Knowing your body and tracking your cycle properly is a great way to determine your most fertile days. Once you know the signs and are in tune with your body you can easily determine on which days you should be trying for a baby.

Some ways you can do this is by tracking your cervical mucus. When it’s an egg white consistency it means that you are ovulating and are in your fertile window. For me I can always tell by how my skin looks. When I’m in my fertile window my skin looks plumper and I look a lot younger.

However, if you want to know how to track your fertile window the best way is with science and I’m not talking needles or peeing on a stick here but actually tracking your progesterone levels through saliva. I recently discovered the inne minilab, which is a fertility monitoring device which does exactly that.

The inne minilab tracks your progesterone throughout your whole cycle so that you can determine when your most fertile day are. This is the most accurate form of checking when it’s the right time to try for a baby.

The inne minilab is super easy to use and it’s connected to the inne app which tells you exactly when you are fertile by reading your daily progesterone levels. To do this you need to have not eaten or had anything to drink at least 30 minutes prior to testing – so the best time to test is first thing in the morning.

I know there are so many ovulation tests out there, many which involve urinating on a stick. The inne way is much easier and I love that it’s connected to the app so that you can track your hormonal changes over time. The device comes with an instruction manual and the sticks are easy to use – they just take a few tricks to get started. One tip is that you really need to saturate the stick with your saliva for the reading to be measured. It doesn’t take long to get a measurement either so you can get on with your day quite quickly after.

So why does the minilab measure progesterone? Well, progesterone actually tells the body when it’s time to ovulate and also when to menstruate so it’s a VERY important hormone. Progesterone levels rise around ovulation (i.e. your fertile window) and then drop again to signal your body it’s time to menstruate.

The inne minilab assesses your saliva and then your hormonal data is found on the inne app so you can easily check your daily reading and also your fertility prediction.

All in all, I found this an easy way to track my progesterone levels to find out when my fertile window was. I was also surprised to see that the time window when I previously ‘thought’ I was ovulating did not match up with the fertile window/progesterone levels in the app so I learned a lot along the way. Another thing I found interesting was reading so many amazing and informative articles about female wellness and health on the inne blog. I’ve learned a lot about balancing my hormones along the way!

I will sign off by wishing you lots of luck on your fertility journey and for some it may be harder than others and for that I understand and wish you all the best! I hope this post about how to track your fertile window has helped in some way.

*The inne minilab was sent to me as a PR sample for testing purposes – all views and opinions are my own as always.