ovulation

Timing Intercourse for Conception
and Gender Prediction

Learn to time intercourse and influence the gender of your baby with our Ovulation Calendar!

The goal of fertility charting and ovulation testing (using LH tests or ovulation microscopes) is to accurately predict your most fertile days of the month - therefore allowing you to time intercourse accurately and maximize the chances of successful conception.

Because the 'fertility window' is a short one (the egg can survive for 24 hours and the sperm can live for up to three days), timing intercourse prior to and during ovulation will very much enhance the likelihood of conceiving a baby.

First of all, most experts recommend that you have intercourse regularly, 2-3 times a week, every week. In addition to that, increased frequency of intercourse (daily love making) should take place during the woman's most fertile time.

As a rule, couples should make love daily during this fertile period - two days prior to ovulation and during the remaining days of the ovulatory cycle. Because the sperm can survive several days in the womb, intercourse prior to ovulation means that sperm will be present and waiting when the egg is released from the ovarian follicle and makes its way down the fallopian tube. Continue daily intercourse during the entire ovulatory cycle up to and during ovulation (sperm count allowing).

Ovulation Tests and Timing Intercourse
Ovulation tests are designed to detect a woman's LH surge (the surge in luteinizing hormone that precedes and encourages ovulation to take place. Lh tests allow women to accurately predict ovulation. A positive result on a lh urine test indicates that a woman will likely be fertile over the next 1-3 days or so. After receiving a positive on an lh test, lovemaking should take place (at least) daily over the following three days to increase the odds of pregnancy.

With ovulation microscopes, you receive an 'early warning' to impending ovulation. Ovulation microscopes provide a gradual trajectory of fertility indicators - from transitional results to positive ferning patterns - that allow you to plan ahead. The ovulation microscope (or saliva ovulation test) is ideal for women with irregular cycles.

Timing Intercourse to Influence the Gender of Your Baby
At conception, the gender of your future baby is determined by specific chromosome characteristics - and it will be the male's sperm that dictates if the baby will be a boy or a girl.

Prior to conceiving, the unfertilized ovum exhibits an X chromosome while the sperm may exhibit either an X or a Y chromosome characteristic. The gender of the baby will be dictated by one cause: If the sperm with an X chromosome fertilizes the ovum, you will have a baby girl. If the sperm carrying a Y chromosome is responsible for fertilizing the ovum, you will have a boy. No, the sperm are not blue or pink colored, its simply a matter of genetic attribute.

Timing Is Central to Gender: Some studies have shown that the sperm with the X chromosome - or female chromosome - are more robust and live longer than the than the sperm with the Y (or male) chromosome. While the 'female' sperm have a greater longevity, the 'male sperm' are better swimmers, so to speak. The male sperm have better motility, or forward swimming motion. This gives them the attribute of speed. In effect, male sperm life fast and die young.

Sperm motility is measured in two ways: percentage of sperm exhibiting movement, and the quality - or dynamics - of this movement, which is called the forward progression. Poor motility means the sperm have a difficult time swimming toward the egg. Hence, "female sperm" exhibit less motility - yet have a longer life span. The "male sperm" exhibit increased motility, but have a shorter life span than the X chromosome sperm.

It is believed that if intercourse takes place closer to ovulation, then the probability is greater that the child will be male, due to the high motility (forward progression) and the decreased life span of the sperm.

The sperm with the X chromosome - or female chromosome - have a longer life span than the male sperm, but exhibit decreased motility. Therefore, intercourse that takes place earlier may provide increased probability of a girl. Our ovulation calendar is unique in that it is also a "gender predictor" or "gender calculator" - based on this simple principle.

Learn to time intercourse and perhaps influence the gender of your baby with our Ovulation Calendar!

• Predict Your Most Fertile Time for Conceiving!
• Learn How to Influence the Gender of Your Baby!