Truth bomb.
Your period is not the purpose of your cycle, ovulation is!
And it's not just about procreation. I’m sure you’ve picked up by now that Im on a mission to help women see their hormones differently and ovulation is really this beautiful signal that are hormones are doing what they’re suppose to.
And ovulation is the epitome of this. It’s a beautiful signal that are hormones are doing what they’re suppose to….
Achieving ovulation means that your had an adequate rise in estrogen during your follicular phase
It means that your brain responded to that rise in estrogen with a spike in LH (yes, that thing you test with ovulation predictor kits)
And then your ovaries responded to that LH with ovulating one mature egg from the dominant follicle!
Finally, what's remaining of the follicle after the egg is released, becomes something called a corpus luteum which produces the majority of progesterone
Ovulation should happen at the midpoint of our cycle, but more importantly it happens ~14 days before our period. The follicular phase is more variable in length where as the luteal phase is more consistent in it’s duration, and ideally is 14 days, this indicates that you're producing sufficient progesterone.
The ovulatory phase is our fertile window - roughly cycle days 13-16
It's about 3 days before and 2 days after ovulation you have the potential for achieving a pregnancy (NO you cannot get pregnant at any point during your cycle). This is because sperm are viable up to 5 day in the female reproductive tract and the egg is viable for 24 hours after ovulation
Important note: you are MOST fertile the days or 2 prior to ovulation
This information is helpful to achieve or prevent a pregnancy & is also just a great marker of hormonal health.
Check out my blog on Cervical Mucus for more information on tracking ovulation: https://www.lizaklassen.com/post/fertile-cervical-mucus