Fertility

When Did I Ovulate? Your Guide to Confirming Ovulation

Clara Siegmund

Understanding ovulation is an important part of understanding your health, regardless of your fertility goals. Read on to learn how to tell when you ovulate, plus how to get confirmation that ovulation really does happen for you.

Published:

Mar 7, 2025

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Ovulation can be elusive. You don’t necessarily have proof that it’s happening, like you do with your period, and while you can keep an eye out for certain signs of ovulation, these can be hard to decipher and don’t happen for everyone.

Yet ovulation is a big piece to your reproductive health, and it’s the key to pregnancy if you’re trying to conceive—meaning understanding your ovulation is important.

So how do you know when you’re ovulating, and how can you confirm that ovulation happens for you?

In this guide to confirming ovulation, we’ll cover what ovulation is, when ovulation happens, how to know when you ovulate, how to track your hormones to confirm ovulation, and more.

>>MORE: Oova Glossary: 44 Fertility Terms To Know if You're Trying to Conceive

What is ovulation?

Ovulation is the moment in your cycle when your ovaries release an egg.

If that egg meets up with sperm and gets fertilized, you may become pregnant about two weeks later. Otherwise, the egg reaches the end of its viability about one day post-ovulation, and you get your period in the next couple weeks.

Generally speaking, you ovulate each cycle. If you’re experiencing anovulation and don’t ovulate regularly or at all, it could be a sign of an underlying health issue, like a hormonal imbalance or PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome).

When do I ovulate?

Typically, you ovulate around the middle of your cycle.

Regular cycles last anywhere from 21 to 35 days, so the midpoint can vary. For example, you can expect to ovulate around cycle day 12 if your cycle is 24 days long. If your cycle lasts 34 days, you’ll likely ovulate closer to cycle day 14. It all depends on you.

When you ovulate can even vary slightly from month to month—these things happen! If you have irregular cycles, you may experience more variation in ovulation timing.

>>MORE: How To Get Pregnant With Irregular Periods

Given that when you ovulate can differ from person to person and even from cycle to cycle, you may need to do some digging to understand your ovulation.

How to tell when I ovulate

To determine when you ovulate, you have to go to the source of ovulation: hormones.

Ovulation happens in response to hormones. Rising estrogen tells your body to start producing luteinizing hormone (LH). When LH hits its highest level, called the “LH surge,” it triggers the release of the egg. From there, progesterone starts rising, which signals the end of ovulation.

This means that by measuring your hormone levels, you can:

Understand your ovulation
Know when you ovulate
Track your cycle

To do this, you can use ovulation tests, also called ovulation predictor kits (OPKs). These at-home tests detect ovulation by measuring hormone levels, typically in your urine. OPKs generally use either stick tests (you pee directly onto a stick) or paper test strips (you pee in a cup, then dip the test strip in).

Traditional OPKs measure LH. The LH surge happens about 10 to 12 hours before ovulation, so when OPKs capture that peak, they tell you that you’re ovulating.

But a result indicating when you’re ovulating based on traditional OPKs alone may be faulty. To get the whole picture, you need to confirm ovulation.

How to confirm ovulation

In order to know with certainty that you really are ovulating, you have to confirm ovulation. For that, you can look to your hormones again.

Traditional OPKs, however, aren’t equipped to confirm ovulation. Instead, your best bet is using a multi-hormone ovulation test kit, like the Oova fertility kit.

While traditional OPKs only test LH, multi-hormone kits like Oova measure the range of hormones responsible for ovulation, that is: LH plus estrogen and progesterone. This matters because LH alone can’t confirm ovulation—you need progesterone for that.

When you ovulate, the follicle that released the egg becomes a temporary structure called a corpus luteum. The corpus luteum then starts producing progesterone.

If you don’t see a rise in progesterone, it means there’s no corpus luteum, which means you didn’t ovulate. If you do detect a rise in progesterone, it means there is a corpus luteum and you did ovulate.

It’s impossible to know whether or not progesterone rises if you can’t measure it. In other words, in order to confirm ovulation, you have to track your cycles using ovulation kits that measure progesterone.

When should I test?

When is the best time to test so you can confirm ovulation? That depends on your cycle and your unique ovulation timing.

Generally, you should start testing a few days before you expect to ovulate, to be sure to detect rising estrogen and the LH surge. If you expect to ovulate on day 15 of your 30-day cycle, for example, start testing around day 13.

As you track your cycle and gain a better understanding of your ovulation, you’ll also get a better sense of which cycle days you should test.

If you use the Oova Fertility Kit, things are easier. The Oova algorithm learns your cycle. After a few cycles’ worth of measurements, Oova will be able to reliably recognize the unique hormone patterns indicating that you’ll ovulate soon, and will prompt you to test. That effectively eliminates ovulation guesswork.

Why should I confirm ovulation?

From trying to conceive (TTC) to just living your daily life, lots of different scenarios may call for tracking your cycle so you can confirm ovulation and know when you ovulate.

Here are a few:

You’re TTC and want to find your fertile window
You’re TTC with irregular cycles
You’re TTC during perimenopause
You’re planning on TTC soon and want a jump-start on learning your fertility
You want to avoid pregnancy
You’re dealing with a reproductive health issue
You want to get to know your body
You want to cycle sync your workouts

Your guide to confirming ovulation: the bottom line

When you ovulate, your ovaries release an egg.

Ovulation is triggered by hormones, meaning measuring and tracking your hormones is the best way to know when you ovulate and to confirm ovulation. For the most reliable, comprehensive results, try tracking your hormones using multi-hormone ovulation kits.

Whether you’re trying to get pregnant or just curious about your reproductive health, anyone can benefit from tracking hormones to confirm ovulation.

About the author

Clara Siegmund is a writer, editor, and translator (French to English) from Brooklyn, New York. She has a BA in English and French Studies from Wesleyan University and an MA in Translation from the Sorbonne. She is passionate about literature, reproductive justice, and using language to make information accessible.‍

Sources

Reed BG & Carr BR. (2018). The Normal Menstrual Cycle and the Control of Ovulation.
Sung S, Abramovitz A. (2023). Natural Family Planning.

About the Oova Blog:
‍Our content is developed with a commitment to high editorial standards and reliability. We prioritize referencing reputable sources and sharing where our insights come from. The Oova Blog is intended for informational purposes only and is never a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a healthcare provider before making any health decisions.

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