When we first decided to try for a baby I was determined I wouldn’t become obsessed and that it would happen when it would happen. Fast forward ten months, a few losses and a lot of heartache, and my outlook was very different.

Luckily I knew I could get pregnant but sadly those pregnancies were not meant to be. The desire for a baby took over and I soon became the person I swore I wouldn’t. I tried pretty much every trick I found when googling how to improve my chances of getting pregnant. If you’ve done this yourself you will understand the diet changes and leg cycling!

Eventually I decided to give an ovulation kit a whirl. I’m not sure why I had been so against doing it but to me I guess it made it seem more ‘clinical’ in a way. It was a bit silly really but eventually after months of nothing I thought it would be worth a try.

I opted to buy a cheaper Boots own brand set as despite desperately wanting it to work my thrifty side still won out! These kits can be pricey and you may need to use them for a number of months. I’m presuming most of you know the premise of an ovulation kit but you use the kits to see when you are ovulating and therefore identify the days you should be having sex to maximise your chance of conceiving.

To be honest I didn’t really know my cycle that well. I was quite regular with my periods but had no idea when my ovulation happened. For most people it is around 14 days after the start of your last period but this can vary. I know some people can tell from monitoring changes to their body or temperature but I was oblivious to all of that.

The pack I bought contained seven sticks which meant that I had seven days in which to find out if I was ovulating. You should start around day ten after your last period as sometimes you can ovulate earlier or later than the normal 14 days. The test measures your hormone levels to give you an indication to your most fertile time.

It works in the same way as a pregnancy test and each morning you should wee on to the little plastic stick. Ideally this should be between 10 am and 8pm as apparently it can take a few hours for the luteinising hormone to show up in your urine. A few minutes later you will then get a positive or negative result. In my case the positive came on day 15.

I won’t go in to details but I’m pretty sure that you all know what you need to do then!!! To maximise your chances you need to have sex within two days of getting the positive result. It’s up to you how many times that is 🙂

Two weeks later my period didn’t appear but I refused to get my hopes up given previous experiences. Instead I left it another two weeks before grabbing a different test this time to see if I was pregnant. And I was. And this time everything was ok and little Molly arrived eight months later (don’t worry, I haven’t got my calculations muddled, she was early!!).

So for me the ovulation kit worked first time round and had I needed to I wouldn’t have hesitated in using one again. Obviously it doesn’t always work for everyone but for me it was the little bit of reassurance I needed.

Did anyone else use an ovulation kit or are you considering it? Do let us know your own experiences.