Somehow, at a recent family gathering, the conversation eventually led to the subject of ovulation–an unusual subject for most families, I’m sure. But it reminded me of how little the general public knows about such things.

Why do so many pregnancies happen, for example, when a woman is fertile for only about three days per month? This time of ovulation, as it’s called, is very limited in days yet so effectual when a couple has decided to throw caution to the wind and begin or extend their family.

The answer lies somewhere among the hormonal milieu that pervades the hypothalamic-pituitary and end-organ pathway to put it not so romantically. In other words, she becomes more romantically inclined during this time and one thing leads to another and before you know it, there are six children running around the house and no one ever sleeps well again.

Physicians and scientists have taken great pains to study this to extremes you can only imagine. They have devised several methods to determine when the event is about to happen so couples can plan or avoid the inevitable.

So among the basal body temperatures, cervical mucus thinning, and mittelschmertz (yes, that’s a word) methods, I have devised my own observations for the medically less astute.  When your wife makes you a breakfast that takes some effort, rather than yelling from the living room that, “There’s cold Cheerios on the shelf in the pantry;” or when there is mayonnaise and cheese on your sandwich instead of the usual plain, dry slab of bologne between two slices of stale bread. THAT’s ovulation!