When you wake up one morning ready to puke and realize your period is later than usual, it's only natural to think you could be pregnant — nausea and late periods are generally related to pregnancy. But what if you wake up one morning ready to get it on? Are horniness and fertility related, or is your increased sex drive a total fluke?
While you may not feel horny every time your body is primed for baby-making, horniness and fertility can be related. According to Dr. Kameelah Phillips, a New York City OB-GYN, many women experience a natural increase in their sex drive during the time of ovulation. "This is nature's way of making sure that sperm are waiting for the egg when ovulation occurs," Phillips tells Romper. "The egg is only viable for 12 to 24 hours, so it makes sense that a women's sex drive is increased during ovulation to maximize her chances of becoming pregnant."
The American Pregnancy Association also included an increase in your sex drive as one of the signs and symptoms of ovulation. While every woman is different and the signs and symptoms can vary, if you find that you're feeling more horny than usual during a specific time of the month, you can probably note that ovulation is occurring or about to occur around the same time.
But horniness and fertility aren't related in the sense that you can't have one without the other. Just because you're horny doesn't mean you're ovulating, and just because you're ovulating doesn't mean you're going to be horny. Phillips notes that it's the timing of ovulation, not just your sex drive, that drives the chances of pregnancy. "If the sex drive is increased in correlation with the timing of ovulation, than that increases the likelihood of pregnancy because the egg and sperm have a greater chance of meeting. But if the sex drive is increased and the woman is not scheduled to ovulate, then enjoy it, but it is less likely a pregnancy will result," she says.
If you want to make sure you catch your horniness at the same time as ovulation, watch out for other ovulation signs and symptoms so you can give yourself your best chance at getting pregnant. Or, you know, just enjoy the sex and see what happens.
