Ovulation and How long does sperm survive?

[Kristenann]

Hiya i am trying to find a clear defined answer on the net and cant so wondered if anyone could help here!!

firstly, how long does sperm take to get to egg best and worst case?
how long does sperm survive inside best and worst case?
Also, my clear blue ovulation test gave me a positive OPK day 16/30 day cycle.. tho the day before i got my "ovulation pains" in the evening.. does this positive opk on 16th tell me thats the day i ovulated or day after day 17/30? When i put this in my tracker it said ovulation would be 17/30 because OPK had a peak fertility 16/30. Hope makes sense sorry! and only asking because want to see if there is any chance at all got pregnant based on when i tried.
Regards.

[ksmom]

Sperm can potentially reach the egg in a matter of minutes but it may take hours, just depends. How long they survive depends on conditions. It could be up to 5 days if conditions are ideal but odds are not good.

There's no way to tell exactly when you ovulated without temping. If you got a pos opk on cd16 then you probably ovulated one or two days later. There's no guarantee it even happened at all though. Ovulation pains are not a reliable indication that ovulation has occurred.

[atomic sagebrush]

sperm can get to the egg within an hour or so but those very fast swimming sperm are usually dead on arrival and incapable of fertilizing the egg. The other sperm get there over the course of hours or days. But not all the sperm can fertilize an egg yet, they have to capacitate first, and capacitating takes hours/days to do and not all sperm capacitate at the same time.

Sperm supposedly live up to 7 days but anything 4 or more days out has really not been good for conception. Studies have shown best results O-3 through O Day, with a peak of conceptions from BD on O-2 and O-1.

Positive OPK comes 24-36 hours on average before ovulation, even as much as 48 hours before. So you probably ovulated on the 17th or even 18th. Peak is NOT O Day.

Ovulation pains are not reliable. You can have O pains before, during, and after ovulation.

[Kristenann]

Thanks for this.. so to be clear from just a conception point of view to BD 2 days or 1 day before ovulation is best (o-2 and o-1 means that?) and the test i took would have told me not the day i ovulated but a 1 / 2 day warning? just imo it seemed late? like day 16 go positive opk.. day 17 or even day 18 out of a 30 day cycle seems crazy far off?

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes. Best chances of conception are 1-2 days prior to O Day and O Day is actually not great chances.

And the peak on monitor/day of first pos OPK

Ovulation on CD 17 or 18 with 30 day cycle is totally normal. Gives you an 11-12 day LP. 12 days is totally normal, 11 is a teeny bit short but you can still get pregnant easily with 11 day LP.