Everyone gets shown the same picture. A crowd of sperm, tails going, all pointed the same way. Ahead of them one round thing, pale and enormous and entirely still. The story attached to it never varies either: millions set off, one arrives, he breaks through, and she is fertilised. It is a good story. It has a hero and an obstacle and a prize. It is also, in almost every particular, not what happens.

Human fertility isn’t random—it follows seasonal rhythms. Spring, especially March, is when hormones, ovulation, and libido naturally ramp up. Here’s why your body feels different this time of year, and how to work with—or around—it.