FAM for conception

^Not my belly but a free stock image.

>The chart, however, is my Read Your Body pregnancy chart
with intimacy and dates left out for privacy.

I'm pregnant! On purpose, before you wonder if what I teach you does not work.
The beauty of Fertility Awareness is that you can use it both to avoid and achieve pregnancy. Let's chat a little bit about how Fertility Awareness can help us in our journeys of trying to conceive.

Imagine the following 2 scenarios...

Scenario 1: Couple currently uses hormonal birth control or an IUD and decides to try for a baby.

First, the woman in this situation may need to make an appointment with her doctor to have her IUD or implant removed. If she is on a birth control pill, ring, patch or on the depo shot, she can simply choose to stop taking the birth control.

Second, the woman needs to wait for her cycles to return. This can happen straight away, but it can also take months. After depo use, the average time for a woman's cycle to return is 8-10 months but it can take more than a year for the cycle to regulate. So, a bit of pre-planning and preparation may be needed. If a couple has quite a sudden change of heart but is using depo, they need to know they may not be able to conceive as quickly as they hope.

Once a woman's cycles return, she may trust an app to tell her when she is fertile. If the woman has irregular cycles, the apps guess may be extremely off, but even in "textbook 28-day long cycles" it will assume that ovulation happens on day 14 and that the woman has a 14 day luteal phase. Healthy luteal phases can last 12 to 16 days, so some important fertility days can be written off as low fertility using this approach. Ovulation can also be delayed for whatever reason, making a woman's period 'late' and giving false hope.

If the woman wants more information, she may try ovulation strips to help pinpoint her fertile window a bit better. Ovulation tests, however, don't give much warning that ovulation is coming up and they don't confirm it has definitely happened. It is also possible to miss the LH surge but still ovulate. In my opinion, ovulation tests are wasteful, expensive, confusing, and not a solid tool in your fertility awareness toolbox. Rather, they are yet another product that make someone money and prevents true body literacy.

Trying to conceive when these are the only tools you have can feel overwhelming, exhausting and stressful, especially if you don't conceive within a month or three.

Scenario 2: After a while of using FAM to avoid, a couple decides they want to try for a baby.

The woman is already cycling, she is also already aware of her fertile days. All that this couple needs to do is have intercourse on fertile days now. There is no need to wait for cycles to return or to figure out what fertility looks like or anything of the like. No need for doctor's appointments (though it's always good to check in with your doctor before conceiving). The couple knows which days to use and when testing will be reliable.

Which couple would you rather be?

Of course, you can choose to not chart while trying to conceive, that's totally up to you. However, many couples find it useful to know when they can simply take a break from trying. This helps, especially if conception doesn't happen right away or if there are factors at play that impede on energy and time.

Charting also helps us to identify some potential issues with fertility. We can see if you are ovulating or not and if your luteal phase is long enough. This is extremely valuable information. We can also know a period is actually late or when ovulation has just happened later than normal, which can prevent false hope.

Charting, however, does not guarantee pregnancy will occur. It is no fix or cure. It is just a tool that gives information. Life isn't fair, and lots of people conceive without charting or without even trying to conceive, whereas those who chart everything, try all the things, seek medical help etcetera are still without a baby of their own to love. I want to extend all my love to people in this situation.

If you are curious about charting to conceive, or maybe you've been trying unsuccessfully for a while, hit me up! I'd love to see what we can discover about your cycles and hopefully I can soon calculate your due date for you.