Boosting Low Progesterone While Trying to Conceive (Episode 433)

Full Transcript: Episode 433

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 433.

Welcome to the Fertility Friday Podcast, your source for information about the Fertility Awareness Method and all things fertility. I’m your host, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack. I’m the author of The Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Journal. I’m a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth vital sign through menstrual cycle charting, balancing hormonal health, and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones. I’m outspoken about hormonal birth control and its impact on fertility and overall health because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt that natural process. I teach women’s health professionals how to utilize the menstrual cycle as a vital sign in their practices, and I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health, because it’s important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies. I’m also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys. I know, I’m a busy girl, but I managed to fit it all in. This podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your cycles, your fertility, and your overall health, and I’m so excited that you’re here with me today.

Today I’m sharing a brand new episode in my Fertility Awareness Reality series. I’m sharing a call with my client Sarita, and we are focused on conception in this call, but more particularly when we get into the chart analysis, we’re diving into cervical fluid, trying to dial down to what her observations really are. And one of the main topics of the call is boosting progesterone. And so those are some of many of the topics that we get into on today’s call. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s call with Sarita.

And I’m excited to be here today with Sarita. Sarita is a member of my current Fertility Awareness Mastery Live group program. And at the time of this recording, we’re maybe three quarters of the way through. I always find that it takes the time it takes — it is about two and a half, three months. But it still feels always so fast as we go through week by week. But this is a good stage, I think, because you’ve gone through kind of the bulk of the program. We’ve had a few hot seats together. I have a general sense of what’s going on, which is always nice. But yeah, welcome to the show.

Serrita: Thank you. Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. I’ve been a fan for years of your show. So I’m very excited.

Lisa: Well, I love — I always say it. So I’m a broken record over here, but I really do love these episodes. My heart is with women and supporting us to do the things we need to do. And of course, from my perspective, cycle charting plays a central role in that because once we understand what’s happening in our cycle, I feel like it gives us so many choices regardless of what our goals are. So really happy to have you here. And I also always recognize that everybody doesn’t want to go on the podcast and share their story, so I’m always really thankful for the women who are comfortable doing that. So with that said, I’d love to jump right in and ask you my favorite question, which is how old were you when you had your first period? And let us know a little bit about what that journey was like for you, if you have used hormonal contraceptives before, and what basically led you to use fertility awareness now.

Serrita: Yeah, absolutely. I had my first period when I was about 12 years old. I was hoping that it was coming because I knew that all of my friends around me were starting to have their periods. So I was like, oh, is it going to be my turn soon? And so that was pretty smooth. I never really — in the early days — it wasn’t really bothersome for me. It was just mostly about being prepared and making sure that you had the right pads and all of that when you go to school. So it really wasn’t a painful period for me in the early days, and maybe a Tylenol here and there, but nothing that was too out of the ordinary or that was debilitating for me in any regard. When I started to — I say get into my 20s — I didn’t really start birth control until possibly in my mid-20s. And I got introduced to it from my dermatologist actually, because I was still suffering from cystic acne. And she was like, in addition to a couple of bouts of Accutane, let’s go ahead and try to control your acne with birth control. And that’s when I got introduced to the Ortho Tricycling, and did that for about two cycles. And then I was just like, I didn’t really see a change too much for me, and I was like, why am I taking these pills? I started to see some weight gain and my breasts started to grow, and it was like, do I need to get a new bra? What’s happening? And she was like, oh no, this is part of the process, just give it time. And by the second pack, I didn’t really see much change in my acne, but I did see changes in my body. I was like, well, there’s got to be a better way. So I decided to find another dermatologist. I revisited the birth control when I got into my later 20s when I started to get into a serious relationship. I was like, okay, well, let me go ahead and try to get on something from a contraceptive perspective. Was on the same birth control — actually I switched from the Ortho Tricycling to the Lo — but basically the same concept. And when that relationship was over, I decided, what’s the point of having to take the birth control? It was just a reminder that I wasn’t in a relationship, so I just stopped it. And so that pretty much was my cycle. So every time I got into a long-term relationship, I would start on the birth control again, and then if it happened to end, I would just kind of trail it off. So I was never consistently on birth control throughout my whole adult life. It just was when I needed it, and then I would just kind of get off of it.

Lisa: Well, that’s interesting. It’s interesting to hear the different ways that women approach birth control. After all these years having these conversations, it’s so clear how central this is for us. It’s this thing that we always have to figure out. And it depends too, because you might be with a partner who’s comfortable with a certain thing, and then you have a new partner who maybe isn’t comfortable with that thing. But ultimately the bulk of that burden tends to fall obviously on us to sort it out. And it’s kind of this lifelong thing. For women who start using it older — for you, the first experience you had with it was in your mid-20s, so you had your cycles from 12 to mid-20s. So regardless of whether you’re charting or not, if you’re cycling, you have a sense of your body. You kind of know, even if you’re not really paying attention in this detailed way that we’re doing. And so you notice a shift, you notice a change. I think this is something that’s different for women who start it later. And interestingly, you weren’t using it for birth control at that time, so it was kind of like, maybe if you had been, you would have put up with the changes. But because you weren’t, and it wasn’t really doing what you were hoping with the acne, it’s kind of like, well why? And quite quickly — two cycles.

Serrita: Yeah, yeah, just two cycles, because I’m pretty adverse to taking things to begin with, and I’m kind of the person where I need to start to see things happen. And if I’m not experiencing what I was told I would, then I’m not going to keep giving it months and months.

Lisa: And so in your experience looking back at the years, were your cycles fairly normal and consistent? Like, you would come off the pill — would they come back and just be kind of like they were before? Was that kind of your experience?

Serrita: That was my experience. It was always a situation where I never had a gap in me not having my period. And in fact, when I was on the pill, I can remember the days when you had to take the sugar pill, my period would always start a couple of days later. So it was never on track with what the pills needed it to be. So it was either a little bit later or what have you, and things were just not in alignment. And that was annoying. But even when I was on it, I never had an issue as far as my cycles and the regularity.

Lisa: Okay. Well, then share with us a little bit about the lead-up to utilizing fertility awareness now. In your case, you’re actively trying to conceive, so maybe share with us a little bit about your journey. You have a daughter, age three?

Serrita: Yes, I do have a daughter. So how I got introduced to your podcast specifically was I was in the midst of trying to conceive my daughter, to get pregnant. And I got married pretty late, in my late 30s. My husband and I had made the decision that we wanted to start right away. We had had a miscarriage, and then after we had gotten married, we got pregnant very quickly, but unfortunately that ended in a stillbirth where I was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix. So that was very difficult, and went through the process of getting a permanent transvaginal cerclage and going trying again naturally. And things weren’t really happening in the next couple of months. So I made a decision when I was about 38, going into my 39, to go ahead and try to explore IVF. And it was a really hard decision for me because we were able to get pregnant in the past. But just because I was getting closer and closer to 40, I thought it was a best shot for me, and plus I wanted to take advantage of some of the scientific advancements to make sure that we had a genetically sound baby and to reduce the possibility of having a miscarriage if at all possible. And so went through that route and was able to conceive my daughter through that, and then had an extra embryo frozen as a result of that. But all the while after she was born, at my six-week checkup my doctor said, let’s go ahead and get you on birth control. And I was like, well, I’m still nursing. I don’t really want to do that because I didn’t really want to put anything in my body that might potentially affect her and her development. So we just continued to use the pull-out method. When we decided that we wanted to give her a sibling, we had an embryo frozen and decided to go through the route of doing the frozen embryo transfer again. Unfortunately, that one ended in a miscarriage as well. And so then I was like, well, let me just really buckle down. In the back of my mind as I’m always listening to your podcast, I’m like, let me see about this. Is this actually something that I can move forward with? Because I never really knew when I ovulated. I knew how long my periods were — I was very consistent in having a 25-day cycle — but in terms of being able to time sex appropriately to give it the best shot, I had no idea when that was. I’ve used ovulation kits before, but it really wasn’t — I either didn’t know how to use it properly or what. So I was like, okay, well, Lisa always talks about the Fertility Awareness Method. I’m going to go ahead and sign up for her class. It just was in perfect alignment, because when I was after going through my miscarriage, you had started the announcements of the next class starting. And so I was like, okay, well, let me go ahead and join her class so that I can really get an understanding of what’s going on with my body, use the Fertility Awareness Method so that I can know when I’m ovulating, and then understand what to do so that I can give myself the best natural chance.

Lisa: Thank you for sharing your story. I’m so sorry for your loss. Miscarriage is always heartbreaking, but stillbirth adds another layer of just trauma. So I do hope that you and your partner have recovered and healed as much as you can from that traumatic experience.

Serrita: Yes, thank you. Yeah, we’ve done the things that we needed to in order to, you know, get over that mentally. And that was one of the things that I wanted to make sure as well after my last miscarriage — am I really in the best mental state? Do I have any mental blockers? Is there anything? So I actually sought out going to some therapy for a couple of times, and she assured me of some things, and I went through some practices on my own. So wanted to make sure that I was clear on that front — am I clear on the physical? And now taking it to the next level of trying again and utilizing the fertility awareness method.

Lisa: Well, I think just to touch on something — one last thing. When you went to that six-week appointment after you had struggled to conceive, and you had conceived, you had miscarriages, and you needed IVF to conceive your daughter — this is a conversation I often have with my clients postpartum, because it probably hadn’t even entered into your mind, in terms of, look how much I had to go through to get to this point, and now you’re telling me to go on the pill because I need birth control. It’s kind of like a mind warp. But sometimes it can happen where after you’ve had a baby, it can happen easier for a period of time. So it is a thing. But I just wanted to touch on that.

Serrita: Absolutely. And for me, in my instance, I was always told that as long as you breastfeed, you’re not going to have a cycle. I’d had friends who had breastfed for like a year or two years and they didn’t have a cycle. But for me, nine weeks later, I started menstruating again. So I was just like, what is going on? Why am I not like everybody else? So yes, it was definitely in the back of my mind — okay, well, obviously I’m ovulating again, and so this is another thing I have to worry about.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s a whole conversation about breastfeeding as birth control. The long and short of it — and I’ll link some previous podcast episodes about postpartum charting, because I get this question all the time — is that it’s variable. So that’s the answer. Everyone who breastfeeds obviously does not just not get their period back for a year. If you’re not breastfeeding, you can get your period back as early as 35 days postpartum. Some women get their period back within two months when they’re breastfeeding, some three months, some four, six, eight, nine months, and some a year or more. So there’s a lot of variation there. You’re not abnormal, but it’s also not normal to just not have your period for two years. There is a point. When your child is two, even if you’re still breastfeeding — I breastfed both of mine until they were a little older than two — the point is that when you’re breastfeeding a two-year-old, half the time it’s for comfort. Long story short, it’s often not necessarily the reason that you’re not getting your period anymore by then. So we do have to look at other factors and make sure you’re good and healthy.

Well, we can switch over to the session part of our session today. I know we have quite a few topics we can talk about. I’ll just pull up your charts. Of course, the listeners will not be able to see those, but we’ll do our best as usual. So let me know where you’d like to start, what you want to focus on today.

Serrita: Yeah, so looking at my latest chart now — so I’m still struggling with how to draw the baseline. Where the — on the latest one, did I not send you?

Lisa: Yeah, this is the latest one. So basically, where you are right now — things are kind of pretty consistent. Did you want to send me the updated one? I think this one was from last week, so you probably have another week worth of data for me.

Serrita: Yeah, I sent an email.

Lisa: Okay, let me check. There you are. You sent it today. All right. Yes, we need to add the other one on there. So here we are. So before I get into it, tell me a little bit about the observation on cycle day 10. Do you remember what that looked like?

Serrita: Yeah, so with cycle day 10, what happened was it was still a smooth sensation, but I wasn’t able to pull up anything off of the toilet paper.

Lisa: Okay. And then was it shiny on the toilet paper?

Serrita: It was shiny on the toilet paper.

Lisa: Okay. So we’ll get into some of the nitty-gritty here. So in the sensation box, moving forward, I’ll encourage you to just write the letter — so either dry or smooth. In the sensation box, let’s only have the sensation. None of the notations. And then in the notations box, let’s have the notations. So for example — I call it arts and crafts when I’m drawing on the chart, because everyone in class knows it and laughs at me. So this would be like smooth. And I think we had talked about this last time — I teach the wiping method, which is basically you have a piece of toilet paper and you wipe from front to back and identify the sensation — how it actually feels when you’re wiping.

So in this scenario — is this correct, Sarita, what I’m doing there?

Serrita: Yes. The cervical fluid was clear, it didn’t stretch very much, but it was clear.

Lisa: So I’m just writing it on here for Sarita so she can see what I’m getting at, because a part of all of this is to note it correctly. The reason we care about the notations is because once we get down what you’re actually seeing, then we can see what the patterns are. Okay, so this so far is representing what you were trying to mark. So then for day 10, you’re saying that it was shiny but you couldn’t pick anything up?

Serrita: That is correct.

Lisa: So I would mark that differently — only because you couldn’t pick anything up. So to paint a picture for the listener: Sarita had her period, then she had one day before she started to see cervical fluid, then she had three days of cervical fluid that was kind of like clear and stretchy. And so the last day that she had cervical fluid that was clear and stretchy is cycle day nine. So that would mean that your peak day is on cycle day nine. Peak day is just the last day that you have mucus that’s clear, stretchy, or lubricative. Peak day we care about because it’s often highly correlated with ovulation. So often when you’ve identified that kind of last day of clear stretchy, it’s related to ovulation. For some women, it’s the day of ovulation, the day before, or the day after. So we always want to pay attention to that last day of mucus in the cycle that’s clear or stretchy.

In terms of the temperatures — when you’re taking your temperature each morning and you’re on your period, that’s a time of transition where you were going from the post-ovulatory phase of high temperatures to the pre-ovulatory phase. So often during your period itself, the temperatures are a little bit higher than normal, or they kind of go up and down quite a bit more. In Sarita’s case, she just didn’t check them during her period, which I think is a fine option. So we just have a couple of days to go on. It’s possible that ovulation happened around day nine, and it’s possible that this temperature here could just be an outlier. You have a temperature on day six of 98.3, which is kind of high for a pre-ovulatory temp. I don’t know if you remember if there was anything happening on that day?

Serrita: Yeah, I was having a bit of a cold that was passed on from my daughter.

Lisa: Good job. Three-year-olds — yes. All right, so that kind of gives us a possible explanation then. So basically, we have days cycle day seven and eight where the temperatures seem to be in a typical pre-ovulatory range, and then we go into what looks like a post-ovulatory temperature pattern. So if I compare your previous cycle, we had the baseline — the line that essentially divides the pre and post-ovulatory temps — somewhere around 97.8. I feel a little non-committal about this line. It could be 97.7. I like to compare, because cycle to cycle it’s not always exactly the same. But typically for anyone who’s charted two, three, four or more cycles, we tend to see that baseline be similar from cycle to cycle. So in this chart here, I could put the baseline in the same place — like 97.8 or 97.7. And basically what I have to go on is these two temperatures on cycle day seven and eight, which appear to be in your typical pre-ovulatory range. The one temperature you have right after your period is 98.3, which is typically a high pre-ovulatory temp — that’s not typical. And you mentioned you were sick that day. So I circled it as a potential outlier. These are judgment calls that come from experience, and it’s a combination of looking at what we have to work with.

So for anyone who hasn’t picked up on it yet — your cycle here, we’re looking at earlier ovulation. We’re not looking at a day 14 ovulation here. It looks like ovulation likely happened on day nine or ten or something like that. So that also means that we just don’t have as many pre-ovulatory temps to go by.

What I’m also looking at is the general trend. In your previous chart, we see the baseline around 97.8, and we do see a clear trend that the majority of temps before ovulation are below that line. And after ovulation, the temps are staying above that line. In this current cycle, after day nine, none of the temps are dropping below the 97.8 mark — they’re all above it. We’re also seeing that temperature match up with the peak day. So again, I do really look at the mucus as a valid biomarker. I always make sure that I don’t ignore it. And so we see these three days of mucus that you’ve identified as clear and stretchy, and then afterwards we see a change where you’re marking nothing, you’re not seeing any mucus — it’s dry. So that is a shift. So these things together — the mucus pattern, the temperature shift, the difference between those pre-ovulatory temperatures, plus comparing it to where the baseline was last cycle — that’s why I’m marking that line there. How do you feel about it? Where I’m marking possible ovulation — what were your thoughts on this chart?

Serrita: I agree with you. I 100% agree with you. I always wanted to know, because again, I only have a 25-day cycle typically — wanting to know when my ovulation was actually happening. Is it earlier, is it later? And luckily, I had stopped taking my antihistamines. So I was able to give myself a chance to actually have some sort of observations that may be indicative of something going on. Whereas before, in my last cycle, I saw nothing because I was hitting the Claritin every day. I think that was a hindrance for me. So this time, I’m actually able to see some things, which is very helpful.

Lisa: Yeah, I remember we had that conversation — obviously it’s challenging on both fronts. Because when you’re taking the antihistamines, we’re seeing all dry days. And then once you stop taking the antihistamines, you have to deal with the allergies. So we talked about a couple of potential solutions to that. But just in general — how are you doing with it? Like now that you’ve dropped the antihistamines for a while, are you surviving?

Serrita: I’m doing okay. It wasn’t a situation where it was so bad that I was, you know, eyes watering or anything like that. It was more so the sneezing in the early morning and that kind of thing. So I was like, okay, well, let me just kind of suffer through it for a little while. I took your advice and taking some other things like the NAC, and I’ve seen a little bit of a difference with that as well. So instead of me just going to my normal go-tos, I’m still able to function and not really be suffering so much.

Lisa: Well, that’s good news. It’s tricky — obviously the goal is not to make you suffer. So we did talk about a couple of strategies to potentially minimize symptoms and all that kind of stuff. So I’m glad that you’re seeing some progress. But yeah, so the good news is that we are seeing mucus.

Now, what the listeners may have picked up on is that ovulation is happening a bit earlier in the cycle. You’re in your early 40s. And so one of the things that we’ve spoken about in class is how the cycle changes as we get into different reproductive stages. So it’s not uncommon for women who are in that age range — I’m turning 40 this year, so I’m jumping into that age range right away here — but essentially it’s not uncommon to start seeing earlier ovulations at that time. And so that’s something to watch for as well. Were you surprised to see how early ovulation was happening in this cycle?

Serrita: Yeah, no, I was kind of expecting that because I also noticed other things — like I try to pay attention to other clues about my body, like am I feeling a little bit friskier? Am I perspiring a little bit more? What time of the month is that? So at this time I was feeling more like I had a greater sense to want to have sex, and in addition to what I was seeing from my observations, that was telling me that maybe I am ovulating.

Lisa: Well, it’s really important to understand the kind of primary factors that we pay attention to with fertility awareness — obviously the temperature and the cervical fluid, and if you want to, the optional cervical position, things like that. But it’s also really helpful to look at some of those secondary signs. Your libido is definitely, for many women, a secondary sign. Now, I recognize everybody isn’t the same, and not everybody necessarily feels the same way around ovulation. But what I’ve seen over 20 years is that the majority of women seem to have somewhat of an increase in libido around that time. It doesn’t mean it’s the only time they’re going to have an increase in libido — it’s pretty common. And so those are things that are just as valid to pay attention to, to kind of corroborate your chart.

And just a question — are you marking intimacy on the chart?

Serrita: I was marking it, but I haven’t had any.

Lisa: I always ask the question because I want to find out — if there’s nothing on there, is it because it didn’t export, because you weren’t marking it, or because there was no sex? So I don’t like to assume.

And you had some questions about clarifying your mucus. So did we kind of go through some of those? I know you had a question about something that you saw that was kind of creamy.

Serrita: Yeah, so I have in my past, after I got a sense that maybe I did ovulate — and this was before I was trying at all — to have like a creamy mucus observation where it was cloudy, and I could definitely pick it up, and it looked like something that would come out of the nose as opposed to the other end. And so just wanted to get your insight into — what would I mark that as? Because I know that it would be after ovulation, right? So what would I do with that information?

Lisa: It would be after ovulation, you mean?

Serrita: Uh-huh.

Lisa: Well, so interesting observation that it kind of looks like snot. And again, the cervical crypts — they’re mucus membranes. It shouldn’t be yellow and gunky, but it is a similar kind of consistency. So I think it’s helpful to keep that in mind.

So in terms of how you mark it — I’m teaching the wiping method, and there are some specificities. I always say it’s not to say this is the right way, but this is the way that I teach. So essentially, what we’re looking for when we’re identifying mucus with this method is we’d be wiping before and after you go to the bathroom, and we would count something as mucus if we’re able to pick it up off the toilet paper essentially. So if you’re wiping and you look at the toilet paper after, and you can pick it up and stretch it, we ask two questions: what color is it, and how much does it stretch? And then we use those identifiers to identify it. So we have mucus in two categories — what we call peak and non-peak. So essentially we have creamy type mucus, which looks like lotion, and then we have the clear stretchy that kind of looks like the raw egg white type.

So in this case, if you wipe and then there’s something on the toilet paper that you can pick up — kind of like lotion-y stuff — then that’s when we consider it mucus. If you see something in your underwear, I typically encourage my clients to note that separately, because sometimes what you see in your underwear can just be vaginal cell slough, especially if you’re doing the wiping method all day and you’re not seeing anything when you wipe, but you have this little clump of lotion-y stuff on your underwear. It is helpful to kind of note that separately.

Does any of that help so far?

Serrita: Yes. And for where you would note it — in the notes section of the app?

Lisa: Well, yeah. So you don’t have to — it’s not mandatory — but I do encourage my clients to consider that especially when they’re kind of confused, because I’ve seen a number of different scenarios. So I have some clients who really have limited mucus — they don’t have very much at all and they’re really not seeing anything. I’ve had clients who only see stuff in their underwear or in an internal check. So I need to identify what their baseline is using the wiping method, because in a healthy cycle, you shouldn’t have to send a search team to find this mucus. It should be there, and you should be able to see it when you’re wiping. If you’re not seeing anything when you’re wiping, from my perspective I want to know that. So that’s part of the reason where I want to separate it out.

So for some of my clients in that particular situation, they might do a separate line like an underwear observation on their chart, and then they actually write down what they see in their underwear, and we see if it actually corresponds to ovulation. It’s kind of like — we observe what’s happening in her body and then we try to figure out, is this actually mucus? Is it cell slough? For some clients, if they do that, they’ll see that it’s just cell slough — they have it sometimes, but it doesn’t really correspond with ovulation. But for other clients, if they’re only seeing the underwear stuff around ovulation, then that is a different kind of thing, and that can actually be a helpful observation.

But ultimately, we want to get your cycle to a place where you’re having good mucus. With your first chart, it was all dry. And then we identified the histamine issue and you took the plunge, and now we’re seeing mucus. So we kind of know — okay, well, she doesn’t have a problem making mucus. She was just using antihistamines. I’m coming at this at a little bit of a different strategy because not only are we wanting to identify the fertile window in your case to support conception, but for other clients who are looking to avoid, we also want to figure out — are you healthy? Is your cycle normal? And if it’s not, then we kind of need to know that so that we can take steps to improve that mucus production if we need to.

Serrita: Got it, thank you.

Lisa: You’re welcome.

Well, and so we have time for — there were a couple other topics. We might not be able to cover everything in today’s session, but we had talked about boosting progesterone, and we also talked about going through potentially your partner’s sperm results. So what would you like to focus on?

Serrita: Let’s do the progesterone piece, because that’s really close to home for me. When I was pregnant — and also because of the fact that I had the stillbirth — my doctor had me on weekly progesterone shots as a preventative measure. And so it’s really important to me to make sure that I do all the things since I am wanting to conceive. How could I support myself in the post-ovulatory phase with progesterone if need be, in a natural sense? So I wanted to get some of your thoughts on some things that I could do that might be helpful in that regard.

Lisa: Okay, that sounds good. So first and foremost — what we have so far, the data gathered from your charting — I think within a couple of days we’ll have the second full chart. And that gives us a good amount of insight just on a very basic level of what’s happening with your progesterone. So in the previous cycle, we identified that the luteal phase was likely about 12 days. The exact date of ovulation wasn’t 100% clear, but we did our best to interpret, and it did meet the advanced rules. And so approximately 12 days, which is good. A strong luteal phase is 12 days and higher. So 11 is borderline, 10 is short, 10 and lower. First and foremost, it’s good. We’re seeing ovulation happen. We’re seeing it happen consistently. And we’re seeing what looks to be like a strong luteal phase, which is a sign of good progesterone, because you can’t really have a 12-day luteal without it.

Luteal phase is just the word for the second half of the cycle — the post-ovulatory phase. How many days in the cycle between ovulation and your next period? Essentially, if you have during that time the corpus luteum — which is what’s left after ovulation, after the follicle bursts open, you have the remaining tissue there which forms into this corpus luteum, which then starts to make progesterone. So what you have during that phase is the progesterone has to be high enough to suppress cervical mucus production, but also to maintain and continue to mature the uterine lining. And what happens when the progesterone isn’t high enough is that you tend to have bleeding and a shorter luteal phase, or spotting, or increased PMS. Anyway, that’s more of an overview for the listener. So having a 12-day luteal is a good sign — that’s basically what I’m saying.

We’ve already discussed a couple of things in our work together that are helpful in the general sense to support progesterone. One of the first things we had talked about was your training protocol — you’re doing a six-week protocol with your trainer, which is awesome. And we had talked about ensuring that you’re getting enough overall calories and protein, and I know you had made some shifts to make that happen. I’d say first and foremost, that is really helpful and important.

I call them the foundational factors. The first things that we need to do to ensure good progesterone production are basically: we need to get enough sleep. That’s really important. One of the first things we need to do is ensure that you’re getting enough sleep. When we don’t get enough sleep, we’re not supporting our melatonin production, we can increase our cortisol production, and these things can have a negative effect on luteal phase length. So before we even get into all the different things to do, we want to do our best to get seven or more hours of sleep in the dark each night. And did we talk about sleep? How do you sleep?

Serrita: I’m not the greatest sleeper because I drink water too late and I have to get up around two or so to go to the bathroom. And so it’s not a consistent seven to eight hours for me. I usually get to bed about 10:30 and I wake up around 6, 6:15. But in the meantime, I do have the occasional getting up to go to the bathroom or kind of toss and turn a little bit. So I’d say if I were to put it on a scale of zero to ten, ten being the greatest, I’d say my sleep is about a six.

Lisa: Well, question for you — you’re a mom of a three-year-old. Have you thought about giving yourself a cutoff? I mean, it sounds simple, but we don’t — sometimes we need someone to tell us to do that — in terms of the water.

Serrita: Yes. So it was part of my thing — I want to get in my ounces of water, and sometimes I don’t get it in early enough. So yes, I thought about the idea of me cutting off my liquid supply about 8 p.m. and seeing how that would work. But then I just haven’t been meeting my water goal, so I can just cut it off for what it is and see if that would help my sleep. Because to your point, it’s like a balance, right? What’s going to benefit me more — getting more sleep, not having to get up to go to the bathroom, or making the water goal and then having to get up all the time?

Lisa: Well, what if we flip the water goal a little bit? You work out in the mornings, is that right?

Serrita: At the current time, yes.

Lisa: Is there anything that would preclude you from purposely drinking two tall glasses of water, maybe putting some lemon, when you wake up?

Serrita: No, not at all. Yeah, that’s definitely a thing I can do.

Lisa: And if you did like one or two — just pound it back in the morning — which is actually really excellent for your body. It hydrates you, supports your liver, especially if you put some lemon in there. And it actually does you a lot of good to do that first thing. So if you were to do that and pound back like two nice glasses of water or something, how would that help you to reach your water goals?

Serrita: I think that that’s definitely something that would benefit me for sure. I’ll give that a shot. I’ll start tomorrow.

Lisa: Yeah, because I want to support you to meet your goals, but at the same time I don’t want you to shoot yourself in the foot while you’re doing it. Because we can get in that water especially if you purposely get a lot in the morning — then you can kind of just hit it right off the bat, and then the rest of the day you’re kind of like — I feel like it’d be easier to hit the goal anyways with that. So you’re in good company. At the time we’re recording this, I am 35 weeks pregnant, and I have a baby jumping on my bladder. Things are a little different. I’ve had to kind of make some of those choices too. Because if I’m pounding back two glasses of water at midnight, I’m not going to have a good sleep. So just to kind of put that out there — because sometimes the easiest solution doesn’t come to us right away.

But okay, we want you to get good sleep. So the second question is — are you sleeping in the dark? Like, is your room actually pitch black dark?

Serrita: Yes, yes, it is pitch black. I’m sleeping in the dark. So that’s not an issue.

Lisa: Okay, excellent. So yeah, that’s a little tweak. Let’s see if we can get that from a six out of ten to like eight or nine, because you work, you have family — we all need to just function better. It’s hard out there.

Serrita: Absolutely.

Lisa: And that’s one of the things that are actually really helpful and important to boost progesterone in the general sense — these are the kind of the foundational things that just help everything work better. So then in terms of — just give me a quick rundown on how it’s going with exercise and incorporating more protein. Has it been fairly straightforward for you?

Serrita: It has been fairly simple. So what I’ve been doing as far as increasing my protein intake is like when I have a yogurt, I’ll include my collagen protein powder in that. As part of my morning routine, I have my clean protein shake, which has about 20 grams of grass-fed protein. And just thinking of other ways throughout the day when I have snack time of how can I make it more of a high-protein thing — have a boiled egg instead of going to the cookie. And I’ve also discovered that I really like canned sardines with mustard sauce.

Lisa: Yes! Sardines — I’ll just put it out there. Sorry for anyone who’s like, that is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. Not that everyone has to eat them. Obviously, if you don’t like them, don’t force it down. But high in omega-3 fatty acids, small fish — that means low potential mercury exposure. Good source of selenium. When you eat them in the can, they have the bone in, so good source of calcium. Like, it’s actually, if you can tolerate it, a really great way to get protein, omega-3, all the nutrients. If you can do it, it’s good.

Serrita: Yes, yes. Exactly.

Lisa: Okay, so it sounds like you’ve been doing really good. And I would say in general, once the six weeks of exercise is up, I would encourage you to continue to think that way about meals. From a general standpoint, aiming for a source of protein, fat, and carbohydrates at each meal — you can offer lower glycemic carbohydrates if you want to, because I know you had some goals you’re working on. But the key is, if you pack in the protein first and then you have a source of fat, I find that you end up eating less of the things that you don’t need in that quantity.

The benefit for hormones with getting enough protein — especially when you’re doing exercise — is that we do have research that shows that when we’re under-eating overall calories and protein, we don’t have as good hormone production. So it’s really important for that basic reason — we have to give our body the tools it needs to pump out the hormones that we want. And breakfast is key. Starting the day with balanced blood sugar — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — with meals that have sufficient protein, with your snacks throughout the day that have sufficient protein — then at the end of the day, you’re not hungry in a way that drives you toward less nourishing choices.

So in addition to those things — I’m showing you one of the handouts here. This goes through a lot of the foundational things that I talk about with clients to boost progesterone. One of the things I always say is that in my tool belt — I’m not a doctor, I don’t prescribe things. So in my tool belt, I have specific lifestyle strategies and kind of foundational things to support, as well as a few supplements that can help to boost even further.

So what I always say is that many women want to go straight to the supplement aspect of the conversation — like, what do I take to boost my progesterone? But without these foundational pieces in order, it’s not going to be as effective. Because the supplements kind of help to support your body when it’s already in momentum. The analogy that just came to mind is like a train. If the train is already moving, we’ve got some momentum, so we can kind of build on that. The train is at the station — the supplements have to move this train from scratch. So they’re not going to be as beneficial.

I don’t think you’re a big coffee drinker, if I remember correctly.

Serrita: No, I can skip it if I need to. I’ve been switching it to like the teas and different things. Coffee was just a thing because it was what people do in the morning, and that’s what you would have. But definitely making the switch to like the hibiscus tea or something that’s a little bit more herbal, but still get that comfort morning thing that I still want to be able to have.

Lisa: Yeah. And at this stage, how many days a week for coffee?

Serrita: Two to three.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s pretty good. I mean, so alternatives — in general, if the cycle is great and we don’t have any issues with progesterone, I’m not necessarily going to go there. But part of the reason I always bring up the coffee is again because it’s an appetite suppressant. Especially when we’re looking to get enough protein and overall calories, my clients who do drink one, two, three cups of coffee a day do tend to eat less — because even if you eat it after a meal, it can suppress for the future meals. And in general, it can have over time a negative effect on overall hormone production that you don’t really notice until you come off of it and have that like one-week-long coffee hangover. So just things to keep in mind.

And then in addition, you’re taking vitamin D, which is great to support egg quality obviously, and we need vitamin D for a lot of different reasons. You may want to consider magnesium. Are you taking magnesium for any reason at this point?

Serrita: No, no, no. But I actually have like the topical spray, and I also have the magnesium glycinate. I have it in my cabinet.

Lisa: Okay. Well, yeah. So we could talk a little bit about magnesium dosing. There are different ways to take it — obviously you could do an Epsom salt bath. It’s a great way to infuse the magnesium, also just to relax, especially before bed. I don’t know if you’re a bath person, but throwing a couple cups of Epsom salt into the tub, having a nice soak — you’ll just feel amazing. And as you mentioned that you’ve got the getting up to pee, but you also mentioned tossing and turning — so many of my clients who take magnesium, if they have period pain or they’re looking to reduce PMS symptoms or something like that, they’ll often comment that it helps them to sleep better.

So magnesium specifically is one of the ways we can boost progesterone production. It’s been well studied in PMS, which is associated with lower progesterone, and so it is associated with improving and boosting overall progesterone production, as well as vitamin C and vitamin B6. So there are a few different supplements that can kind of add to what you’re doing already with the foundational factors. I would definitely start there.

And I feel like you’ve already laid the groundwork in a lot of ways. So this will just kind of give you that extra boost. And you’ll be able to track your luteal phase. One of the good things about charting is that you can typically see if it’s helping. So if you start to see that extra day on the luteal phase, or in your case, your temperatures are in a good range — for some of my clients, they might see the post-ovulatory temperature raised a little bit if it was a little bit low, or something like that. But we should be able to kind of detect some benefits to this as we chart.

So we will continue our discussion. We’re going to have more hot seat sessions and more classes. We’ll go through your partner’s sperm results — I know today in class we are actually going to be talking about improving sperm quality. So we still have lots of great conversations to have.

So as we wrap up today — a couple questions for you. The first question: for someone who is considering fertility awareness charting, let’s say they’re in a similar situation to yourself where they’ve been trying to conceive and they just want to have a better understanding of their fertile window. What would you say to that person?

Serrita: Yeah, what I would say to them is definitely do your research and really strongly consider the Fertility Awareness Method, because it gives you more insight than just what you need. It gives you all the things that you really need to get a baseline of understanding of being able to be successful in your conception journey. As you had mentioned in your classes before and on your podcasts, it is really truly — your menstrual cycle is your fifth vital sign. And so having those observations gives you the tools that you need in order to make fundamental changes if you need to, and be able to continue to use it to observe results. So that’s definitely what I would say — that it’s above and beyond just a charting thing, just to know what your cycles are. But it also gives you the observations that you need in order for you to have optimal health.

Lisa: Yeah, thank you for that. It’s so interesting when you get into it. Like, it’s its own little modality that we just didn’t know was happening each cycle that we can tap into. And I think that’s why what I love about it is that it’s not me just saying a bunch of stuff — in the practical application, in the classes, working with women behind the scenes, I say stuff, sure, but really it’s like: do we see the shift on the chart? And that’s really what it is. And if we do stuff and we don’t see that shift, then we know we need to do different stuff or kind of round it up a little bit or whatever. So it’s this feedback system that is real time, that really does allow us to get a much deeper insight. And it’s very unique to each person, because what comes clear quite quickly — even if you look in the group — everyone does not have the same cycle. Everyone isn’t starting from the same point, and everyone doesn’t respond to the same things. For one woman, she might make change X, Y, and see this big improvement right away. For another woman, she might make the same change, but it’s not exactly what she needs at this point — she has a different underlying challenge. So yes, I really appreciate that.

And then in general, for someone who’s thinking about taking the class and they’re kind of like, what is it like talking to a group of women online about my cervical fluid — what would you have to say to her?

Serrita: I would say it’s absolutely awesome just being able to have that camaraderie and being able to know that you’re not the only one, and gaining the knowledge of having the conversations and going through the lessons alongside you. It just makes a whole world of difference because we’re different women from all over. We have a shared experience of us just wanting to know more things and be better. I definitely would encourage anyone to take your class because it’s beyond what you would even think that you would be able to have. It’s just information that you’ll be able to take along with you for your life. And that sense of being in the class together with other women just takes it to a whole other level.

Lisa: Oh, thank you for that too. You can tell that this is what I love to do. And I think also what I like about the class setting is that I hear a lot of stories that have really changed the way I look at a lot of things in life. And I think that comes out on the podcast because I do have an interesting perspective because of the work that I do. And I feel like the class allows me to share that with women. Because then when you’re there kind of hearing — and in our class, we have women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s — there are certain things that you see when you work with women who have had kids already, or they’re postpartum, or the different collections of experiences that we share that really open your mind to a different way of talking about fertility. Our culture tells us that in your 20s, we should only be thinking about avoiding pregnancy, which we probably should if we’re not trying to get pregnant. But it doesn’t tell you to plan for when you do.

Serrita: Absolutely. And something else I wanted to really say, which is that in the recent developments that have happened here in the United States with Roe vs. Wade being overturned, women’s rights are really upside down right now. And one of the things that I’m very appreciative about is getting the knowledge that I have about the Fertility Awareness Method and being able to have an understanding that oral contraceptives are not my only way of being able to take charge of my fertility needs. I live in the state of Texas. Things are really out of whack right now and very limited. And with the possibility of contraceptives as a whole being eliminated at the federal level as well based off of recent information — this is definitely something that I think every woman needs to have an understanding of: that you do not have to take the pill in order to take charge of your contraceptive needs.

Lisa: Yeah, I really appreciate that. One of the themes throughout all the years I’ve been doing this work is empowering women to have choices and letting us know about all the choices that we do have and being self-sufficient. There’s something about charting your cycle, not having to rely on the pharmaceutical industry for your birth control, and to be able to have such an intimate awareness of your cycle so that if a condom breaks in that fertile window, you know that you need that Plan B right away — assuming that we have access to emergency contraceptive options. And I feel like it really does allow us to take control and charge of our bodies in a different way.

It also forces us to have these conversations with our partners. I think that men need to take responsibility for what they do too. We’ve gotten to this place where it seems like the overarching message is: we have to take care of it and they can just enjoy their pleasure uninhibited. I think that we need to be having more conversations with our partners, and they need to be able to concede — you know, if you want to enjoy this body, you’re going to have to do something to maybe sacrifice a little bit of pleasure on your end. So that’s a whole topic, but I really appreciate you for bringing it up.

All right, well, thank you so much for being here today, Sarita. This has been a pleasure, and I look forward to seeing you in class in a couple of minutes.

Serrita: Thank you.

Lisa: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/433. I hope that you enjoyed today’s call with Sarita. I feel like it gives a good sample of what it’s like to go through a chart analysis — really going through the nitty-gritty details of the cycle, looking at mucus with a fine-tuned comb, looking at the post-ovulatory phase, signs of low progesterone, and also talking a lot about the lifestyle factors that each of us can actually do. It’s easier said than done, but within our control to really boost progesterone.

I think that most clients who go through the Fertility Awareness Mastery Live program, and my one-on-one clients, and also my practitioners who go through the FAMM program — I think that one of the huge themes and big realizations is how much control we do have over our cycles, and how responsive our hormones can be to the day-to-day habits that we have developed. So that’s certainly a theme. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, it certainly comes up a lot, and I think it’s really empowering as one by one we start to do a variety of things to improve our day-to-day habits to support our hormonal health and see the results in the chart.

So with that said, I hope that you have a wonderful weekend, whenever you’re tuning in to the show, and of course, as always, until next time — be well and happy charting.