Does Coffee Affect Your Menstrual Cycle and Hormones? (Episode 414)

Full Transcript: Episode 414

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: 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 my call with Kali. And in today’s episode, we’re talking about conception, we touch on sperm health, and we also touch on coffee. And so, in today’s episode, we’re going to just kind of jump into that question of, you know, does coffee affect hormones? Does it affect fertility? I feel like coffee is a really interesting topic because so many people love coffee, it’s part of the culture, and there’s a lot of different information out there, but really what we’re focusing on today is how it can affect the menstrual cycle and what happened when Kali decided to stop drinking coffee. So with that said, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode.

And I’m excited to be here today with Kali. Kali is a member of my Fertility Awareness Mastery Live program. And at the time we’re recording this, we’re about halfway through. So we’ve had quite a few sessions together already. And so with that, welcome to the show.

Kali: Hi, thank you for having me.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Oh, thank you for coming on the show. I always say this, I mean, I love doing these episodes. It’s really fun for me to be able to connect with you kind of outside of the confines of the program, because I always find that there’s other pieces of the story that kind of come through. Yeah, I’d love to start just by asking you, you know, how old were you when you had your first period and share a little bit about early menstruation? If you’ve ever used the pill before? And basically what brought you to wanting to use fertility awareness at this point?

Kali: Okay. Yeah, sure. So I believe I was, I think I was 12 or 13 when I got my first period. So right in there. I remember it was seventh grade, but I’m an August baby so I was always younger, so it kind of confuses me. So it was right in there. And yeah, it was, I mean, it just came. And I remember it being pretty regular. Like it didn’t come and then go away for six months and then start back up again. It was like once it started it just kept on going. And I don’t remember it being like terribly painful at first, like in middle school. Yeah. So in high school, things started to change. My periods became much heavier, lots more cramps. I had to stay home a couple of times and I just remember yeah, they were more of an ordeal than they were. And then but for the most part, it was, I guess, relatively normal other than that. I didn’t have any terrible headaches or any other major symptoms that I can recall.

So yeah, life goes on. I did use hormonal contraceptives for about 10 years, maybe 10 plus, from about the time I was 18, I would say, until I got off the pill when me and my husband started trying to have our baby, probably when I was like 28, 29 ish, right in there. So yeah, long time hormonal contraceptive use. And I do remember asking one of my providers at one point like, oh, is it okay to be on this for very long? And I vividly remember her saying, yeah, it actually helps prevent cancer and it’s really good for you to be on it. So I don’t know. Looking back, I think I maybe should have questioned that a little bit more, but I didn’t have any major reactions or symptoms at the time that I remember. Like I took it religiously because I was deathly afraid of getting pregnant before I was ready, which is kind of funny now in hindsight. Spend so much time worrying about that and then yeah, have some troubles getting pregnant. Yeah. So I was on it for a long time. I have gut issues now, so that could contribute to that long-term hormonal contraceptive use. Not sure. I don’t know that I would ever really truly know, but I have a feeling that could be. I also have celiac disease, which contributes to all that too, but all of it just compounding factors.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, I mean, when you were talking about a few things, you mentioned you were told that the pill prevents cancer and it’s really good for you. It’s interesting because the pill, you know, increases the chance of certain cancers and reduces the chance of others. So it increases the risk of cervical cancer and liver cancer and breast cancer, but it reduces the risk of ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer, you know, statistically. And so when you read the research about it, it’s interesting because it’s almost like the researchers are required to follow a certain format. But when you read about it, it’ll always say like, although there’s this increase in these kinds of cancers, it reduces these kinds of cancers, so it’s all good. And that is an interesting way to put it, certainly media friendly, but ultimately it’s not a vitamin and it was the first drug that was ever created to, you know, basically suppress a perfectly natural function in the body. So whether we can go so far as to say it’s good for you, I would say, wait a minute, but we can certainly say like what it does and how it works and the purpose of it, and that kind of thing. So I would probably disagree with that perspective that it’s good for you — just to kind of blanket say that it reduces cancer without the full kind of discussion around what it does. So just for anyone who hasn’t heard that before, I like to put things into context, is basically where I’m going with that.

And also just the kind of, I mean, but this is ultimately, it’s not to say anything negative against your doctor because that’s basically how we are taught about it. That’s how medical professionals are taught about it. That’s how a lot of the research talks about it. You know, it’s a reversible contraceptive method. You know, they say that it’s low risk, although contraceptives have a black box warning because some women do die from taking it as directed, a small percentage, albeit, but still happens. And I don’t know that many women who die from eating chicken. And so I feel like we have to acknowledge that it’s medication.

I mean, it sounds like your early experience was fairly typical, fairly common in the sense that your periods started off pretty normal. It’s very common obviously to experience the pain. Interesting that it just kind of shifted and changed. And at this stage, you still experience some degree of pain, is what I have?

Kali: Yeah. It’s improved dramatically with some dietary changes, lifestyle changes. Even with not using tampons has helped me, honestly. I noticed a big change, and some acupuncture. Like I’ve done it all at this stage of the game. I feel like yeah, it really has changed a lot. So after I had my daughter in 2014, and it took us roughly a year or so to conceive her. And after her, I never went back on the pill after that, because we knew we wanted to have more kids. And my periods came back right away after having her. I don’t recall them even with, and I breastfed her for nearly a year, but even with that, my period still came back. But I don’t remember them being super painful or heavy, but that time was also kind of a blur with my first newborn.

I’ve conceived three times and had two losses. But with all of those, my periods have been very regular. They’ve come every month. My cycles are historically pretty short though, 24 to 26 days is pretty typical for me. So on the short side. But last month my luteal phase ended up being 13 days. So I used to have a lot of spotting, like I’d have probably three or four days of very, very light spotting before my period would start. And that’s since improved since making all the dietary changes and lifestyle changes that we’ve made over the last four years.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, and you had mentioned that you have some gut issues, you have celiac disease, and you aren’t sure whether or not the pill could have contributed. And so for any of the listeners who might have that same question, there is data and research on this link between contraceptive use and some degree of disruption of the gut flora. I don’t know that you could go so far to say that the pill causes gut problems, but you could say that individuals who either have pre-existing gut issues or potentially a predisposition to gut issues, the pill can exacerbate those problems. So that’s something that’s actually known. And on a micro level of that, there are a lot of women who go on the pill and suddenly start having yeast infections, and then the doctor gives them the drug for the yeast, and then they get the BV, and then they kind of go back and forth for a while, and then when they come off of it, it settles down. So we do know that there is some sort of link there, but not necessarily causative, but could certainly exacerbate.

Kali: Well, I would have said it was under control. And I think it is. So I’m pretty sure I’ve probably had it my whole life, because it’s there right, as far as I understand, in your genes. And then sometimes it can just be triggered or your immune system goes haywire, and then that’s when it starts flaring up. I’m no doctor or expert, that’s my basic understanding. So I mean, I wouldn’t say I was a sickly child. I mean, I was thriving and growing and I was healthy and fine, but I had a lot of digestive issues. I threw up all the time to the point where in middle school, my parents were concerned that I was bulimic because of how anxious I was and how much I threw up. And it was very sporadic, so it was very hard to draw the lines and make the connections to the food that I was eating. So I honestly only got tested for celiac because my mother was having issues and her doctor had suggested that both me and my sister get tested because it has a genetic component as well. And so we both did and I was the lucky one that has celiac and she supposedly doesn’t.

I’ve taken gluten out and then I have not eaten bread since, I don’t know, it was like 2016 I think when I got my diagnosis. And it probably took me a year honestly to really embrace that diagnosis. And more recently, with some of my fertility challenges, I went to a specialist and did some tests and it still was showing that I was getting gluten somewhere. So either a cross-reaction, or potentially some sneaking in somewhere, but more than likely it was a cross-reaction from having a leaky gut. So I’ve been working for the last six months now, roughly, to heal that up through an elimination diet and all the things, supplements, and all of that stuff.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah, because I mean, that’s certainly a factor obviously contributing to more localized inflammation, and gut problems certainly play there. It’s complicated, obviously, as you know. And it certainly plays a role from the female side. And it depends on the level of sensitivity. So I’ve had certain clients who, if they have a stray gluten contamination food at a restaurant, they have severe gut pain. So it really ranges in terms of the symptomology there. But yeah, that’s a huge, huge piece of this puzzle for you. At least you found that out and you’re working really hard and diligently on that now.

It is interesting though, because with your daughter, I mean, she’s very healthy. And yeah, I’ve seen that happen as well, in that there was a time when people would just outright say that as you get older it’s harder, and you know, these days there’s a push to be very fertility positive at all ages, which there’s value in that, because at the bottom of it all are the individual differences. But at the end of the day, there are certain things that happen with human females. And one of those things is that the fertility does eventually decline and stop. So we can talk all we want about the positives, but what I would say from my perspective, because I’m not a Debbie downer doomsday type person, is that as we get up in age — so as we get in that age range 35 and above, and particularly early 40s — that has to be something that we’re aware of. The egg quality declines, we’re more susceptible to oxidative stress, we’re more susceptible to chromosomal abnormalities. In most scenarios, our partners are also older. And I’m always going to throw the partners into the conversation, because I’m sick and tired of pretending like that’s not a thing. And so, although men don’t have the same type of menopause scenario where they stop making sperm, they make sperm from puberty onwards. Older men have sperm that is more susceptible to oxidative stress, potentially more DNA damage, meaning that older men’s sperm is more challenging from that fertility perspective. And so, with all of that said, it doesn’t mean that we just say, oh well, you’re older and it’s not going to happen. We say, okay, well we know that at this age there are specific challenges, so that means that we have to approach it with specific strategies to kind of offset some of those issues.

Kali: No, you pretty much nailed it. But yeah, I’ve been doing fertility awareness, again, just what I could learn from a book, and just had questions, feeling like I must be doing something wrong because we’re not pregnant yet. Like I’ve been pregnant before, I thought I timed it well before. What am I missing? Something’s changed. So just really wanting to dive in, get to the root cause, and really have somebody else look at my charts, look at some things. And even if it comes down to validating, yes, you’re doing everything right, you just have to keep trying, it’s just helpful to have a community to talk through some of those things. And because if you don’t have anyone in your house or your girlfriends aren’t doing it, it’s like speaking a different language. So really having that help.

And then part two of that is, I don’t want my daughter to struggle with any of this stuff that I’ve struggled with. She’s gonna know so much more than I did from the get-go. And so if I’ve had to go through all of what I’ve been through for that, then maybe it’s all been worth it. I just think it’s something that all females should be taught. We should know this about our bodies as soon as we hit puberty, if not even before, right? Like, hey, this is coming. Don’t be scared.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah, and it is magical and beautiful and it’s so special. It’s interesting how society paints it so negatively, right? Like, oh, your period, and all of this stuff, when we literally get to carry life in our bodies. So it’s very interesting how we paint it in such a way, considering what it is. But that’s a whole other topic.

Has your partner had a semen analysis?

Kali: So he has. After our second loss, my miscarriage, we went to a fertility clinic and did a full workup and he had a semen analysis there. And then actually we just had another one done recently to make sure.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, yeah, because I’m looking at what I have in my end of things. The one that was done in what year was that?

Kali: It should have been like 2019, I think.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So when I take a look at it here, I don’t see a morphology number, but the motility is good. The concentration is listed at 29 million per milliliter, which is higher than the World Health Organization standards, but optimal is closer to about 50 million per milliliter. And so we’ll see if the latest one has the morphology number. The reason I just always want to bring that to the table is that from a statistical standpoint, when you have a couple who is trying to conceive for a year or more, statistically speaking, he’s more likely to not have optimal sperm quality in the sense that he may fall into the sub-fertile range with one or more of the sperm parameters. So that’s something just to always be aware of.

There’s also a lot of debate in the scientific community as to how relevant the sperm analysis is. The conclusion is that it is relevant because it’s kind of what they have for the most part. But there’s no perfect test. A person could actually have pretty decent numbers but be high on the sperm DNA damage spectrum, and that may not come through on the results. And then there’s debate about the morphology number. Some people would say that’s not that important, and others would say it’s very important. So it’s very interesting to see the differences between how all of these factors are looked at. But either way, from my perspective, there’s always something we can do to improve it a bit.

Kali: I mean, I think we’re open to it. He’s living a very healthful lifestyle along with me, more than we ever have been. So I think we’re open to certain changes.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, so I pulled up your chart here. Why don’t you let me know if you have any specific questions or things you wanted to make sure that we talked about today?

Kali: Yeah, no, I did. Well, there was one. So we had talked about in my last hot seat about cutting out the caffeine.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: We sure did.

Kali: And I have done that, as painful as it’s been. I eased myself off. And even with easing myself off, I had a headache for, I don’t know, like three or four days. And then the next three or four days after that, I was still like in a fog, honestly. So I’m like, okay, not good for me obviously. Not interesting, though. Yeah, how long it took was surprising. Like every day at 11 o’clock I would be yawning like almost half asleep. So interesting. Yeah. So probably good it’s gone. I’ve switched to decaf for now and just doing one little cup as more of a, just the ritual of having coffee than anything. So that should be fine, right? Just having some decaf.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, that is huge. So for the listeners, the context is that I have a certain protocol that I encourage my clients to consider when we’re dealing with specific challenges. So one of the most common challenges that we see when we’re charting would be the hormone stuff, you know, issues with progesterone production is kind of one of the most obvious things that shows up on the chart. And I think coffee is controversial. It’s very interesting. I find it to be a very interesting topic. And I would say it’s controversial because people love their coffee. I even love coffee. I don’t drink coffee, but I really like a latte, I’m not gonna lie. So it’s yummy. It’s a social thing. It’s a cultural thing. It’s definitely in the culture. You wake up and you have your coffee. It’s all very much embedded in the culture.

And I think when you’re paying attention to the menstrual cycle from my perspective, though, I think that we can really underestimate what it can do to the body. Just your experience — and people kind of know that too. It’s not like people don’t know that if they cut out the coffee they’re gonna feel rough for a couple of days. People know this. And that would indicate a dependency. Because if I don’t have green beans for a couple of days, it’s not like I have a hard time functioning. So it’s doing something if you cut it out and you have that kind of withdrawal reaction. I can drink coffee for two or three days in a row, and if I stop on the third day, I definitely have a headache for half the day. So it might just be that I’m sensitive, but it’s doing something. Anyway, so that’s huge that you did that.

And these are the types of things that I hear a lot. So as you can imagine, when Lisa comes around and suggests to give up the coffee, I get a lot of pushback. I don’t just randomly tell everyone to not drink coffee. I specifically look at the cycle and have a conversation with the client. And when you’re having a specific type of challenge, that’s when I’m looking at these kinds of options here. So just for listeners who are kind of like, why is she still on about this coffee — I love my coffee — just for your benefit here, there are a few trends I’ve seen and I’ve talked about a few of them on the podcast. So the first is that a lot of women replace meals with coffee. So they’re doing the intermittent fasting thing and they drink coffee to tide them over in the morning because coffee suppresses appetite. And then many women drink coffee with their breakfast and then potentially skip lunch and drink coffee again in the afternoon. And so whether you realize it or not, it’s this appetite suppressant. That’s one of my bigger issues with coffee.

But the second issue is basically what you’re describing now, that we don’t really realize how much of a dependence our body builds to the coffee. It’s one thing to have coffee once in a while. It’s another thing to have it one to three times a day. And you don’t really realize what a difference it’s making in your normal adrenal function unless you cut it out. And so just from my angle, what I’ve seen when my clients cut coffee — I’ve seen that they start eating breakfast and they start eating lunch. So they’re actually hungry and they’re eating more, which is good, because we can’t make our hormones without eating enough food. So that’s a really big part of my issue with coffee. And then the other thing though, is even if you’re drinking it in the morning, a lot of my clients find that when they cut out coffee, they sleep a lot better, even though they were having it in the morning. And they find that their body then starts to naturally, because in order to feel awake in the morning, you need to make a certain amount of cortisol. And in order not to need a nap in the afternoon, you know, you need to have that kind of continuous normal hormone pattern instead of this kind of crashing situation. And the last thing that we tend to see as well, from my perspective, is an improvement in that luteal phase, improvement in progesterone production. So better cycle parameters. This is the reason that we suggest it, but there are other kind of side benefits that happen along the way.

Kali: And you can see from my temps even down here, they’re kind of all over the board. Yeah, a little bit up and down here. That’s not super typical for me. I mean, sometimes I’ll get one in the higher range and then they’ll level out. But they’re also on the lower side. When you look at my last chart, it was like steady Eddie hovering between 97.5 and 97.6 Fahrenheit. And this one is just all over. So my first question was, it’s kind of making it hard to see if I’ve already ovulated this cycle, which I would guess by my cervical position that I have. I would guess that I did yesterday because there was a noticeable shift in my cervical position those last two days, like I noted very noticeable. And then today it’s back down. So I’m assuming I did.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, let’s talk it through. I mean, so from the perspective of charting here, there are different ways to confirm ovulation. So in class, we learned about how to confirm ovulation with temperature and mucus. And I encourage you to do it kind of as an exercise, separately, because just when you do it that way, it allows you to kind of see, especially at times like this one, where it’s not exactly matching up to what you would think. In Kali’s previous chart, there wasn’t a lot of ups and downs. After your period ended the temperatures kind of fell between that 97.5 to 97.8 range. And then in this cycle here, we have the temperatures ranging from 97.1 at the lowest to 98.0 in the pre-ovulatory phase. So there’s quite a bit of kind of up-down zigzag kind of pattern here.

I don’t think this is an issue with the thermometer. I honestly think coffee is the only thing that changed — or caffeine, more specifically. And you had a harder time sleeping at first, your sleep was more erratic, but now that the headaches are gone, your sleep has gotten better, and you’ve actually been able to wake up a lot easier. You feel more rested.

So based on the mucus pattern here, cycle day 10 would be your peak day — the last day that you’re seeing the clear stretchy mucus. Peak day is highly correlated to ovulation. Ovulation tends to happen on peak day or the day before or after, so kind of in that three-day window, up to 80% of the time. Your cervical position would indicate that cycle day 11 and 12 is when your cervix was the highest and the most open, and then cycle day 13 we see it kind of falling back into the lower, firm, closed position. So I would say I’m pretty confident you probably ovulated around day 11, in line with the temps, at around the same time that your cervix was open and your mucus kind of stopped happening. But I would just put a question mark because of the erratic temperature pattern, and we need a day or two more to confirm.

Kali: Yeah, I would have said day 12 is what I was thinking. I will often have that like almost like a stutter-step rise on the day. So you absolutely could be right. It could have been 11 or, you know, it’s not perfect. It could be in between there.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, so one of the trends that I’ve noticed quite a bit over the years is that fewer women come to me with what you would call a perfect chart. I’m typically seeing clients who are struggling with certain things, whether it’s a progesterone issue, mucus production, and so on. So with that said, when I’m working with a client whose progesterone production is not ideal, let’s say it’s still okay, but it does take a couple of days — basically what happens from that hormonal standpoint is that as you’re approaching ovulation, in a healthy cycle, you have good, strong follicular development, which leads to good, strong estrogen production. So in a healthy cycle, you’re seeing good mucus, and you’re seeing good, strong mucus production as you approach ovulation. And then once you ovulate, that follicle turns into the corpus luteum, which then in a healthy cycle makes progesterone, and it really starts to produce a strong amount following ovulation. So in a good, strong, healthy cycle, when you have strong progesterone production, you’re going to see a pretty abrupt stop to the mucus, and you do see a rise — a temperature shift right off the bat. And in the first three days of that temp rise, it’s going to step up, showing you that yes, the progesterone is causing that thermogenic effect in the body.

But when I’m working with a client who has challenges, who’s struggling with progesterone — we’re seeing some issues, short luteal phase, PMS, whatever — then what we tend to often see is that the mucus and the temperature don’t necessarily match. The mucus might drag on for a couple of days. The temperature kind of goes up a little and then a little more, but not really a clear rise. And then maybe like three or four days in, then you start to see the rise. So I’m just saying that kind of stutter-step, as you called it, is more common in situations where we don’t have the ideal progesterone production. But as we make some positive changes, the better the progesterone, the better the hormone production, then it starts to line up better. It starts to be more clear, more easy to see.

Kali: Yeah, no, it does. So I mean, with that, since I do have more limited cervical mucus, I would say, although this cycle seemed better than my last one — I had more days and it was more clear. Since I’m limited on the cervical mucus, I didn’t know if I should also be paying closer attention to my cervical position for timing intercourse, because that’s kind of what I’ve done in this cycle.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So I would say that when the mucus is a bit limited for the purpose of timing, then yes, it is helpful to look at both signs. And in this cycle, you did have some mucus that you could actually stretch, which is a little bit different to the previous cycle. So that’s a good sign. And it does look like the mucus matches up to ovulation, not necessarily exactly, but it does match up. And yes, I would combine those signs. I certainly have worked with clients who don’t really have a lot of mucus but use the cervix position and time sex using that. So I do know of women who’ve been successful. In terms of timing, yes, the cervical position in and of itself can be very helpful with timing.

Kali: Yeah, because I do, I mean, that is one thing that always stresses me out every month. I feel all this pressure to time things perfectly. And then I’ll see a little bit of mucus, get excited, have sex. And then I try to go every other day, you know, for just our sanity and for sperm quality and all of those things. So I feel like if I get it wrong, like here, probably in this cycle, for example, maybe day 11 would have been better, but we had sex on day 10. So it was like, I feel like I’m constantly getting it wrong, I guess.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, so first and foremost, you’re not getting it wrong. From the most basic standpoint, we just have to do it once in the window for it to be a try. The window specifically would be either the day of ovulation and or the five days leading up to it. So from that perspective, there is a six-day window. And if you have sex at least one time in that span, then you’ve hit the window.

I think it’s helpful to realize that when you’re targeting with the fertile window, when you’re targeting with mucus, you really are looking at literally like six days here. As we get a little bit older, many women find that some women still have five, six days of mucus, others have two, three, and that’s not uncommon. So from that perspective, you’re somewhere in the middle — potentially somewhere between two to three, maybe four days of mucus on average before ovulation. What I always say is it’s helpful to know your pattern. We’re not predicting the date of ovulation, but it’s helpful to have that sense of, well, you usually see this many days of mucus.

The reason and rationale for the every-other-day strategy is that when you have a partner potentially with lower sperm parameters, the thought behind it is if you wait a day in between, he gets to build up his sperm a little bit so that you have more at each go. But I would say that there’s more than one way to do this. Option A could be to, as you start to understand your cycle, if you have a pattern where you have your period, you have a couple of dry days, and then you start to see mucus, then you go into ovulation — and in your cycle, ovulation does seem to be happening a little bit sooner — then one strategy could be to hold off on ejaculation for a couple of days. Three to four, five days is about the limit of how useful it is. Then when you start to see mucus at the beginning of your cycle, that’s when you kind of break the seal. And if you’re only seeing like two, three, four days of mucus, you could just have sex once, you could have sex every day. You don’t have to feel this pressure to do it every other day.

And recently I was doing some research on this very topic because I was curious to see if there’s research on it. It turns out there is. There was this one study I found where they had the man ejaculate three or four times in the same day, and they measured his sperm count to see how different it was. There were other studies where they had the man ejaculate once a day to see if there’s a drop. And in the study where he ejaculated like four times a day, there was a huge decrease in the amount from ejaculation to ejaculation. But the studies looking at this over the period of like 10 days or whatever it was — initially there was a drop, maybe 20 to 30% or something in terms of the count, but it hit a set point. So it dropped, but it didn’t drop below a certain point. Meaning men do have sperm every day. He might have a slightly less concentration, but there was this initial drop in the first one to two days, and then after that, it was consistent with whatever he was making. This is why it’s helpful to look at the research.

So that kind of helps to, again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with every other day. Sometimes I’ll say, for clients who might have five or six days of mucus, hold off maybe a couple of days until you start to see mucus, and then have sex one day and then skip a day, but then at some point just have sex. I mean, if there’s only six days, you can’t be too rigid about this every-other-day strategy. It has limitations. My hope is that I can reduce some of the stress around it. So you have succeeded if you hit one day in the window. Any other days are bonus. Take the pressure off of exactly how to do it. You can do it three days in a row. You can skip a day. I wouldn’t say to stick too closely with the every other day when we’re literally looking at a six-day window.

So in this cycle, since you did hit that peak day on day 10, but then your cervix didn’t shift until day 11 — that’s still a fertile day. Sperm can survive up to five days. So as long as you hit it in the window, it does mean that it’s a try. And then this is also part of where my perspective shifts — a lot of my conception clients are timing it correctly. And so then that’s when we have to look at other things, because timing is obviously important. If we don’t time it right, there’s no pregnancy. But at the same time, timing is not the only factor. It is important to get the timing right, but we don’t need to stress about it. At least if you’re having sex at least one time, then that’s a try.

Kali: I’m hopeful that cutting out the caffeine, and like I said, I do feel like I’ve made so many different health changes over the last four years. I remember when we were trying to conceive my son, I would have like major egg whites, and I just don’t see those anymore. It was almost easier then because you’d see that and it was like so blatantly obvious. And now it’s like, my cervical mucus is very thin, it’s not like this huge quantity. So hopefully making some of those changes — and I know we already talked about the cervical healing protocol and some of that, which I’m going to do.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, so the strategies that we talk about are aimed to support the estrogen, progesterone production, follicular development. And these are things that we will be able to review on your charts and see what we’re actually seeing — improvements in the luteal phase, improvements in the mucus. And so that’s kind of our way to gauge how successful those things are.

So as we bring our conversation to close, I feel like we went in a lot of places and talked about a lot of valuable information, especially for the listeners who are trying to conceive. For someone who’s thinking about using fertility awareness or jumping into the Fertility Awareness Mastery program — for conception or even birth control — what, if anything, would you want them to know?

Kali: Oh, just do it, jump in, because you really have nothing to lose. I guess it’s a good value, you get a lot of good information. And even for someone who’s been charting like I was, I’ve still learned a lot. So I wasn’t a total newbie, but I’ve gained so much more valuable information about my overall health and really feel more confident about what I’m doing. And if I need to use this down in the future for birth control, I have that in my back pocket as well. And like I said, if you have kids, or more specifically have daughters, and you want them to learn this, it’s a great, great tool for you to have. Help our next generation live healthier hormonal lives.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yes, hopefully the next generation will know more than we did. Well, Kali, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your experience. Like I said, I love doing these episodes and I’m excited to share it.

Kali: Yeah, thank you, Lisa.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: 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/414. I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Kali. It was such a treat to have her on the show, and I feel that we delved into a lot of really important topics in the Fertility Awareness Mastery Group coaching program. Each participant has a number of in-class hot seat sessions and we really get to delve into a lot of topics. And if you’re thinking of joining us in Fertility Awareness Mastery Live, we are starting in a couple of weeks. So if you’re listening in real time, make sure to head over to fertilityfriday.com/fam for details. I hope you have a wonderful week, and as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.