Overcoming Fear of Pregnancy Without Birth Control (Episode 329)

Full Transcript: Episode 329

Lisa: This is the Fertility Friday podcast episode number 329 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 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 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 us today today I’m sharing a brand new installment of my fertility awareness reality series today I’m sharing my conversation with Emma who is a current client in my Fertility Awareness Mastery live program and one of the topics that comes out in today’s episode is fear and specifically the fear around having sex when you’re not on hormonal birth control so this is certainly a theme that has come out in the podcast in a number of different ways and many different episodes and particularly in this series and the way it usually presents itself is for women who are coming off of hormonal birth control and are really really terrified of making that switch or even just in that contemplation stage of thinking about coming off hormonal contraceptives but being just terrified that you’re going to get pregnant the moment that your partner looks at you when you’ve stopped taking your hormonal birth control and so in this episode Emma shares how she managed her fertile window until or I shouldn’t say fertile window because she didn’t have the knowledge of fertility awareness until recently but you know in this episode Emma shares how she managed her fertility prior to discovering fertility awareness and it may be different to you know the stories that you’ve typically heard about how women are managing their fertile window but I think this story is extremely important to speak to the high degree of fear that is installed in women around getting pregnant and and it’s really positioned in such a way that you’re definitely going to get pregnant unless you’re on the pill and so if I stood to gain millions of dollars from the sale of a pharmaceutical drug wouldn’t it be fantastic for me to position my product as the only solution to this problem of wanting to control when you get pregnant and when you don’t and so you know the take-home message from me is is never that there’s one method that you should choose over another but it’s always that really and truly like it’s time as women to have all of our options made known to us and to be able to truly make that informed choice and before we can even get to the point where we can make an informed choice about birth control we need to know how our bodies work and dispel the myth that we’re fertile every single day and so for me when I discovered fertility awareness it was a huge weight off my shoulders to realize that there was only a small part of the cycle where pregnancy was possible because for me at the time that really felt like okay I can manage this I’m not for a tell every single day it’s not like a 24 hour a day seven day a week for the rest of my life type of situation that I have to be scared all the time it’s really a period of time that I can identify and manage and for me that was like oh okay this is like way more reasonable than this concept that you know pregnancy is like a terrorist that could get you at any time and so that helped me through my 20s and so I hope that today’s episode and episodes like this one really help you just to expand the way that we’re looking at our bodies because obviously my experience has been that more and more of my clients are just absolutely terrified of getting pregnant and it’s just really demonstrating the effectiveness I guess you could say of the indoctrination that we are put through when we’re growing up so I’m gonna stop talking and I’m going to jump right into today’s episode with Emma and I’m really excited to be here with Emma today Emma was a member of my most recent Fertility Awareness Mastery program we started in july and we actually just finished two days ago so welcome to the show Emma.

Emma: Thank you thanks I’m excited to chat with you today yeah I’m excited to be here anyone who listens to these episodes knows that I love recording them because it’s well it’s fun for me because of course I love client work but it really allows the audience to get an insight kind of to see what I see in my world all the time and I know even in the class together that’s another purpose of doing it in that way because when you’re charting you’re typically seeing your own experience and even if you’re part of Facebook groups you’re seeing charts with no context so it’s nice to actually have that information see what other women’s cycles are like but also have context for what you’re seeing so I’d love to jump in and just give you an opportunity to.

Lisa: Share your own experience if you you know when you got your first period what that was like if you’ve used hormonal contraceptives before and essentially what led you to wanting to jump into fertility awareness at this point in time.

Emma: Yeah definitely so I had my first period when I was 10 years old and I’ll always remember the day that it happened because it happened in the middle of the night like in the morning that I had a a big piano competition and it was very I had signs before then that it was coming but the timing the timing definitely left an impact and everything went okay that day but it was that will always be in my head as a marker so I started menstruating at 10 and my periods were when I was younger they were heavier than they are now and I did also have more pain than I do now even at that age I guess as I got kind of older later teens 20s I did start to see just naturally like patterns pop up with my periods where I did track like the day it started and stuff like that so as for hormonal contraceptives I always avoided hormonal contraceptives but I always assumed that a time would come where I would have to use them to be able to have a safe intercourse that is pregnancy-free so I have been in a long-term relationship for almost 10 years and we agreed that we would basically only practice alternative sex so no intercourse in this relationship because we both felt that like the intention risk for pregnancy was like negative five and so it just wasn’t uh the right time to make that risk or to take that risk and um even with things like condoms and withdrawal it just we we didn’t know that there was a time of the month where like there is zero risk to get pregnant and so it just always seems like there would be a risk and so I would read like in anticipation about the time where I would have to go on hormonal contraceptives and um so I would look at I kind of assumed like the pill would be the option for me and so I would sometimes like read online about what the different options are like the mini pill the combination pill just so like whenever I would have to go to the doctor I would have some knowledge myself about this and wouldn’t be totally blind but I could just never get myself to take that step and there were a few reasons for that one was life timing I was kind of in school forever um from undergrad and grad school and it was a very intense time in my life especially grad school and I didn’t want to throw in some like likely pills that could alter or change my emotions or just my thinking or even physically in some way so I just didn’t want that added stress I guess and in general I’m also just very conscious of what I put into my body and lastly I’m also kind of medically anxious so what I mean by that is uh if I get sick I avoid I’ll go to the doctor if like I’m having trouble kicking something like a sinus infection and if I need medication to help with that fine but um I do avoid medication if I can and I also just have struggled with like even getting blood drawn is a little challenging for me I’ve gotten better over the years but so medically I’m just kind of yeah I’m not I’m not necessarily the easiest patient in that way the two good things that can come with that though are that it can make you a better advocate for yourself because you ask a lot of questions and you also research things to a degree on your own but hopefully not to a dangerous extent but yeah it’s these days I would say it’s it’s more difficult for doctors but it is good in that sense to be a difficult patient in the sense that you are questioning things and you are always making sure that you’re fully informed and if anyone is listening is a difficult patient or quotes you’ve probably noticed that doctors some some doctors get irritated when you do this and I would say it extends to anything like if you’ve ever been to a bank and you they want you to sign documents and you read them because I’m that annoying human yeah and so it’s interesting in our culture society whatever where we’re expected to go along with everything sign documents take pills do all these things and and when you do ask questions you’re the weird one so if you’re the difficult patient I would say it’s a good thing although it doesn’t mean life will be easier it’ll be harder but I think overall it’s good yeah definitely so the the second uh I guess kind of advantage of that is it did keep me off of hormonal contraceptives which I don’t think would have been a good fit for myself also just because of the mental aspect and it also like with that it kind of freed or motivated my partner and I to create a satisfying great sex life for ourselves without intercourse and a lot of people see intercourse you know as the end-all be-all to that part of their life and while that is a very special you know satisfying thing on its own the way things kind of ended up for us intimately we were able to know and learn each other really well and at a very deep level and still have a lot more to look forward to in our relationship and you know I’ve only been doing fam for a year and we’ve been together for 10 years so it’s been a very long journey and I’ve had just a great supportive partner through it all and with that though of course we still have wanted to have intercourse and it came to a time where things in my life were more steady where throwing in some pills to try wouldn’t seem as potentially appeasing if something like that did happen but I just felt so trapped with the options and I really wanted to be going to that you know next stage in intimacy but I just didn’t want to do hormonal contraceptives and so I went back to my good jekyll and hyde from the internet and I don’t know what I searched differently this time but for some reason I ended up on some message board on some website like it’s I also kind of mentally blocked it out which is frustrating because this was such a life-changing thing um but I I saw on a message board like someone talking about Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler and then I read that and that was my gateway into the wonderful world of fertility awareness and then led me to all these other great resources as well such as Fertility Friday with you and other books too so.

Lisa: Wow wow yeah well thanks for sharing your experience I feel like it’s so valuable I mean I just I feel like a broken record but this is one of the reasons why I love doing the session these sessions because even though we were in a group together for you know eight weeks and even though we had multiple sessions and we had our private sessions and so we had lots of time together I don’t really get the full story unless I do this type of an interview so I actually didn’t realize that that was a big part of your story and experience and I I feel that that this is so important this conversation what I’m hearing from you essentially and I think a lot of women feel those same feelings of uh I want to be intimate I don’t want to risk pregnancy but I feel that this is my only option and so I think a lot of women though choose to jump in and do it and even if they don’t necessarily have a good experience because as you know I’ve also spoke to women who were on the pill for quite a while and did have negative side effects and were aware to some degree that the pill was likely causing it but still felt what else do I do so you felt trapped and you didn’t go on it which then resulted in you and your partner adjusting your intimacy accordingly and then other women will be on it and not be doing well on it but also feel trapped because they don’t really feel like they can come off and this concept of you are I mean when I was growing up I feel like it was a little bit less dire I feel like it wasn’t like you’re either on the pill or pregnant but somehow I feel like that’s changed over the last 20 years and the message somehow however it’s gotten in there is basically like if you’re not on the pill it’s only a matter of time and that is highly highly problematic I mean I I’ve said this before on the podcast but I grew up in the HIV/AIDS era where everyone’s talking about condoms and so I didn’t get the impression that alternative non-hormonal methods wouldn’t work at all but then I also discovered fertility awareness and you can combine those methods to help you to feel a lot more comfortable and confident so that you know that whatever choice you make whether it’s hormonal or non-hormonal it’s legitimate and you can navigate it um so I I want to ask this question because I imagine the listeners want to hear the answer to but looking back if you had discovered fertility awareness quite some time ago how do you think that would have changed the relationship with your partner.

Emma: That would have been great to have discovered it sooner and I think you know we probably would have entered the full world of intimacy earlier um so I think it would have changed things I don’t necessarily I don’t regret the path or anything like that but I definitely would have been very happy to discover fertility awareness earlier not only for the intimacy aspect but just for the knowledge of my body because before fertility awareness I really didn’t have a lot of yeah I didn’t really know much information about my reproductive system and even just my my area down there like it got me to actually like really look at you know like my vulva and my vaginal opening and stuff like that and like learn the terminology and all of that so it would have made a lot a lot of things make more sense in being a woman so.

Lisa: Well and one other question for the listeners because I I do feel that I understand your hesitancy and I I don’t feel that it’s unreasonable you’re the choice that you made I think that it’s important to recognize and it’s because I’ve been doing this work for so long and I’ve had a lot of the conversations I talk about the things you don’t necessarily talk about with your girlfriends with women all the time so I think it’s actually really important for people to hear these perspectives because there’s plenty of people listening right now who’ve never heard a perspective of somebody who was so hesitant to go on birth control so then the question for the listeners is why didn’t you just do it a lot of people I interviewed Dr. Miranda Naylor several hundred episodes ago and when I asked her she’s a doctor and I was asking her about what she was taught about the pill and I quote her in the vital sign because she was like when I was in med school and I’m paraphrasing we were taught that it was kind of like a non-issue like a vitamin like something you would just take and so most people think of it as just totally benign and wouldn’t even think twice so back to the question in your case like what was the big deal why wouldn’t you just go on it right for the listener right.

Emma: Yeah a few reasons uh though I think the biggest one is I I was aware that there could be effects from it and I it didn’t for me it just didn’t seem this isn’t the best phrasing but it kind of weirded me out that I could take something that would alter my body like that in some way though I didn’t even know the details about it like that it because it halts ovulation and that like the bleed isn’t necessarily a period’s lead because that’s what you hear all the time that it is now now okay well that’s what I grew up hearing um I also heard experiences from some of my friends who were taking it I remember one of my friends said the first pill that she tried she was a monster she was super depressed and then she switched to the second one and she was totally fine and she felt normal and a lot of people can I believe feel fine on the pills but I think just because I have always been very conscious of like what I put in my body um not to say that those who take the pill aren’t but that and then also just yeah the idea that like yeah even though I didn’t totally understand it just something like my instinct was telling me that it was just not not natural and potentially not you know the safest thing for me to be doing and it was just kind of this gut feeling within me that it wouldn’t be a good match and I think also like the fact that my brain was already there sometimes if your brain is there and you try something it could make things appear that aren’t really there too and I also had a really supportive partner and who just you know who didn’t want me to be uncomfortable with something and we just worked together to make things work so I didn’t feel a lot of pressure from him thank goodness because that wouldn’t be good but yeah hopefully that answers your question.

Lisa: It does it does yeah no thank you for that that’s really interesting and important so from what I heard you saying I mean the things that I would just love to highlight are it does seem like it was your intuition you just had a sense and it wasn’t something that you could really you had a challenging time trying to explain it because it was kind of this intuitive sense and I think a lot of us have that and this isn’t to say that people who are using it I mean there’s plenty of people who probably have an intuitive sense like you know this is what I need to do so it’s not to say that there’s I just want to acknowledge our individuality and what each of us are comfortable with is different and our experiences often shape this so but I think that that part of it is really interesting because I do think that a lot of women have intuitive senses about birth control at different times and different ways and so some women may be the kind of hesitancy to take it because of that unknown like how is it going to respond to me and other women may have this intuitive even fear of coming off of it for the unknown of how it’s going to affect me later and I think a lot of women have that intuitive sense when they’re on it that maybe they should stop it for a period of time before they try to have a baby I think a lot of women have that because I’ve spoken to so many women who schedule appointments with doctors and go to those appointments before their wedding or before whatever the case is when their uh them and their partner are planning to have a baby and then it’s like like you your intuition spoke enough for you to book an appointment and go to the doctor and then what happens from there what the doctor says is a whole other thing but but I think many of us don’t listen or we don’t trust it or we’re not there to the point that we’re actually going to give that weight because you can’t really explain it and if challenged on it you might say well I don’t know and then you know you feel like your argument is in that ballot even though your intuition is saying like I don’t know exactly what but yeah so I think yeah I just feel like this conversation is so important because if anything one of the biggest aspects of charting that’s kind of unexpected that I talk about all the time that I really end up focusing on a lot with clients inadvertently is this sense of connecting to your intuition paying attention to your body trusting those feelings that you can’t really explain listening to that little voice even when you don’t really understand it and that would also involve kind of taking your time you know if you ever have an interaction with a healthcare practitioner like you need to do this thing immediately no you don’t you can wait a day you can wait a week you know what I mean you can sometimes wait a month or six months and so listening to those voices is incredibly important I think as we go through our lives definitely ah well Emma I mean I feel like we’ve covered so much crowd yeah we haven’t even gotten into the session part but I really really appreciate it because this is a perspective that I don’t think has ever been shared on the podcast I think it’s just really important for everyone to hear so moving on to the session part of the session so now you’ve been using fertility awareness for about a year and we covered a ton of ground in our class together so let’s jump in let me know where you’d like to start and what you’d like to focus on today.

Emma: Do you mean like in regards to like what on my chart I’d like to talk about.

Lisa: Well whatever you’d like to talk about okay so when we had our hot seat sessions together and our classes in class sessions.

Emma: Yeah I know we talked about a variety of things regarding your cycle and your charts and a few different things that could be affecting it and stress and so I know that we did cover a lot of ground so I know a lot of your questions were answered which is one of the challenges of doing one of these sessions towards the end of the class because we’ve covered a lot together but were there any questions that you had or anything that was still kind of outstanding that you were hoping to address I’d like to talk about maybe the bleeding that I had post period during my pre-ovulatory phase I know we talked about that a bit during class and that it could be stress related but I guess I’d also like to talk a bit more about you know if I do see this pop up every three or four months or so because I’ve seen it happen in that pattern the past two two to three times the past year so it’d be great to talk a bit more about that mm-hmm.

Lisa: Well so in our last session together which I think was a week or two ago you brought this up and so for the listeners you can’t see your charts you had a cycle where you had your period and then you had a little bit of bleeding around ovulation which is not typical for you is that what we’re referring to in this cycle here.

Emma: Yeah so sometimes I do get ovulatory spotting but this was after my period I basically had brown mucus and then brown spotting where like enough to wear a panty liner for a couple days and then it also turned red for two days and then back to brown and then eventually tapered off one on your chart here so your period lasted seven seven days because you had a couple days of like the brown bleeding afterwards and then you marked two three four five six seven eight eight more days as brown yes.

Lisa: So that’s like that’s a lot of bleeding and when we were looking at it so it’s not something that like in the previous cycle you didn’t have that at all um but it’s something that you have you mentioned several months before you had actually had that and so when we were talking about it in our session it sounded like it could potentially be related to stress in the sense that you were having a bit of a stressful month and those types of things and to give some context I mean there’s a variety of different reasons why women may experience spotting throughout the cycle it’s certainly not normal to have you know eight additional days of bleeding in addition to your period and so when I’ve worked with women who experience this I’ve certainly worked with women who have gut issues or other problems where they’re actually significant food sensitivities or things of that nature got dysbiosis various issues and when they encounter those allergens that cause inflammation and kind of disrupt the gut dysbiosis I’ve seen that actually cause bleeding in the cycle that could be an example of why certainly stress certainly hormonal disruptions it’s not uncommon to have a day or two of spotting around ovulation but that’s typically related to that rapid rise of estrogen and it typically doesn’t last eight days and then on the kind of more serious end of the spectrum certainly abnormal bleeding can be a sign of of serious issues you know whether it’s something relatively benign like a uterine polyp or fibroids or something like that but it could also be on the more severe end being something like cancer but with that said if you have a legitimate serious issue like that it’s probably not going to be a random cycle of bleeding that one time that would be something of concern when you’re seeing a pattern of consistent bleeding kind of all the time so with all of that said I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions so when we were talking about this last time I certainly suggested that you could it’s certainly warranted when you have abnormal bleeding particularly if it’s something that it’s not just one time and it’s kind of showing up here and there it’s certainly warranted to the next time you go to your doctor ask for a full ultrasound tell them that you had some concerning bleeding that was not your period or bleeding throughout the month and that is probably be enough for some practitioners but you can also just ask for the ultrasound and ask if there are any other types of testing that could be done any other types of screening and so certainly it’s warranted to to do that and then from my end if it’s if it’s something to do with stress or something that was different then as we did in our session so you can kind of refresh my memory what if anything was different this cycle and then the previous time so several months back when you had a similar bleeding episode were there any similarities between those two cycles in terms of what was happening in your life or diet or exercise or anything that could be causing stress I would say so.

Emma: In april when this previously happened there was something specific going on and then this past month something specific as well so I could definitely see where it was potentially like certain events that I guess maybe stressed me out where this could happen so yeah.

Lisa: Well and without giving any you know details or anything this event like was it a kind of a severe emotional stressor that was kind of similar both times or was it more of like physical thing like just to get the similarities between it because if it is something like that then you typically see it you know like if it’s something I’ll just give a random like example but if if you have like a horrible boss I feel like I’m always picking on bosses and my stress examples so shout out to the good bosses but if you have a horrible boss and they you know you have these episodes where you know every couple of months they just freak out and it’s horrible and it’s really stressful and it causes you not to be able to sleep very well and you’re dreading going to work and like if though you know and that is kind of the depth because that would be pretty severe and that type of situation is kind of associated around the time when you’re having these disruptions then I would say it’s more likely to be something like that versus uh if you had like a physical problem in your uterus that that’s not gonna matter whether your boss is yelling at you you’re just gonna bleed right.

Emma: I do have a question about that um if it if it was something other than stress would the bleeding would I see bleeding more throughout the cycle like could it happen during the luteal phase as well or would it be because both times it’s just been during pre-ovulation so not during my ludial phase so would it be yeah is that more of a sign that it’s stress or could something actually physical going on also have that pattern.

Lisa: I would say I mean it’s certainly possible so you know everybody’s different so I can’t you know definitively say yes in every case but it’s certainly possible because I’ve certainly seen stress cause bleeding post ovulatory so hormonally before ovulation estrogen is the dominant hormone and estrogen builds the uterine lining so you have a uterine lining that is proliferating and growing and becoming thicker and then in the post ovulatory phase progesterone kicks up and it’s not like estrogen disappears so you still have both but progesterone kicks up and it really helps to mature the uterine lining and so when you are experiencing situations that are stressful or even physical situations so there’s you know stress is a broad category in the post ovulatory phase stress tends to have a negative effect on our progesterone production and so that can result in a shorter cycle meaning that your ludial phase is shorter and your period comes before is typical so on average 12 to 14 days after ovulation is when the period will come in a healthy cycle so if you’re experiencing a lot of stress the period could actually come sooner and so for some women in addition to that possibility of the period coming sooner so the shortening of the ludial phase they may also experience this pre-menstrual spotting so I’ve definitely seen women who have stress whether it’s like I decided to take up crossfit and now I’m working out seven days uh a week tuesdays twice or whatever and that kind of causes several days of bleeding before your period starts or if it’s an actual you know different type of stressor or you know there’s all these different reasons and not possibilities but the short answer to your question is yes it’s possible.

Emma: Okay thank you it’s hard for me to answer questions like shortly because there’s so many different possibilities I’m trying to you know incorporate it but yeah I I and it’s hard to say like the the the situation that happened is it is it something that you anticipate might happen every now and then.

Lisa: It could yeah it’s it’s one of those things where it’s like if I work on mentally like how I handle it I think the stress would improve so it’s not a boss or anything like that so it’s just like things that pop up and it if my oh even if it was a boss if you you know work on how you handle it mentally that could help with the stress so yeah I mean in that case if it does happen again and you notice that pattern I mean this is not ideal to to be like okay so induce the stressor again and see if you have bleeding but that’s something certainly to watch for that would be a sign where if this bleeding is happening in response to this stressful situation and outside of those particular situations it doesn’t happen at all so that’s a really big sign and I think for a lot of my clients over the years it’s like it’s really striking when you have this type of situation because it’s kind of like the first time in your life that you’re like whoa this is like real I don’t actually have like a uterine polyp the stress is causing this and that’s powerful because it’s like wow this thing that’s happening in my life could really have this significant impact and when it is something like the you know the crappy boss example this can be the thing that legitimizes those feelings that you’ve had kind of like oh wow this isn’t okay and now your body’s saying it’s not okay and you’re like okay this is legit so for a lot of women it’s kind of like it’s hard to not accept but that’s kind of the word that comes to mind it’s kind of hard to acknowledge that situations like this could cause a legitimate and predictable in a way uh change in your cycle and then of course there are the women who you know we go through all these things and how the how stress can affect the cycle and then when they do experience a stressful thing they’re like waiting for it and they don’t have it so every don’t have the cycle shift or change so obviously there’s no experience it’s the same for everybody but I feel like at this point it’s certainly possible that it could be that okay it’s also possible that you could have some sort of underlying physical thing and this exacerbates it yeah and so that’s why it’s a good idea to it’s you know whenever you’re having abnormal bleeding and it’s not like just the one time and you’re concerned about it it’s always a good idea to see your doctor and have some testing because of course why why wouldn’t we err on the side of caution and continue to watch it and you mentioned there’s some ways that you can manage your stress I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself you know anything that could potentially cause this type of issue is probably quite a challenge so I’d be gentle and kind to yourself but not to not be too worried about am I handling this perfectly you’re probably handling it as wonderfully as possible and the fact that you’re thinking about all the things you could do to mitigate your stress response already speaks volumes so just a note to be kind to yourself.

Emma: Well thank you.

Lisa: But yeah so it’s it’s one of those things and it’s this is one of the ways obviously that the menstrual cycle can be used as a vital sign and to be clear it doesn’t mean that you can see the bleeding and be like absolutely this we let’s make a diagnosis and this is exactly what’s wrong because that’s never the case but it certainly does give us that heads-up information that if if you weren’t really paying attention to it you’d probably notice that you were bleeding but you know I could see women who don’t necessarily try and they could just like man I had a long period this cycle yeah and kind of that being the end of it yeah and I think that’s one of the really valuable things about charting is that you can you know you can see where this was where your period was and then that this other thing might be going on and if you go to the doctors be able to provide them a lot more specific information so that you can potentially get to the root cause a lot easier well I always shudder when I hear women say things like yeah my period you know they lasted two weeks or my period lasted three weeks and I’m like no it didn’t yeah period never lasts three weeks so if bleeding can last three weeks but that’s not your period so not for that entire time and basically like a hundred percent of the time when you’re bleeding for longer than seven days there’s something it doesn’t always mean that it’s the most severe option of you know what we discussed and those are some of the possibilities there’s other possibilities of course not least of which you know endometriosis adenomyosis there’s a variety of other issues that could potentially cause this type of bleeding that we didn’t necessarily mention but it reminds me of an example also from the book and it’s just it just came up it’s not me trying to be like book book book but it’s in there and it’s um it was a woman who her friend had been bleeding for six months straight and she had gone to the doctors and I think maybe not had been taken that seriously so she kind of thought it was kind of like a pain in the butt but then it turned out that she had uterine cancer when she actually was identified and so it’s not to say that when you’re bleeding it’s urine like this is not the point obviously but the point is that we should be at the stage in our human development where we are aware that there is such a thing as a normal period and bleeding outside of that consistently and so kind of not just that one day of spotting or not just that one weird cycle that we can that was associated with that stressful event like a consistent pattern of abnormal bleeding we should check that out like I feel like we should at least be there where we should be like you know what you should check that out definitely pretty basic stuff here I know oh man but so I wanted to I wanted to check in with how comfortable you are with the method itself and the rules I know we went into a ton of depth but particularly after hearing your story so you for the listeners who didn’t catch at the beginning when you were like I’m negative five on the scale so we always talk about the intention scale with zero being you’re not open to having babies right now and ten being you’re trying already and you’re probably waiting to see if you are pregnant this cycle and so negative five means that at least at the time and I what I always say is check in each cycle because it can shift but at least at the time it was just not something you mentioned you were in grad school you had things going on and I I also know it’s really common for clients who are transitioning to fertility awareness it’s a huge mental hurdle to you can read all the science you can read all the books you can take the class and you can understand you know like your head knowledge like you can understand that pregnancy is not possible and you could probably draw diagrams but when it comes to actually being comfortable with having sex and trusting the method that is a whole other step that’s a leap so I’m curious as to where you are with your comfort level uh there at this point how you’re managing your fertile window and if you wanted to go through any of those rules or anything like that that we talked about.

Emma: Yeah so for most cycles I feel like especially since working with you in the class I am able to clearly see my luteal phase you know I can confirm ovulation and that comfort is fairly recent um since working with you in the class and learning the justice method which I really really like because it just cleared up questions and confusion I had regarding mucus when I was doing other methods before this method and so uh right now we’re because it is still the justice and that comfort level is still fairly new we’re keeping things in the uh ludial phase and so I’m I haven’t gotten to that hurdle of unprotected in the ludial phase so.

Lisa: Yeah it totally makes sense like the science is there and I mean yeah just I getting over that hurdle is challenging.

Emma: Even though like I can totally see my cycles you know they fit I have my pre-op temperatures my post ovulation temperatures my mucus pattern like it’s there but it is challenging to make that jump and I do think that we will get there eventually especially you know now that I have that extra confidence with charting but yeah it is it’s challenging to do unprotected in literal phase because I feel like there can still be like those voices like quietly whispering in your head.

Lisa: The fear is real ladies so this is why I talk about this because I’ve certainly in the class multiple times so I’m not if if anyone’s listening and you’re like I said this in the class it is not just you because this is a thing that comes up basically every single time there’s someone who will be like their idea of unprotected is withdrawal and it’s like what do you mean yeah my partner could ejaculate inside of my body and so again this isn’t so I’m never going to tell you what to do in the class what I always say is that so there’s a natural progression that women go through and of course I put some structure around it in the class but when women are learning fertility awareness like stage one is learning so stage one is no unprotected sex and that can last for one cycle minimum if you’re working with an instructor three cycles minimum if you’re working on your own learning on your own that would be my recommendation but I’m not going to tell you what to do everyone’s going to make their own choices and then the second stage is actually once you’ve learned so once you have the skills you know how to chart you understand your mucus and your temperature and how they relate you understand the rules you understand why they work you know the biology so you’re good in the headspace of knowing at that point then every individual woman will have a sense of when she’s ready to move forward and at that point what so just to kind of normalize this for you and to make it a little bit easier I use the analogy of like jumping into a hot tub like a really hot tub like a tub that is scalding so you don’t like nice but still hot I don’t recommend for you to like dive head first into the hot tub especially if you’re feeling really nervous about it so it’s really not uncommon for clients of mine to once they start feeling comfortable they’ve charted a minimum of one full cycle no unprotected particularly if they’re learning the method for the first time because I also work with clients who’ve been using the method usually only in the post ovulatory but you know the first time you do this it’s terrifying we it’s your whole life of programming you were told that you could get pregnant every day and I was able to break out of that when I was like 18 so maybe it was easier for me because I had just the 18 years of programming yeah not the additional like 10 I totally I totally get it but it’s like ripping a band-aid off so but it’s really common for some of my clients to actually they’ll wait so they’ll confirm ovulation they’ll confirm the rules so the the peak plus four rule the temperature rule so the three high temperatures type of thing so they’ll confirm the rules and then they’ll proceed to wait until like the day before their period is actually coming and then have sex on that day and they’re still terrified like they’re still like it’s because this is an emotional thing it’s not a rational thing um and when their period comes even after they’ve had the freakout attack because that’s also like I’ll kind of warn about it I talk about it in the class and it’s like it’s normal to be nervous and even if you don’t think you’re gonna be it’s really normal because this is part of our conditioning and a big part of this class is me helping to you know talk you off the ledge it’s okay um and so you know it’d be like oh I think I’ll be fine and then you know the next class oh my gosh but then your period comes and so that is when you start to cross the threshold between your head knowledge and your experiential knowing so the difference between you right now and me or you know not not necessarily even someone who’s a teacher um who’s seen multiple women’s experiences but you know any woman who has been using fertility awareness for some time and has been having unprotected fully unprotected ejaculation inside and being descript for a reason um but any woman who’s been doing it so legitimately using the method and it’s been working for them so they’re at a different level of experience and so for those women it’s not a theory it’s not a concept because it’s like I follow the rules and I have unprotected sex once I’ve confirmed ovulation and done my cross-check and I get my period and then I did this again and again and now it’s been five years in my case it’s been like 20. so it’s a different level of knowledge but just because I’m comfortable doesn’t mean you’re comfortable and so that’s why I really encourage you to take some time so hopefully this conversation has given you permission to you know ease into it and so like I said it’s not uncommon for like the first time to wait until like you’ve confirmed it and so it’s really important you know all the rules we went through all that but to kind of give yourself that like okay my period is coming tomorrow yeah I think you can do this and then you can take as much time as you need to feel comfortable and of course when we talk about this a lot in the class but with fertility warrants it’s not the same as like an IUD like when you get an IUD you just get it in and then it’s in and there’s nothing to learn because it’s in but with fertility awareness you have to actually learn it and so you do it in stages so stage one is post ovulatory because that’s the part of the cycle where pregnancy is not possible just to be clear it’s not there’s plenty of podcast episodes to talk about the biology so I’m sure but it’s not it might sound like a strange thing to say but it’s impossible once you’ve confirmed ovulation followed the rules with this method post ovulation there’s no egg there’s no baby preovulatory though that’s the only time when pregnancy can happen so you really have to be specific in terms of how you’re managing that you have to understand the rules you have to understand mucus and we talked about some additional measures that you can take to ensure that the pre-ovulatory phase you’re being very very cautious especially when you’re minus five on the uh the scale but yeah so hopefully that’s that’s helpful definitely.

Emma: Yeah and I feel like we will get there um I think it’ll take a little time and I think also I can see us doing it like right before my period starts as well like using that as the first time just for that to have that comfort sooner I guess and then over time you know being extending it before that day by day and yeah so I’m I’m confident we’ll get there.

Lisa: Yeah and there’s no right way to do this it’s it’s really what you’re comfortable with so when I’m working with clients everyone is different so I have clients who are comfortable they’re just like gung-ho and I have clients who especially like I said especially as I progress I feel like there’s a lot of there’s just a different message that women have been getting basically women are scared to death like that whatever the the drug companies have been putting out in terms of information or the sex ed teachers women are scared to death and so another way to kind of rip off the band-aids slowly could be you know I’m not saying this is the way I’m just giving it as an example but if you were using condoms with your partner then you use condoms on your infertile days and then you know some couples will actually move to withdrawal and they’ll do that for a while and I’m talking about like after you’ve confirmed ovulation on the days that you can’t get pregnant using withdrawal so the first step is being aware that that’s uh two methods right yeah that’s the first step to be aware that when you use a condom on an infertile day or when you use withdrawal on an infertile day you’re using two methods because it’s an infertile day and that’s even a mental shift right definitely yeah so there’s lots of ways to kind of gradually get comfortable with it and like I said I feel for every every woman in my experience has it’s been that she has that sense of when she feels comfortable so it’s not my job to tell you you need to because you don’t need to do anything it’s really up to you to tune into your own intuition and comfort level to decide how you’re going to approach this so there’s plenty of women who are listening who may have approached this completely differently who may not have taken as much time and then there are plenty of women who are listening who took way more time and years to get comfortable and everything is okay as long as you are comfortable your partner’s comfortable and you’re really achieving your intentions which is intimacy without the risk of pregnancy or to whatever degree you’re comfortable.

Emma: Right absolutely yeah.

Lisa: So love these conversations I’m excited for people to hear this episode I feel like this is really like uh I could see it being mind-blowing like if this is someone’s first episode listening to this podcast I can feel I can see this being mind-blowing.

Emma: Well good yeah I hope it helps some people it definitely will.

Lisa: Well so I’m glad we touched on that a little bit and yeah I think that because you and your partner did spend quite a bit of time using alternative sex which is one of the great options for managing your fertile windows so when you know you’re actually fertile of course you can use condoms you can use other barrier methods like diaphragm cervical cap I always mention withdrawal not because I’m advertising it but because it’s like the dirty little secret of like half the couples in the world um I hear all the stories so if you use withdrawal you’re not alone and you don’t have to be ashamed of it because it’s actually a method that has an up to 96 effectiveness rate surprisingly when used correctly I mean that’s not what they told us in high school is it.

Emma: No yeah I didn’t even know it was a method until getting into the fan world.

Lisa: Yeah well and it can be so effective for some couples that you know they wonder if they’re infertile until they have unprotected sex on a fertility and discovery that that they are fertile and it actually was a method that was working but yeah so in addition to those methods alternative sex certainly non-penetrative sex and making sure that there’s no contact between semen and cervical mucus those are all really important options to be aware of so that you and your partner can decide how you’re comfortable with managing those days that you are fertile so I think for many couples who have relied basically exclusively on hormonal contraceptives that can be a pretty big challenge because it’s a shift so some couples and again so I’ve heard a lot of stories so there’s plenty of couples who will not have sex for months when they come off of hormonal contraceptives and not have sex at all because obviously saying the same exact feeling of being just terrified and not really understanding really wanting to make sure that you’re good and you understand particularly when you’re transitioning to fertility awareness and even just not trusting barrier methods so that’s there’s plenty of women who use fertility awareness that do not trust barrier methods and fully just abstain from sex during the fertile window and then there’s other couples who use which are all the way through so that’s why I try to present this like objective like non-bias approach because there are so many different iterations of what people are comfortable with and what this looks like and the great thing is it gives you these options like you can really once you know about the non-hormonal options and the hormonal options that we all know about then it really gives you the opportunity to choose to make a choice about what is going to work for you and your partner and I feel like when you choose birth control and you don’t know a about the hormonal methods and b that they actually are can be very effective when you are informed then I feel like you can’t actually make that choice yeah no you can’t yeah because if you really just believe that nothing works except the pill that’s not true so you like you can’t actually make a choice um if you don’t know all of the options and it actually does sadden me to see how things have changed to the point that so many you know individuals just don’t even think that non-hormonal options are effective because there’s there’s also the the category of people that we don’t talk about on the podcast are the people who just don’t use hormonal contraceptives and don’t know about fertility awareness and just like use condoms for years and don’t get pregnant and so I think when you were sharing your when I asked you like the question for the audience of like why did you just take it I really resonated with a few few things that you said so one was the intuitive sense I had already been on the pill but my intuition was kind of like I was on the pill for purely pain stuff so my my intuition was like it’s not fixing it so maybe I shouldn’t be on it so that I can figure out what’s wrong if I want to make it someday so my intuition was talking to me but obviously in a different way but also I had several experiences like indirectly with friends I had friends who went on the pill and like drove them nuts like you said and had to come off within weeks wow I had friends who used it and would say things like well geez obviously it works because I never want to have sex so I had like I had I saw it with my eyes I saw how it affected some women obviously not all women but I saw the emotional effects I saw the libido effects and all these different things and so I certainly had that kind of sense of like hmm right and so I think that that’s why this type of forum is helpful to hear different experiences because you can’t experience everything in life it’s really helpful to be able to learn from other people’s experiences.

Emma: Definitely I don’t want to experience everything in life thank you.

Lisa: Everything no no thank you yeah well as we uh bring our call to the club today did you have any other questions or comments or anything else that you wanted to dive into.

Emma: If it’s okay I wanted to just share like a really small like small experience that happened when I went to the doctors.

Lisa: Sure is that okay.

Emma: Yeah okay I went to the doctors uh at one point about the irregular bleeding that we’ve talked about and I went I saw midwife and she told me that we didn’t come to any conclusions about it and so I didn’t get a bunch of tests or anything like that but she did say that she wants to know like my motivation for coming in and because she said that a lot of you know what she would typically do if there’s bleeding that you don’t want she was like I you know I’d put people on hormonal birth control and then they don’t have to deal with that anymore and then she said to me she was like but I don’t want to put you on hormonal contraceptives because you are doing all this great charting and you’re so aware of your body and I mean I appreciated that respect but I also um it made me think about how if women had this knowledge how I wonder how it would change doctor perspectives on patients and just kind of those just how would it change things because you know would there be more doctors or midwives with that sort of response I just thought it was really interesting to have that sort of feedback from her.

Lisa: Well I think for a lot of you know people listening at this point they might be shocked that a midwife would say that in our last session we talked briefly about this concept of choosing a healthcare provider and I I love everybody all professions love you guys but within every profession every profession even if we’re talking about like fishermen within every profession there are individuals who have specialized in certain areas and are really gifted and supporting patients in certain ways and there’s other practitioners who maybe are not as specialized in certain areas and don’t necessarily have the expertise to deal with your specific situation so that’s a very gentle way of saying that although it might be surprising to hear someone say like I had this experience with the midwife where I went with abnormal bleeding and they suggested that I go on the pill so that I have to worry about it without the even the part of the conversation that’s like maybe this isn’t normal and you should be checked out like that so you already know I’m not even going to say it okay just deep breaths deep um this is the reality of our health care system and this is the reality about how individuals are trained so this is one of the reasons why I think it’s important for us to just take control of our health learn as much as we can that’s why I’ve done you know what I can to put out good resources and things like that because if we’re going to wait until midwifery school everywhere is really up to date or if we’re going to wait until the you know medical school is totally like period positive then I think we’re going to be waiting for a really long time so I think there’s a lot of value in just learning what you can when you go to your doctor having conversations not trying to change their perspective but maybe just so that they can actually have the experience of having a patient who charts and maybe that will kind of somehow kind of at least alert them to the fact that there’s other stuff going on it made me think of a recent comment that I had in one of my groups and I don’t have it in front of me or anything but she basically said that she saw either an article recently or had a conversation with someone recently who it was a doctor who basically had the opinion that so it’s it’s not I don’t know if it’s pc so you know trigger warning I don’t I don’t even know why we have to do that but here we are but it was like uh lesbian women are more likely to get ovarian cancer because they’re not using birth control because they’re like less likely to be on the pill because they don’t need like birth control right because if you’re having sex if you’re a woman having sex with a woman well if there’s no like penis involved then um obviously you wouldn’t need birth control in that traditional sense so that so this these are the assumptions right I’m not saying anything I’m trying to repeat what I saw as a comment but it was like you know lesbian women because because they’re not using the pill for birth control are less likely to be on it and therefore they’re going to have all these cycles these unproductive cycles wow and then therefore that causes them to be more likely to get ovarian cancer so they should have hysterectomies oh my god that would be better and she was like that’s your opinion about that that’s like but I think we just have to be very aware of the fact that this is insane the message being that there’s something wrong with our bodies and unless we’re actively procreating then these are wasted cycles that are increasing at risk of ovarian cancer no yeah the menstrual cycle is a sign of health and it’s a part of being a female human it’s just a part of that so that’s my answer and it’s time for us to challenge it to me it’s laughable but that’s because I’ve been in this field for so long and that you can see it you can see how the menstrual cycle really does reflect health and you can see I can see on a day-to-day basis when working with clients that when the menstrual cycle’s off there is something off there’s never been a time where you know I’m working with someone who just doesn’t have their period and everything’s totally fine it’s not totally fine there’s always a reason for this so this idea that we’re just men without testes is just not even a thing and it’s time for us to like move on and it is sad that our medical system isn’t there yet but we just got to do what we can educate ourselves and empower others and that’s that’s how we do it I think.

Emma: Yeah definitely.

Lisa: Oh man right so before we wrap up today I just wanted to I usually ask a couple of questions just to kind of wrap up and so one of the questions I would have for you is for the woman who’s kind of in the reverse but very similar situation is you who is on the pill and is equally scared of conceiving um when she’s not ready as you were but she’s thinking about coming off of it what if anything would you want her to know.

Emma: That’s a good question I would say that if she’s thinking of coming off of the pill that she that you’ll be able to get through it and you will be kind of learning and going back to a healthy natural state of your body where you’ll be able to learn so much and I think probably appreciate what happens in your body even if it’s challenging initially with the post pill with bean post pill um you know I think that it is very likely worth it to get in touch with yourself in that way and that you will make it to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Lisa: Well and as someone who has been avoiding pregnancy for a long time without hormonal contraceptives what would you like would you have a statement about the possibility of that.

Emma: I would say that you know if you’re going to be using fam follow the rules and also trust in the rules learn the method and do what you’re comfortable with and then also I did alternative sex and I do it for so long don’t rule that out because that can be very enjoyable as well and you can learn a lot about yourself and your partner in that way too.

Lisa: Yeah and a lot of when women discover fam in particular and they experiment with that it’s it’s a thing many women find that it’s like all very pleasurable and very fun so yay for alternative sex and so last question of the day for a woman who’s thinking about joining the Fertility Awareness Mastery program the live program and she’s kind of wondering what it’s like what if anything would you want her to know about your experience.

Emma: Yeah so I would say that the live fan mastery class is an awesome experience and I think it’s really valuable when I was looking to take a fam class I specifically wanted a group class that ideally where you could see everyone and I think it’s really valuable to be in a group of like like-minded women like that because it does build a bit of a community it does help you it’s it helps you feel more comfortable with yourself also because you’re talking about things with people that you’re getting to know over the course of the class but you don’t normally have these conversations with even your friends a lot of the time and it’s but it has made me more open with my my personal friends as well which is interesting so that’s been really fun but I would say that the group environment is really valuable and as I think this method and the justice method is really helpful especially if you have confusion or hesitation with cervical mucus I think that’s a really great thing about the method and getting all of Lisa’s experience over the years as well is super valuable.

Lisa: Oh thanks Emma it’s kind of funny when you think about it I mean I’ve been talking about this stuff for a long time so like even I meet like men like friends of the family or whatever and it’s whenever you’re having a conversation with me the word vagina is very likely to drop it’s just it’s just a thing I had a conversation this morning with a group of my business friends who are not into vagina like I shouldn’t say indep you know who is an interviewers but who are whose businesses do not revolve around the cycle it’s like yeah so yeah the word vagina is is making regular uh appearance but my point is that you don’t really think about it necessarily until you’re in a group like that how little you do talk to your friends about this stuff in this type of depth because I’m I’m sure many of the listeners now have had conversations with their friends about cervical mucus and stuff maybe but most of us don’t right and certainly not in a place where we can feel very very comfortable asking about these bodily fluids and all these types of things so I’m glad that you brought that up because I think that’s what this is all about because it’s one of those things that we should be able to talk about and we should it just should be part of the normal conversation and I’m thinking back to what you said about you know when you learn this method that’s when you kind of looked at your vulva and started to know more about your body parts and I’m thinking yes because that’s a very common experience but like what is wrong with the world when this is not just how it is when you know you’re learning about anatomy I remember learning a lot of detail about my ears and eyes like I feel like like the shoes gotta drop but with that Emma I won’t keep you longer thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience I really enjoyed our conversation and I’m really excited to share it and so thanks again.

Emma: Yeah thank you so much for having me.

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 329. I hope that you enjoyed my episode with Emma it was such an important conversation that really needed to be had and a few of the themes that really came out in today’s conversation I mean of course fear is a big one the fear of being off of hormonal contraceptives and really I would love just to take a minute and consider how is it that we got to the place in our society in our culture where we equate being off of hormonal contraceptives meaning being in your natural body with automatically being pregnant and how did we get to the point where we don’t even think that non-hormonal methods could work and be effective and we don’t give ourselves enough credit that it’s like we don’t think we’re smart enough or capable enough to use non-hormonal contraceptive methods and I mean if it’s not talked about and you have a population that is not educated about it then why would they feel confident in it and so I you know I’ve been thinking about this and thinking about why is it that when I was 18 my decision to come off the pill it was more like health and I actually didn’t think that the pill was going to be more effective for me than a condom I actually thought that they would be about the same it’s just that the condom wouldn’t mess with my hormones and then I would be able to have an opportunity to know what was really going on with my body so for me it wasn’t like in my mind when I made that choice over 20 years ago it wasn’t like okay if I go off the pill I’m gonna get pregnant it was literally like these are my options but these days even condoms so many we don’t trust them we don’t think they’re gonna work uh many women don’t even know how to use them correctly and I know this because when I’m teaching these things many women don’t even know that you can’t use oil with condoms so if you didn’t know if if this is the first time you’re hearing it like now you know but yeah you can’t use oil with condoms doesn’t matter if it’s like coconut oil or whatever because it disintegrates them and if this is the first time you’re hearing them this then you know go to YouTube and search that and you’ll find a video of someone rubbing oil on a condom and within minutes the condom actually disintegrating and snapping but this is my point my point is that many people most women so we’ll start there most women have never learned that pregnancy is only possible during a small window of fertility in the menstrual cycle so first of all we’re you know the vast majority of human beings are operating on the false notion that women are fertile every day so of course they’re afraid and refer to every day but we don’t know why because they don’t tell us why they don’t explain it to us they just tell us that that’s how it works and leave out the actual biology of our bodies which is super frustrating and then in addition to that we’re not really taught or encouraged about non-hormonal methods so it’s really a case of like the blind leading the blind where we’re just not really having that knowledge unless you seek it out yourself right so if you if you seek it out yourself and you figure this out on your own then yeah sure you’re good but as a general rule unless you’re doing that you wouldn’t know so I feel like this episode really highlights the importance of taking that you know power back into our hands educating ourselves because obviously if we wait for our institutions to do it it’s just not going to happen but really taking back that control of our fertility of our sex lives of our intimate relationships and and how we’re negotiating this challenging issue of wanting to enjoy sex with those that we love but not wanting to you know wanting to have control over when we’re gonna conceive wanting to be able to make a choice and to intentionally create that space for babies when we’re ready so I’m just really glad that I was able to share this conversation with you it just to me really highlights the importance of why we all need to know about our bodies and how they work so that we don’t have to live our lives in fear of unplanned pregnancies so that we can really just understand how our bodies work and make informed choices about how we’re going to manage fertility so with that said I’m going to leave you with that have a wonderful week weekend whenever you’re listening to the show and of course as always until next time be well and happy charting.