How Midwives Can Integrate Fertility Awareness Into Client Care (Episode 599)

Episode 599

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: In today’s episode, we are diving into what it looks like to bring fertility awareness into your midwifery practice. From postpartum charting to educating clients who prefer natural methods of birth control and even dispelling myths about the rhythm method, we really cover it all. And this episode really brings some insight into how our practitioners really incorporate our fertility awareness training and strategies into their work with clients.

So before we dive in, let me tell you a little bit about our guest, Kate Chantry. Kate is a wife, mother of two, licensed midwife of 14 years, certified Arvigo Maya abdominal therapist and spinning babies aware practitioner in rural southwest Wisconsin. Kate is the third oldest of nine children, eight of whom were born at home and the youngest she witnessed being born peacefully at home supported by midwives. This foundation of home birth midwifery with the strong belief that we are fearfully and wonderfully made set a foundation for Kate in wanting to support women during the childbearing years. As a community midwife and bodyworker, Kate loves learning and adding to her toolkit of how she can support women and their families, especially in ways that restore trust in how we are created to be. So, without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into my interview with Kate.

I’m excited to be here today with Kate. Welcome to the show.

Kate Chantry: Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa: Well, I always love these episodes. Like a broken record over here. But I find them fascinating because by this point, we have been together for quite a few months. I’ve seen your face every week for how many months? Like five, six.

Kate: Since the end of March.

Lisa: Yeah. So, it’s been quite a while. But I always find that when we do more of an interview style that I learn more about your story. So that’s one of the reasons why I always find it so fun. And so I would love to start with my favorite question which is tell us a little bit about when you had your first period and I guess take us through to the work that you’re doing now and why you’ve had more of a focus on the menstrual cycle and charting especially being a midwife. What drew you to incorporate that into what you’re doing?

Kate: Yeah. So, I had my first period when I was 13 and a half. And my mom was open about when she had her period, but still when I first had mine, it wasn’t necessarily scary for me, but I definitely still had more of an impression that it was a burden to have a period and I couldn’t do a certain amount of things and like be as active during that time. And I feel like now looking back it’s like I feel like some of the restrictions that my mom laid out, it’s like I feel like those are still like good things to think about but it was more of like in a negative way. I feel like I’m trying to respin it like in a positive way. So yeah. So 13 and a half I didn’t have any particular — to start off with. But I remember my periods being a bit irregular at first, but learning in this program, that’s kind of normal those first couple years. I feel like it took until around maybe 19, so maybe a little bit longer to like actually get more regular because I remember I was talking to an herbalist friend of my parents and doing some herbs to see if that would help to regulate it. I also remember like I think around like 16 I lost my period for maybe three months. I was jogging somewhat regularly and talked to my cousin who was a nurse and she said I probably should just eat more. So I started eating more and I got my period back.

Lisa: Very wise.

Kate: Yes. Yeah. So, that was kind of the early part of my menstrual cycle history. I didn’t really have painful periods. Interestingly enough, those kind of came a bit later. When I was 22, I started midwifery school and became a midwife when I was 25 before I ever had children. And sometime in midwifery school, I started getting painful periods which was interesting. Thought it was like more stressful, eating differently than I had eaten at home. I also started like working on a farm and I felt like sometimes that heavy lifting potentially, like especially if I was heavy lifting before that luteal phase in my cycle, then it would always be worse but it was only for like a couple hours but sometimes it would be super intense and be in the bath. I have thrown up with my painful period but I was always fortunate only lasted like maybe four hours at the longest. I don’t know if that was a reflection of my births because my births have been super fast too. The two that I’ve had. But with charting in midwifery school is when I first kind of got introduced to charting and Taking Charge of Your Fertility and read that probably as part of my school, but did start charting at that time, taking my temperature. But mucus was always harder for me to kind of chart consistently with mucus. I felt like I had a couple different methods of charting and wasn’t always the clearest for me. But this program has really helped to clarify that and make me understand like what the mucus is all about. So yeah, I became a midwife and then I also shortly after becoming a midwife, one of my midwife mentors was just doing the Arvigo Maya abdominal therapy training and she really encouraged me to do it. She’s like, I don’t know how you can be a midwife and not know this. So, I also did that. And so, I’ve been a Maya abdominal practitioner for the last 12 years and a midwife for 14 years. And it’s really through the Maya abdominal therapy that really drew me into wanting to know more about charting because I would — whether it was working with people who were having fertility challenges or irregular cycles — I would often refer them to like Taking Charge of Your Fertility and encourage them to chart but it would only go so far as like what I would do with it after that. And so I’ve been trying to remember how I even heard about your book or your work. But once I started to learn more, it’s like I was hungry to keep on learning. Like I need to — I want to know more so I can apply this to my work. So yeah, so I signed up and I had a break planned for this summer. It was kind of perfect timing. I don’t know how I would have, just because of my own personal structure, it was really perfect timing to start this program when I was on break from midwifery and not having to juggle that and family life. But back into midwifery right now and so now I’m doing all three.

Lisa: Okay. I remember at the beginning you were mentioning that you took a bit of a break because of course midwifery. I remember looking at all these different career options. I think I was in my 20s and I was like wrote them all down and I really do love the idea of being a midwife but I don’t know if I love the hours, right? Like I don’t know. I love the idea but I don’t know if I’m the one to do the hours because babies are obviously born at night a lot.

Kate: Yes. Yeah, the hours can definitely be challenging. I remember my preceptor, she’s like, I didn’t know if you were going to be able to make it because sometimes you’d had a hard time staying awake at night. But your body definitely adapts and learns. And I don’t know, there’s something also really special about those like nighttime births that everything’s just quiet and peaceful and not the busyness. But yeah, and then the next day it’s like, oh, yeah.

Lisa: Well, I mean, we’ve had a lot of midwives and somehow they make it work. And I know you’ve been super diligent. You’re on I think every call. I feel like I see your face every week. So, we’ll see if that keeps up.

Kate: Yeah, there’s always a couple like births because they happen when they happen.

Lisa: So, I wanted to ask you a few questions about your story. You did not mention hormonal birth control. So if you didn’t ever take it, how did you manage to avoid it?

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. I have never used hormonal birth control. I mean I grew up in a family that was pretty alternative and conservative. So I never really even considered it. More kind of grew up with like not having sex until marriage. So yeah, so again like didn’t even consider it. I grew up with a family of nine children, but I did have a sexual partner before I did get married and used condoms and I was charting during that time. Then I got married to my husband and I feel like before I got married to him, I kind of lapsed from charting and I totally meant to like start charting again because we had wanted to wait about six months before having a child. Totally fell into the rhythm method and got pregnant on my second cycle because I thought I knew when I was not fertile. So yeah. And then I ended up having — that pregnancy — I ended up giving birth early because I developed severe preeclampsia and gave birth when I was seven months pregnant. So after that experience, my husband was like, we’re not doing fertility awareness, that doesn’t work. So we did condoms for like two years straight before we were like open to conceiving again. And then conceived. That took more like six months that time to conceive. And like I knew when I was fertile and when I wasn’t. So with knowing when I was fertile and hitting those fertile windows. And then after my daughter was born, it was back to just condoms 100%. And I wanted to go back into charting, but just like the life of a midwife of a breastfeeding mother, I just could never get consistent charts. So now my daughter’s seven and I took my break. So it was a really good time to set the ground of like that extra busyness. But also doing this course too and going back on call and stuff like that, I feel a lot more confident even when I do like have missed temperatures or things like that. Especially with understanding the mucus, which you’re just checking when you go to the bathroom. It’s there. It’s there when you get sleep or not.

Lisa: Yes. You’re reminding me I’m having like flashbacks of when we had our first sessions and we were doing our hot seats and we were talking this through. So I’m remembering when you were talking about how your husband was, we’re not doing that. And I feel like that was one of your goals, like your goal was to feel really confident about it and like hopefully get your hubby on board. So where are you at now? Like has it made a difference in your conversations and in his confidence?

Kate: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And actually a couple years ago, I had him read Katie Singer’s like short book called Honoring Your Cycles in one of my attempts to start charting again. And so he understood it more, but again, I wasn’t consistent charting. So now that I have been consistent charting and he can see my charts, not that he inspects them. I think he did maybe like the first time, but hasn’t necessarily been. Yeah, he’s definitely been on board. So that’s been nice to finally get to this point.

Lisa: Mhm. Well, it’s funny because I remember — we’ll have to link the episode to this podcast — but years ago I interviewed my husband on the podcast. I think that’s the one and only time he’s been on the podcast. And so I just did not expect him to say what he did though because I had already been charting. I was like teaching when we met, you know, like on a grassroots level. And so for me, I probably didn’t provide him with like a full explanation apparently because when we were talking about it, he was kind of like, yeah, so she was like saying I can just look at this chart and she won’t get pregnant. And in his mind, he was like, yeah, so we’re engaged anyways, so if she gets — and I was like, that’s what you thought? Sometimes I don’t know. It would be interesting to hear because that’s one thing I don’t think I’ve done ever on the podcast because I’m working with the women. I’m working with women who are charting. I’m never working with — I mean partners have been in sessions but they’re not the client, right? So that would be super interesting to like interview a bunch of partners and be like what did you really think about this when your partner was like so we’re going to do this charting thing and I’m gonna come off the pill now.

Well, he must trust me because yeah he doesn’t want another child.

So, so we had sessions today before this call. I feel like in our sessions earlier, we talked a lot about how the method actually works and as long as you know how to identify the fertile window and the science behind it and the specific strategies behind it, it’s not luck. So hopefully.

Kate: Yeah.

Lisa: Well, and you mentioned like I just want to go to your story as well because I do feel like your experience is because you weren’t taking a hormonal contraceptive to change your cycle or to quote regulate it or whatever. I feel like your experience may be a bit unique because you mentioned that you had your first period when you were 13 and then there was a time when the cycles were a bit more regular. There was even a time when you lost your cycle for a few months and you got some really sound advice. You mentioned that you had been jogging during that time. But you mentioned that around 19 that’s when they kind of started regulating. And what’s interesting about that is that your cycles were able to regulate. You were able to learn a little bit about even the relationship between exercise and cycling even though it wasn’t in a structured way. But your cycles did actually normalize without any type of significant input of hormones or medications or even like a significant protocol. Did you want to speak to that a little? Because I think that is an experience that not all women have. More of the experiences that I’ve heard are women who had some cycle irregularities and then are immediately put on something to force that into line.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it really taught me because I think my cousin who was a nurse said I should eat more — like I think it really taught me it’s like oh what we eat and how we eat can affect our hormones. So yeah, I think that was a really good learning for me. As you said, it wasn’t like I read a book or I had sought medical help or was put on birth control or whatever. It’s just like so crazy for me. It’s like why would you be put on birth control to regulate your cycle when you’re actually not cycling? You’re just having these like fake cycles. Which I don’t know if I fully realized that either until diving deeper in that — like the so-called periods that people have when they are on hormonal birth control aren’t actually periods. At least they’re not like ovulatory periods or post-ovulatory bleeds. Which makes sense because it is suppressing ovulation.

Lisa: Yeah. It makes you wonder if everyone was kind of taught that standard of what the real cycle is and what the pill really does to the body. It makes you wonder, at least makes me wonder, what it would be like because no one knows this until people fall into the fertility awareness rabbit hole. People don’t know that’s what the pill is doing. And it’s interesting because I’m sure there’s at least one person listening who’s just inspired by your perspective having been so far outside of the typical medical situation to even be like why would someone even do this whereas that’s what everyone usually does.

So, I mean, one of the questions that I have for you. So now we’re fully in the weeds, like we’re even past the weeds now with the cycle knowledge. You’ve been immersed in the practicum stage of the program, so you’ve been applying this with your clients and things like that. I’m really curious to hear how it’s been going. Like when you said that you took your midwifery break, you went to midwifery school and then you did Arvigo and that was kind of what drew you into wanting to go deeper into this. Maybe share a little bit about what it’s been like now that you can actually take your clients through that process instead of just referring them.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. So, so far the people that I’ve been working with in this process have sought me out mostly just for this, but some of them — or one in particular — I’m doing the Arvigo work with too. And then there was another one who had previously done the Arvigo with me and now is doing this. Well, I’ve definitely learned from you that I feel like a lot of times I just have to ask a lot more questions to fully understand and like get them more of a grasp of what’s going on. But I feel like I actually now have the questions to ask versus like, I don’t know. So yeah, definitely helping me to be able to dig deeper with them and offer more resources than I had before. And I’m really excited to see how it will continue on.

Lisa: Well, and I know I feel like every time we have a class, I mean, every class is different, but in this class, it was a really interesting mix. I know currently right now we have a few midwives and we also have several women postpartum and women with children. So whenever we’re having sessions, someone always has a child on the call and sometimes very frequently even breastfeeding on the call because we have several women in the postpartum. So I think that it’s an interesting mix, an interesting group, especially because a lot of your clients will also kind of fall into those categories. So it really has given us an opportunity to like dive deeper into our postpartum material and all of those things. I mean maybe share from the perspective of a midwife. So for example, if we had a midwife who’s listening or a doula, somebody who is working with that population, what are the possibilities? What are the implications of being able to do this work with your clients?

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it’s giving me a lot more like tools and things to talk about at like the final postpartum visit. And not that I didn’t know this as a midwife, but like I really love your emphasis on like the nutrient replacement. So I’m definitely working that more into my six week visit and then also just diving deeper into how they’re wanting to manage their inter-pregnancy fertile time or they’re wanting to have kids more. I work with a large Amish population. So that was also like a motivating factor because it’s like if they’re going to use any sort of birth control, it’s going to be fertility awareness. So that was also a motivating factor for me, too. So far, I haven’t necessarily had any of them like really dive deep into it, but it’s allowed me to be able to talk a little bit more in depth as far as they want to go into it. And then also in my history of like midwifery, I have this one particular client who was also charting and she was trying to chart pretty faithfully and did get pregnant a couple of times with that. So I know — yeah, when I have clients like her now, it’s like okay, we’ll really be able to help her, really actually be able to achieve her goals and understanding when she is fertile and when she’s not. And yeah, I mean depending on a midwife’s scope, some midwives work more with preconception and some not as much. So it definitely opened up being able to work with people preconceptionally more than it ever had before. And I feel like it’s given me a little bit more of a structure of how to work with them, which I don’t feel like I ever had a very clear structure before. But it feels good to have that — it’s more of a clear structure to work with somebody in that preconception time period from understanding when they’re fertile to like how we can address menstrual cycle irregularities to really targeted nutrition to build the fertility. Very exciting too.

Lisa: Yeah. So important. And there was something that came up a couple of times in your own experience of kind of charting but kind of slipping into the rhythm method, and then your client who was also kind of charting but didn’t necessarily have the information. And I find that topic to be interesting because — I mean this is the same thing I’ve been saying for all these years — but one of the goals that I’ve always had working with clients and now practitioners is that we equip women with the information so that they can be successful for whatever their goals are. Because anybody who’s kind of in the fertility awareness world or has heard a little bit about it may have heard these stories. And there was a study that I shared in the research series and it was of about 300 mostly female practitioners and it was asking them their thoughts and opinions about fertility awareness based methods and it was a quantitative and qualitative study. So they also had their open responses to questions. And I mean some of the responses — a lot of people have that kind of like, well it doesn’t work, it’s not effective, my aunt used it and she had seven kids — like it’s just all that kind of stuff is always going on in the air. And I do think it’s helpful to understand why there is this subset of women who’ve tried to use fertility awareness and have had an unplanned pregnancy. I mean, I don’t know if this is a great way to ask the question, but I’m curious, like, knowing what you know now, what are your thoughts when you hear about women who, you know, oh, I was charting and I got pregnant and that wasn’t what I was planning to do?

Kate: Yeah. Well, I mean, again, one of the things that I love that you’ve modeled was just all the questions, like asking more questions than I did before. Like when I do have the conversations about either my first visit with somebody or maybe my last visit with somebody when I hear if it was a planned or unplanned pregnancy and then ask them like what they were using, what method they were using or what method they intend to use. It’s like they might say fertility awareness but then I ask them like on a deeper level like okay, or they might say charting and then I ask them so what are you charting? What are you noticing? It’s like, oh, okay. Yeah, maybe just not mucus. I mean, most of the time it’s just the rhythm method or the calendar method. So yeah, just from my experience of asking many women and hearing that they are charting or doing fertility awareness, but like seeing that and now knowing like what makes it like 99.4% effective if we’re using it for birth control and knowing that I haven’t met one I guess so far that has done the symptothermal method that you can get that 99.4. So yeah, I guess like that’s kind of my answer — like well what kind of charting were they actually doing? I mean some people it’s like charting is just like, oh I know when my period came and that’s what they consider charting. So yeah, that doesn’t tell you further or not.

Lisa: I mean, that’s one of the reasons why I’m so obsessed with the literature and the research and the science and when I’m interviewed on other podcasts and they’re asking me about it. I had a really interesting interview last month and she’s asking me all these questions about the effectiveness. But if you want to answer the questions like from an actual research scientifically supported standpoint, if you go into research about fertility awareness-based methods, first of all, you have to say fertility awareness-based methods because there’s not just one category and there’s multiple different ways to chart. And so I think it’s so interesting how far people’s opinions about fertility awareness are from the truth of the double-check symptothermal method, which is what we essentially teach in FAMM. Because I mean, you can have someone basically saying anything and then falling under the umbrella of what some people consider charting. And I know, fortunately, I feel like when I hear stories of how people are trolled on the internet and like the kinds of comments — I saw this post the other day and this woman was saying all these negative things that people had commented on her post, I’m thinking, wow, like I’ve never had any of that. So I’ve never really had like internet trolling. Maybe I’m just in a nice niche. I always find fertility awareness people are so nice. Thank you all. But I guess the point that I’m making is every now and then if I make a post about 99.4% effective or fertility awareness works or this is why it works, occasionally you do get people that are like, no, it doesn’t work. That’s a lie. You can get pregnant every day of your cycle. I got pregnant using it and those kind of things. It can be very discouraging. And hopefully through our work, one practitioner at a time, we can change that and empower women to use it. I mean, you’re working in an interesting community where it sounds like in the Amish community, most of them are opting for non-hormonal methods because of their convictions. But you know, on the flip side, there’s a lot of women who don’t even know this is an option, but the hormonal options aren’t working for them. They have bad side effects and all of that. So yeah, it’s really important, I think, for women to know that it can work and to have the tools to be able to sort that out. So I just wanted to comment on that because I felt like that was kind of like a theme that was coming up.

Well, so I mean for anyone who is kind of thinking about this, I think one of the questions I always ask when we jump into these interviews because most of our practitioners have listened to these. They’re often binging the practitioner episodes to kind of find out the inside scoop, like what goes on in the program. So what would you want to share for someone who’s kind of thinking about jumping into FAMM, curious about what it’s like? I think a lot of practitioners are curious about how they can actually integrate it into their practice, like how they can make this work with clients. So what would you want someone to know if they were curious?

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it definitely gives you a whole other bag of tools than you’ve ever had before. And Lisa has so many resources, but it’s like I have two months left and I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to get through all the resources by that time. And I mean I see it like as adding into my practice both with midwifery and my Arvigo work but then also like as an additional offering too, which I actually kind of like because as we were talking about, midwifery life on call is not always the easiest. So I kind of like it as another offering that doesn’t necessarily require me to be on call. But I really love that it’s like not just like learning how to interpret the charts, but definitely lots of resources and foundations to help. We talk a lot about what we call the foundational factors that by teaching and educating on those, that can really help to normalize cycles just with those. But then there’s also other tools beyond just those too for those that are needed. I mean, I’m just in the beginning of this, but I feel like there’s always the answer for whatever — so far whatever I’ve come up with or what my clients have presented with. So that’s been great to have like so many resources. And yeah, really loved it and I think anybody who jumps into it who works with women’s health will definitely appreciate it and learn a lot.

Lisa: Well, I mean, I feel like our group has been super fun. Every time we meet, we go through all kinds of questions and I always joke that all of our practitioners are bringing these quote easy charts. I find that that’s a joke. They’re typically not easy, but it’s really real world. And what I always say is that when you’re working with clients and charting, I think initially, at least for myself, and I think for a lot of practitioners, maybe you chart your own cycles and you get it and you really want to bring this to people. But when they come to you and they’re engaging your services and they’re seeking support, it’s often because they have challenges. So the hard thing is, I think, when you initially think about charting, you kind of think, oh, I’ll just help them to learn and it’ll just be pretty straightforward. But it really doesn’t take long before you see that the people who are really seeking support, they’re seeking it because they’re having some challenges and they’re really wanting some relief, some support, and they’re wanting some help to get their cycles into the normal range and to kind of get support with the issues that they’re having. So it’s certainly I think you bite off more than you can chew a lot of the time when you jump into the realm of charting.

So with that said, maybe share with us a little bit about what you do, where you are in the world, anything you want us to know if anyone wants to get in touch with you and learn more about you.

Kate: Yeah. So I’m in the southwest part of Wisconsin, which is known as the Driftless, and I am a home birth midwife who also has a birth center. Plus I offer the Arvigo Maya abdominal therapy and as an adjacent to that which I kind of combine them, I also am a Spinning Babies aware practitioner too. So another bodywork aspect. Now I’m working on being a FAMM practitioner, so adding that. So love working with women in the childbearing years. Yeah, I don’t have a website that people can find me at — Back to Basics Midwifery. Barely on social media, but Back to Basics Midwifery is where you’d find me there, too.

Lisa: Amazing. Yeah, I feel like there’s a conversation to be had about social media. I feel like a lot of people are feeling a little disconnected from whatever’s going on with their algorithms, so that’s fair enough. But I’ll make sure to link all of the different places that you shared. And I just want to thank you for being on the show. This was so much fun and it was such a great opportunity to dive more into your story.

Kate: Yeah, thanks. It was good to talk to you some more.

Lisa: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page over at fertilityfriday.com/599.

I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Kate. Always a treat to have an opportunity to take a deeper dive with our FAMM practitioners. Such a great opportunity to hear her story. And it’s always fun to hear the different paths that lead our practitioners to discover fertility awareness, whether they’re using it in their own lives and also for how they plan to use it in their practices as well. Of course, if you are listening to this in real time, you still have an opportunity to join us in our next class of FAMM. We’re starting in January of 2026. Make sure to head over to fertilityfriday.com/famlive for additional details. So, with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week, weekend, whenever you’re tuning in to the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.