Learning Fertility Awareness While Single (Episode 403)

Full Transcript: Episode 403

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

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

Today I’m sharing another episode in my Fertility Awareness Reality series. I’m sharing my call with Sarah today, and Sarah was also a member of my recent Fertility Awareness Mastery Live group coaching program. And I think one of the interesting topics that comes up in today’s episode, I’m sure it’s come up in some of the previous ones, but I feel like today’s episode kind of highlights it, is the pros and cons of learning fertility awareness when you’re not currently in a relationship. And so in my programs, there’s just a variety of different women who I serve. And so I would say the majority of women in my programs are currently in relationships and are currently sexually active, but I’ve certainly had women in my classes who have never been sexually active and potentially are taking the program in preparation, so maybe they have a wedding coming up, and so they’re wanting to kind of jump in and learn how to chart before they need it. I also have many women in my program who aren’t currently in a relationship or are between relationships or aren’t in relationships with men, so also wanting to look at their cycle more for overall health scenario or even potentially for artificial reproductive technology options. So there are pros and cons for either scenario.

If you are planning potentially to be in a relationship with a man in the future and you’re planning to use fertility awareness for birth control, of course one of the pros when you are not currently in a relationship is that you don’t have any pressure to jump in and use the method now. What you can do is you can learn the method, take as much time. You don’t have any pressure. You don’t have anyone breathing down your neck. You’re good. So that can be really beneficial because you can actually have the time to get really solid in your understanding of charting before you have to use it. So great pro. But one of the cons in a scenario like that is that you don’t have any pressure. You don’t have anybody breathing down your neck to ask you to confirm if today’s a fertile day or not. And so you can approach charting in a little bit more of a lenient way, if you know what I mean. And then when it comes time to have to actually use a method, you know, when you find yourself in a relationship, then all of a sudden you realize that there’s a bunch of little subtleties that you might not feel so sure about. So there’s definitely pros and cons. So we get into that and more in today’s episode. So let’s go ahead and jump into my call with Sarah.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

And I’m really excited to be here today with Sarah. Sarah is a member of the current Fertility Awareness Mastery group program. And without further ado, welcome to the show, Sarah.

Sarah

Thanks for having me, I’m excited to be here.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, I’m excited to have you on the show. I feel like we’re having a lot of fun in the pre-chat before I started hitting record. And I feel like we’re just talking about all kinds of fun things. But to get us started today, I’d love to just ask you my favorite question, which is, if you’d tell us a little bit about, you know, when you’ve had your first period, how old were you, how you managed your fertility, and if you ever used birth control, hormonal contraceptives, and what led you to jump into fertility awareness now?

Sarah

Well, it’s I feel like it’s quite a long story. So I, so to start when I was, I think I got my first period when I was about 13. And I didn’t really have a lot of other girlfriends, so I don’t know, you know, like I wasn’t around anyone else that was talking about it. I just remember being super embarrassed just because I was a highly self-conscious child just in general. And so there wasn’t really anything making me really embarrassed. My mom tried to talk to me about all that stuff, like, and I said, No, no, no, they told us about it in school. We don’t need to talk about it. So she tried but I just I just remember being embarrassed. Other than that I really didn’t have any issues at all. And as I’m listening to other people having cramps and everything as teenagers, I really, I don’t think I did. I don’t remember anything other than just bleeding and like mishaps with tampons. But no pain, no cramps. So and then I was also, due to being super shy, I wasn’t really dating. Like I tried to ask boys out but no one would go with me. So I wasn’t dating and didn’t really have a need for birth control until like later in college. So I think when I was 22, I asked my doctor for a birth control pill prescription. It was a nurse practitioner that I was actually seeing. She was the only woman in the clinic and I wanted to see a woman. So anyway, so she gave me a birth control prescription and I remember something feeling funny. Like it wasn’t really a headache or anything severe, but I just remember kind of feeling funny. So I went back and she said, okay, let’s do the Depo shot. Let’s try that. Just kind of knowing what I know now and hearing other people’s stories, it’s kind of like a severe shift in the chemicals and how they come into you.

So I did. And I don’t remember any discussion about the side effects. I did also get a hepatitis B vaccine at the same time. I don’t know if that had anything to do with my reaction, but if I could go back in time, that would be the one day I would change because it changed the next few decades of my life. The first two months after the shot were fine. I didn’t bleed at all, but then the third month, I had bleeding constant every day for the whole month. And then the horrible headache pain started that I’m, you know, two decades now, just finally kind of clearing out. I had all kinds of reactions to it. And knowing now some of the underlying health issues that I know about now, it kind of makes sense. But I had like, I mean, crazy headaches. I can’t even describe the pain. And over-the-counter medication wouldn’t help. I had like just an immediate increase in food sensitivity reactions, digestive issues. I couldn’t wear contacts ever again. Like hot flashes, I don’t know. And I remember, again, being super embarrassed, so I didn’t tell my mom any of this was going on. And I was still living with them at the time. And so I told her a year later. Like she was just super surprised that any of this had happened. How did this get under your radar? I don’t know.

And the weirdest reaction, kind of related to the hot flashes, was like, I got super embarrassing in college. I would get extra smelly if I got nervous and sweaty, and I remember someone commenting on it in an acting class. They were like, what’s that smell, and I just wanted to melt into the floor.

Anyway, I just had the one shot. I kept going back to the nurse practitioner that whole next year, and she kept saying, it’s fine, it’ll get better, it’s fine. It was not fine. And, you know, she was doing the best she could with her experience and knowledge. If she had something to offer, she would have. And it was the early 2000s, so there wasn’t as much info on the internet. It was harder to find naturopathic people. So I felt kind of stuck. The next year, I transferred to a four-year college and immediately lost a scholarship I had because I was so sick I couldn’t go to school full-time, and I had to do part-time, and that mixed the scholarship. So it just had like cascading effects through the next part of my life. They referred me to a neurologist for the headaches and the migraine medication of course didn’t help because that wasn’t the root of the problem. And I kept — I knew this — I wanted to get to the root of the problem. But all of the western medical specialists that I got sent to, we could just never get to the root of the problem, which really isn’t their purpose anyway.

At one point, I got referred to an endocrinologist, I think it was maybe two years after the shot. And of course, my hormone levels were all messed up. And I think at some point in there, I did stop having my period for a little bit. And it was right after I had had sex for the first time. And so of course, I was terrified. Not pregnant. Not pregnant at all. Just a hormone reaction to all of this craziness. So anyway, the endocrinologist prescribed birth control pills to regulate my hormones, which, knowing now all of the stuff about what hormonal birth control pills do, doesn’t really make sense at all. Anyway, I was on birth control pills for about four years, I think. Kept having headaches. They didn’t really help. And at one point about four years later, while I was in grad school, I got a new refill of my prescription and the new pack I started to take, I had even a worse reaction to. So like the headaches just got like, if they were a 10, they went to a 20. And I just at that point said I can’t do this anymore and stopped taking them.

And I think that’s when I finally decided to try to look for other solutions. And I started acupuncture. I found some sort of natural allergy treatment things to do, maybe yoga. But I still didn’t really find like a big answer, but I started to do some stuff. So anyway, that was about 14 years ago that I stopped taking anything. And it’s been a long journey since then to slowly, slowly, slowly get my health back. And the hormones, I think, are sort of coming back. But now I’m in my 40s. And so now they’re doing things with just with age that they would do anyway. So yeah, I found out about fertility awareness through another class that was about sexuality, relationships, women’s health, kind of all of that all together, with many layers of physical, emotional, spiritual stuff. And I said, oh, natural birth control, because I had no idea this even existed ever. And I think I had a lot of fear because I haven’t dated a lot except for one relationship when I was in grad school, and I think part of this was just like, I have an underlying fear of what would I do for birth control in a relationship, because I can’t take, I’m not willing to take hormonal birth control again. So just the light of, oh, something else exists, was fantastic to find out. That’s one of my purposes. And the other selling point was that, oh, you can learn about your health this way too, which I can’t overstate how empowering finding out this is. Like the tracking and what you can see about your health and your hormones. Like to have something that I can see, that I can do, that data that’s like at my fingertips, is like life-changing, empowering. Because even when I found naturopathic doctors or health practitioners, it was all like, I had to go to someone else for an answer, which of course is helpful and you might need to sometimes. But to have information that I can see and do myself is just, I don’t know, it’s just amazing. So anyway, here I am.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yes. Well, you took us through a few years of your life in a very short period of time. So I have a couple comments. I feel like the first comment is probably the most obvious comment. You went on birth control, you didn’t feel good, and so your doctor was like, let’s do the Depo shot.

Sarah

Yeah, I’m still there. I mean, I was listening to everything you said, but I’m like literally like I’m still there, I’m stuck in time when you said that.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

And I think that, in your gracious way of describing it, if the doctor really knew, then she probably wouldn’t have gone that way. But you know, for anyone who’s listening who doesn’t know, when I talk about all the different types of birth control, I think I’m a lot more gracious to some of the other options. But as far as I’m concerned, and as far as the research shows, Depo is the worst offender. And it’s not just because I don’t like Depo — which I don’t — but it’s more so because, for example, in one of the studies that I quote in the Fifth Vital Sign talking about the return of fertility, on average if you’re taking the regular birth control pill, it takes about twice as long for the fertility to return. So compared to four months or so of trying to conceive, coming off birth control it took eight. Depo took 18. And that was after long-term use, so two years and more. And so one of the reasons that I have issue with Depo is that it takes a lot longer for it to come out of your body, in terms of the duration of time that it might take for the cycle to normalize. Instead of the nine to twelve cycles I talk about a lot — like a year, year and a half, depending — it’s like 18 months to two years, depending on how long you were on it. And so that is terrifying that your doctor thought the Depo would be a better option for you, given that you didn’t do well on the pill.

Sarah

Yeah. And, you know, it, I mean, it was the year 2000, I think. So there was a lot less, you know, we’ve had 20 years since then to get all this information from women. But even back then there was like more than one brand. So in my mind, I think to myself, like the first logical solution is kind of like, well, maybe this brand isn’t so great, why don’t you try this brand of the same type of medication?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

But who am I, right? Like we’re just gonna collectively let that go. But there was at least 40% of the audience that was like, what? I feel like I had to say that. Yeah. And I mean, listening to you share about it — it’s hard to tell. I mean, I don’t have long-term data to look at in terms of what happens three years out and five years out. I think the general idea is that once that initial transition period has passed, the effects are basically done. But obviously in your case they weren’t done, and there were some residual effects that lasted, and we’ll just never know what your body would have been like in that situation.

And the other piece of your story that I want to note — when you had that situation of your period stopping for a while — the interesting thing about that is that because of what I do, there’s a tendency that we want to blame everything on the birth control. But there does come a point where we have to start looking at other stuff, because other women use different kinds of birth control and after a certain transition period of time they don’t continue to have problems for the rest of their lives. So for example, in a case like that where you’re losing your period, of course someone like me is going to say, okay, how are you eating, did you start a different exercise routine, et cetera — kind of looking at the root cause, trying to figure out what’s actually happening here.

And I feel like your experience of basically just being put on the pill again — and this is with the history of the pill not working the first time and the Depo causing you all kinds of problems — it just shows us where we’re at. So even though it’s been 20 years, we’re still here. And so for everyone who’s listening who is having legitimate hormone problems, migraines, different issues with the cycle, irregular periods, all kinds of stuff that you’re dealing with — I think this is a really helpful reminder. If you’re wanting to get to the bottom of it, you probably have to have an additional practitioner on your team. We still need to have doctors. But the doctor typically is not the one that helps you to get to the root of the problem.

Sarah

No. And just know that you’re not going crazy and you deserve to be healthy.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yeah. Well, and you shared a little bit about your personality. I can totally relate to feeling, when I was younger, I used to get really embarrassed. Like I still remember the time in fourth grade when I like passed gas and I thought I was going to die, right? Like stuff like that where I actually thought I was just going to die. I closed my eyes and was hoping that I would just melt into the chair or something, but I didn’t. I was still there. And one of the nice boys in the class is like, it’s okay Lisa, but it didn’t help. It was nice though. It’s a nice gesture.

But I feel like having your personality — and I think a lot of us can totally relate to that — means that it’s even harder in those types of situations to, when the doctor tells us okay this is what we’re going to do, to push back and be like, no, I already tried that on two separate occasions and it did not help. It’s harder in those situations. We trust the practitioners. And so yeah, I’m just kind of pulling out those pieces of your story because I feel that so many women can relate to it. And there’s never really an opportunity to look back and be like, I should have done — like we were all doing the best that we could at the time with what we knew. And I think listening to episodes like this, my hope is that we can build that courage. We kind of know where that path leads. If you have hormone problems and you go on the pill, it can certainly be good for symptom management sometimes. Sometimes it causes more symptoms, obviously. But we know where that goes. So if you’re wanting a different outcome, then we’ve got to look in a different place.

Sarah

Absolutely. Yeah. I remember at one point too, like this was one of the more frustrating things, although they were working with the best intentions. At one point I didn’t have insurance. And so I went to like a low-cost or free clinic. And I think I was still taking the birth control pills. And I said, like, what else can I do? They were like, don’t stop taking them, you must take them. Which is just makes me so sad, that women who go there without — like I was in school, I was going to get a good job someday, like that wasn’t going to be the income level I was stuck at with the care forever. But like some people, that is what they were going to have for a long time. And like that’s the message you’re receiving, that you can’t be trusted like that. I’m a teacher, so in teaching we call it teacher-proofing the curriculum. So like, we’re making sure you have something that you can’t mess up. Which I don’t know, it’s just so disempowering.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yeah, it’s a tricky one. I feel like based on the interviews I’ve done with doctors, the training really emphasizes the efficacy over everything else. And it’s a failure if you get pregnant. And obviously, for some people, that’s exactly what it would be. But if we pull the lens back, it does tell us a lot about how our culture looks at all of these things, and how an unplanned pregnancy is positioned by our culture as the worst possible thing to ever happen to anybody. And we’re really not okay with it as a culture. And so that therefore justifies everything else. And it’s to the point where we don’t even provide women with full and complete information about their fertility, their health, and we don’t provide them with the full and complete list of options that are available to them.

Because I think the teacher-proofing example is a great one. They want you to have an IUD, they want you to have the Depo shot, they want you to have the implant, because you can’t screw any of those things up, right? Those are highly effective, but there’s nothing really on the part of the user to do, except to show up to have the device inserted or the injection. And I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s good that we have those options. But I agree with you. I think that there’s a reason why we need to have options. Because for some women — not all women, I’ve never, I always say, I don’t think fertility awareness is actually for everybody. And even for who chooses it, it’s not necessarily right for them at every point in their lives. So I feel like I’ve been pretty clear on that. But there are women for whom this is actually their preferred method. And for women who take the time to learn and take the time to feel comfortable, it is doable. It is effective for those who choose to do it and take the time to learn it. So I’m with you. Yeah. Just more information for everyone, really.

Sarah

Yeah.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yeah. And I feel like you can also understand the perspective of the doctor in the sense that there are patients who, if they go off of the medication, they come back next month pregnant. So it’s not like they’re saying these things because they’re desperately trying to destroy everyone’s lives. And I think it’s important for us to understand that. But the problem I think comes when we approach every patient or every woman with the same brush. And anyways, I could talk about that all day.

Sarah

That was my point of it. I wanted them to see me and it didn’t feel like — anyway, yeah.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

But now here we are. And so yeah, we can switch into the session part of the call today. I’ll pull up your charts, and I know it’s frustrating for all of the listeners who don’t get to see the charts. I hear that a lot, actually. But yeah, let me know what is at the top of your mind today, what you wanted to make sure that we focus on.

Sarah

I guess I don’t really have anything specific. I think just anything that is standing out to you as general health markers that I could work on more, or like the hormone level stuff.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

All right. I’m just taking a peek. We have a couple of charts. So I’m just going to kind of go through. I feel like one of the things that we talked about in one of our previous sessions was the low temps and some of the potential strategies to improve that.

Sarah

Yes, I am working on protein. And sleep in general.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

And how is that going?

Sarah

Good, I think. I’ve been trying to get more — I haven’t been tracking it yet, but I’ve been trying to make sure I get a little more protein at breakfast, or a lot more actually, and then in lunch. And making sure there’s, like I think you suggested sausage and cheese and crackers and apple for a snack or something. I don’t remember what I was doing, probably just cheese and crackers, so adding a little sausage in there. And then for dinner too. Usually I do for dinner like a meat and potatoes and vegetable kind of thing.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yeah, those are positive changes. Obviously getting more protein and making the breakfast a regular thing. And so I see that you’ve been checking your cervix. So I think because one of the challenges that we’ve noted is that you’re not really observing a whole lot of cervical fluid at all.

Sarah

Yep.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

And so we added the cervical position check so that you can at least have a bit of a heads up about your fertile windows. So I see here in the cycle that we do notice a shift. So if I describe it for the listeners, it just looks as though Sarah’s marking the cervix as more open and a bit higher on a few days here that coincide with the temp shift. So really looking like it’s actually coinciding. So was that helpful for you this cycle to actually have a sign that you were approaching ovulation?

Sarah

Yeah, it was. And I’m thankful that I can feel a difference. So, like, the opening is the hardest part to feel. But the position I can definitely feel. The subtle changes probably several days before ovulation, when it’s maybe changing subtly, I don’t notice that right away. But a couple days before, when I would expect to see ovulation — not knowing when it’s exactly going to happen — I can feel it when it really starts to get a lot higher. So it feels good to be able to feel something, especially when I’m not seeing a lot of mucus. So that’s really helpful.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, I just want to point out a couple of things. So I mean, this is the first cycle that you’re writing it down. And so it does get easier, I supposed, to identify over time. Because the way I describe it is that your cervix has been doing whatever it does. You mentioned you stopped birth control 14 years ago. So it’s been 14 years of doing whatever it does. And so now we’re just trying to kind of, hey, what are you doing in there. So once you get a sense of — and this doesn’t mean it’s always going to be exactly the same — like once you get a sense of what it’s doing, then you’ll have a good idea of it.

And so even what happens the first cycle that you try to check the cervix is that obviously it is very subjective and it’s an internal body part that most of us haven’t seen. So you don’t really feel like there’s that much of a difference. But what I’ll point out to you is that towards the beginning of the cycle, you did note the cervix as being low, firm, and closed according to this notation here. And cycle day 13, it’s higher. You’re noting it differently. And then cycle day 14, again, you’re noting it differently. So what I find is that from my chair, the first cycle, none of my clients are particularly confident about their observations. They’re kind of like, I don’t know what I’m feeling, this is weird. But at the same time, there’s usually from retrospect, when we’re looking at the chart together, there is a point where it feels different. So I’m just kind of cheering you on, because that’s really what we’re looking for. And so do that a couple more cycles around as you’re approaching ovulation, and then it’ll start to be more clear again. It’s an internal body part so it’s not as direct and specific as a temperature reading, but at the same time, it doesn’t really feel like that any other time of your cycle.

Sarah

Yeah, I’ll keep on it.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yeah, because that’s helpful. I know we’re doing a couple of things. I know we had talked a little bit about a few things to potentially improve cervical fluid. So we’ll have to kind of just — it’s not instant or magic — so we’ll have to give it a cycle or two to see. You had mentioned that you were experiencing some dampness, and there’s a couple of instances of it on the chart. Have you noticed any change, or has it been pretty consistent?

Sarah

I would say pretty consistent. I started the folate maybe a week ago, five, six, seven days ago. So I started that, we’ll see if adding that in helps.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yeah, I mean, with that protocol, typically the timeframe that I share with clients is at least two to three months. But it’s not two to three months of nothing happening. Once you’ve gone a full cycle, which is probably a good time if it looks like we’re kind of either right at the end of or starting a new cycle — yeah, so I think we’re good timing. So once you kind of go that first full cycle, I feel like any changes that we’re going to see, we’d see in the second and the third. So yeah, so once the dampness kind of stops happening as frequently, what often happens is we see an improvement in cervical fluid. But we’ll just have to kind of wait and see what we see.

So I mean, what I notice is the temperatures are still a little bit lower than we’d like to see. And when I look at the times that you’re taking the temperature, I feel like that could be related, because do you have to get up really early in the morning?

Sarah

I do. This is so — so yeah, so the temperatures, a lot of these that cycle, most of them when I took the temperature was the time I woke up, and not on purpose. So it was after, yeah, four or five, six hours of sleep. The last two weeks of this new cycle, I’ve been sleeping a little bit more. But a few times I’ve been able to fall back asleep after I take the temperature. But I’ve still just been taking the temperature if I sleep six hours and wake up, I just record the temperature then. So it’s been not a whole lot more than that cycle.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, because you know how many hours of sleep that you’re having, I feel like if we look at the chart from that perspective and actually look at the days that you had the most sleep — so that would be the days of six and seven hours — those temperatures are actually, I mean, this one, these two here, like slightly below range, but still. So I feel like I’ll just draw another line on there so you can kind of see what I’m saying. From my just initial temperature analysis here, I drew a second line here. So the temperatures that are really below that line are all from when you didn’t have that grade of sleep, it would seem, for the most part, maybe other than this day. I feel like that’s helpful information.

Sarah

It is. Yeah. And I’ve — that cycle, I felt like I was, I mean, you can see I marked when I was actually sick, but I felt like I was constantly fighting something off anyway. Which I mean, the temperatures are a trend that I noticed in the previous cycles anyway. So this is nothing new. But also affecting them during this particular cycle. I was constantly fighting off infections.

Sarah

Yeah, some of them are even more erratic.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, but I also know you’ve been working on a lot of stuff. And so I feel like it doesn’t maybe give us the exciting, this is so much better feeling. But I feel like there’s a bit of an improvement here, because it seems like again the lowest temperatures are also associated just with the not-so-great sleep.

And so maybe we’ll see more of the effects of all of the work that you’ve put into it in the following cycle. But I always look for those slight improvements. And so to me, it does look generally speaking like the temperature pattern is a bit better. Even if you look at the luteal in the previous cycle, the temperature kind of dipped back down and it’s just not quite satisfying. The post-ovulatory temperatures, they’re higher, but you can see that they’re not really — they’re kind of struggling. Whereas with this cycle, it’s a lot more apparent. Post-ovulation, we’re having some really good high consistent temps.

So although looking at it at first glance it doesn’t appear that — because we always look at the problems — I feel like one of the things I try to do is I try to look at the cycle as a whole. And there’s a lot of things that we take for granted. So one of the things I feel like I’ve said this to a number of clients recently, but for clients that have always had ovulatory cycles, so ovulation has never been a problem, like they always ovulate, we just ignore that and look at all the problems. And so I step in to say, yeah, I have clients who have a real trouble with ovulation, whether they have HA and they’re trying to bring their periods back, and that’s like a problem because they’re not ovulating, or clients that are on the PCOS spectrum where they’re ovulating every 40 to 50 days. And so for them, ovulating every cycle would be this big deal that we would literally dance about. And we usually do when we get there. So anyway, just putting out some of those things. And often you don’t see the full extent of the changes that you made, especially if you start kind of mid-cycle and things like that. So I just want to give you some encouragement there.

And then in the disturbance, you noted that you were feeling kind of under the weather and the emoji that you used is the sniffly one. So was that more of the like, is it a histamine thing, allergy thing, or is it just like a regular cold?

Sarah

It was just a cold, I think.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Okay. All right. I always have to check on that with low mucus because, I’m sure I’ve said it on the podcast, but if there are antihistamines involved then there might not be a whole lot of mucus to speak of.

Sarah

Yeah, I was — so I stopped — I had been taking, I think maybe for the first, second, and maybe some of the third chart, I had been taking like a mineral natural antihistamine, just because I have so many sensitivities to everything. But when I heard that about the cervical mucus, I thought, what if I tried not taking it for a while and see if that has any effect. So I think for sure for the fourth chart and this new chart, I haven’t been taking them. So yeah, we’ll just see.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

So that’s helpful information, because it’s not the antihistamines. So just to put it into perspective, when it’s the histamines, then it’s situational. It’s not like it lasts for multiple cycles just because you took it. So for my clients who it’s like, definitely, based on our observations we’re concluding that it’s the histamines, it’s like night and day. So the cycle you take the histamines, it’ll really dry up, or there’ll be either barely anything or nothing. And then the following cycle with no histamines, it’s like all the mucus. So it’s helpful information because then we can kind of pinpoint what it is and what it’s not. So likely this is more related to cervical health, and that’s why we’re kind of doing that protocol. Because if it was just the histamines, then just removing them would probably be enough to get you some more mucus production.

Sarah

Yeah.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

There was something that you had mentioned also that I feel like just touching on briefly, because I know you had mentioned that if, because you can’t take hormonal contraceptives for all the reasons that we covered, that if you were in a new relationship, you know, this is something you’d have to negotiate. And so that was one of the reasons that you jumped into fertility awareness. So have you thought about that?

I was having this conversation actually with a client earlier. When you first start charting, there’s positives and negatives about not being in a relationship at the current time and then being in a relationship. So one of the positives, I think, obviously, is that when you’re not in a relationship when you’re first learning at that current time, then it gives you an opportunity to learn. You have lots of time to practice and get comfortable with all of the ideas and all of that. So that’s obviously a really positive thing. But one of the negative things is you don’t have a partner breathing down your neck who wants to have sex with you. So then you don’t necessarily have to be as on top of like the birth control stuff and know all the things because you don’t have someone to answer to. So on the flip side, when you’re in a relationship, that can be, depending on your partner and your relationship and your level of comfort, a challenge, because then you might feel pressured to not take the amount of time you need with protection when you probably need to take some time with protection before you actually start using the method.

Anyways, my point is that just that one of the recommendations that I’ve made a couple of times to clients — just if you want to start thinking about it — is even to add a line. And on that line, you have to decide every day, are you, is it yay or nay? Could you have sex today or not? And obviously that’s not something you have to do or continue to do. But if you’re wanting to kind of train your brain into that, then that would actually be an interesting exercise to do for a couple of cycles. So you actually have to say yes or no. And it’s not maybe. It’s yes or no. Because if you have a partner, it’s not maybe. Maybe is how accidental babies are made. It has to be.

Sarah

Yeah. Yes. And I love babies. I just I’m not in a place to have one so yeah.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, yes, I mean, planned babies are also great, right? Yes. But just to just to get you thinking. I mean, in the class up to this point, we certainly have taken quite a bit of time to go through the rules and all that stuff. But I obviously we talk about it more than once and all of those kinds of things. So in terms of using the method for that purpose, how do you feel about it at this point?

Sarah

I guess I feel like in the post-ovulatory phase, when I can definitely see signs, like I see at least some signs, like a temperature shift, that is like a sign of ovulation. So I feel like with the rules around that in the post-ovulatory phase, I feel pretty confident in saying after which point we’re not fertile, which is not very many days given how short my luteal phase is. But the pre-ovulatory is a whole different thing, just because without seeing any mucus, I wouldn’t feel confident saying I’m not fertile on any of, you know, I just wouldn’t be confident on any of those days until I could see more signs of something. So yeah. And I feel like I’m pretty far away emotionally from being ready for a relationship. But this might be like one little safe step to put just something on the chart, you know.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, and even if you just chose to do it for like a cycle or two, it’s more of an exercise to get yourself comfortable. In terms of the post-ovulatory phase, obviously it’s helpful when we have mucus observations, because then we can do the accurate cross check and compare the mucus with the temperature. But at this stage, especially with you checking the cervical position, once you do that for a couple of cycles and you start to notice how it shifts from the fertile window to post-ovulation, that can be a helpful sign if for nothing more than to give you supporting evidence.

In the class, we talked about the temperature. So generally speaking, we’re looking for three that are higher than the previous six. We talked about the advanced temperature rules to, you know, what to do if the temperature isn’t high enough by the time you get to the third temperature or if the temperature drops back. And so I feel like those two things together could help you to have that confidence to be very decisive with the temperature only. And it’s a good reminder that there are women who basically use fertility awareness temperature only. So there’s a lot of different fertility awareness-based methods. And so I think that’s helpful to know. So for people who use temperature only, there’s technically no pre-ovulatory sex, but only post-ovulatory. But that in and of itself is a highly effective method.

In terms of the pre-ovulatory phase, in class we talked about the strategy. Until you gather a sufficient number of charts worth of data so that you can identify the earliest ovulation day using the day six rule. From day seven until you confirm ovulation, consider it fertile. Even without the mucus, because we’re working on that. Of course we hope that once we sort out what’s happening with the cervix, that we start to see a bit more. You still have a way to define that fertile window for the purpose of birth control. So from that perspective then, if you were to follow kind of like this step-by-step guideline for the first six to twelve cycles, it would basically be from day seven until you’ve confirmed ovulation with temperature. And that actually makes it pretty easy to do the yay or nay. So contrary to what you said, I would argue maybe you can.

And then adding in the cervical position as well so that you can feel confident. I think that if you were to have let’s say three charts in a row where you had the cervical position data alongside the temperature data, I feel like that’s how you gain confidence. I can sit here and tell you that yeah, cycles kind of repeat, but when you actually see that for yourself, then that’s when you start to trust a little bit more. And then once you have gathered your data, so six to twelve cycles where you are tracking and you can clearly see the temperature shift leading to the sustained rise, that’s when we can move into the minus eight rule. And that would give us again a last-fertile-day calculation. And at this stage, given that we don’t have a lot of mucus, then we’d be comparing that to the cervical position changes. So again, you still have something to go on.

And I think that’s one of the things I try to teach. That’s why it’s helpful to have different markers. So it’s helpful to have the mucus. It’s also helpful to have the temperature. It’s helpful to have the cervical position in your back pocket if you ever need it. It’s helpful to have these rules so that we have a bit more structure to the cycle and how we’re managing it for birth control. And for many of my clients, it’s helpful to have the ovulation strips to have an additional sign to match up with the mucus and the temperature to confirm ovulation. So it’s helpful to be able to be flexible, I guess, and to have more than one way of doing this, especially when the mucus is not cooperating.

Sarah

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Cool. Well yeah, because one of the downsides of not currently being in a relationship is that there’s no pressure.

Sarah

Nope.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

So I want to give a little bit of pressure just so that you’re thinking about it. Because yeah, it’s a totally different ballgame, because you just never know. I’ll be working with a client and they’re not in a relationship. And then literally like next month’s session, it’s like, I just met a guy. And all of a sudden it’s like, oh my goodness, I don’t feel ready to apply this. So this is where I’m coming from, because you never know. You literally never know.

Sarah

Yep. Yeah. My Netflix boyfriend could show up on my doorstep. You never know.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

You never know. Never know. And then I’ll get like an interesting Slack message like, Lisa. Yes. All right.

One of the other things you mentioned was the luteal phase. And I think that some of the things that we’ve been working on, I think we had spoken a little bit about that. Did you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Sarah

I was just assuming that working on the rest of the health stuff in general would hopefully — anyway, like, my cycle length, I guess I would say not uncommon, I don’t think, for like someone around my age. But the luteal is shorter than what — on the short side, or shorter than like 10 or 11 days in most of these.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Yeah. So I was just assuming that working on all the other health stuff would maybe make that a little bit more whatever it needed to be too. So I don’t know. Yeah. I think so. When you’re in the age range, early 40s, like late 30s, early 40s, it isn’t uncommon for the cycle to start to shorten. But I think it’s always important to look at all those parameters. So in those types of situations, what we’re typically seeing is the ovulation happening earlier in the cycle. So we just want to put that into perspective. So for a woman to have a 26-day cycle, she could be ovulating on day 12 and still having potentially a 14-day luteal. I just had to do the math in my head to make sure it was correct. So even though yes, in your age range the total length of your cycle — because this cycle here looks like it was 26 days — but ultimately the 10-day luteal is not ideal. So yeah, I know we spoke about a few different things, incorporating more protein, and we talked about a few of the things to support progesterone production in the luteal as well. And so I would encourage you to continue. I know we spoke a little bit about magnesium on today’s call earlier. We talked a little bit about some of those strategies. So there’s the foundational factors that we spend a lot of time talking about, but then there’s also magnesium and vitamin B6, particularly in the luteal but can be done throughout the cycle to support progesterone production. And I know that the sleep thing is a challenge for you, but I feel like you’re still working on it.

Sarah

Yeah, that’s really good to know.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, as we wrap up today’s call, did you have any other questions for today?

Sarah

Not that I can think of. But it’s all super helpful.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Awesome. And if someone’s listening and was in a similar situation to you — they found themselves really not able to handle birth control — I feel like that part of the conversation needs to come out more. Because I think also I work with a certain population. I work with people who either don’t want or can’t use birth control. So it’s usually one of those: either doesn’t want it, or can’t use it. And I feel like that piece of women who literally can’t use it because their bodies don’t respond well needs to be put out there more. I think it’s not about being anti-birth control. I feel like there’s a lot of people that are very — I mean, me too. I think we all should have access, right? So I’m not anti-birth control. But I feel like the pro-birth control camp can get so loud that we forget that some women literally can’t use it. Can’t. And so for those of you out there, like, what would you do if you literally couldn’t use it? Like every time you go on it you have this horrible reaction, like what would you do? And so I find a lot of women coming into my programs when they’re in that situation, it’s kind of like this desperate, hopeless feeling of like, well, I’m in a relationship, I need to figure something out. And many women just go on birth control and suffer.

Anyway, I’m going to stop. So for someone who’s listening who’s in a similar situation as you were, what would you want them to know?

Sarah

That even when you have some health issues that might make charting a little hard to read at first, that it’s totally worth it. Because you will gain more information about your health to help you with whatever that is, and to help you know things, with a little bit of direction, with where to go with recovering from birth control if it’s been recent that you’ve been on it. And even as — I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m unsure. I’m confident that I can learn this and be confident in it. I just have a lot going on in my life right now that makes it hard to juggle, you know, learning this confidently all at the same time. But I’m confident that it will happen. So I would say that if there are non-hormonal ways that you can be confident in, that will let you also feel like you’re in charge and empowered in your health — yes.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, it totally does. And I love what you said earlier about just having this kind of in your back pocket, independent of medical care. Because of course, I really do believe that most of us need to have medical care at some point. We need to have providers. But when you get into charting, especially if you’re able to incorporate some of the health improvements, I think it kind of goes hand in hand for a lot of people. Because you start charting and maybe your cycle doesn’t look like you thought it would. And then you end up doing things to try to improve it. And so you start to see, like, oh wow, look at all the things that I can do. I never thought that I could have an impact on my health. And you start to see some of those signs. So yeah, I feel like the empowerment piece can’t be understated.

And for someone who’s listening who’s thinking about jumping into the Fertility Awareness Mastery Live group program, what if anything would you want them to know about it?

Sarah

Do it. Because we all deserve to know this about our bodies and it’s worth it wherever you are. I actually deferred my last class for my second master’s degree because I knew it would be hard to do this well and learn this well at the same time as doing a grad class with heavy-duty research. So I deferred that class because I have made a promise to myself to make health first my motto. And so I’m trying to live up to that most of the time. So it’s worth it, and yeah, let’s do it.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Well, that is amazing. Thank you so much for being here. This was really great. I’m excited to share this episode with everybody.

Sarah

Thanks for having me.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/403. I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Sarah. It was such a treat to have her on the show. And I love that we were able to get into some of the nuances of charting and kind of some of those scenarios of what do I do when my cycle parameters aren’t optimal or aren’t what we would consider to be within the normal parameters. So an example of that would be the cervical mucus. Of course, within the class, we spoke a lot about the things that Sarah can do to improve her mucus production over time. But when you’re charting right now, you still have to deal with the right now of not really having as much and how do you identify the fertile window without mucus and things like that.

So I think this was a great call to highlight some of the ways to work with the cycle regardless of what you’re seeing, to optimize your chances of utilizing the method effectively. And to really understand how to identify the fertile window using a variety of different signs. So I think it is helpful, especially for those of you who are, either experienced charters or if you’re starting out, that even if your cycle parameters aren’t in the optimal situation or if your cycles are quote irregular, it’s still possible to utilize the fertility awareness method effectively. You just may have to use a few of the different strategies or incorporate some of the optional signs like the cervical position or other things like we spoke about in the call today, to really help you to identify the fertile window versus the infertile days of the cycle.

And so I guess the bottom line is that you can do this. One of the biggest myths about fertility awareness — there’s a few, other than it doesn’t work or it’s the rhythm method — one of the biggest myths about fertility awareness is that your cycle essentially needs to be perfect and regular and predictable in order to use it. And ironically, that is what you would need to have to be able to use the rhythm method effectively. In order to use the rhythm method effectively, that’s when you would need to have a perfect cycle that never changes and is always the same and very predictable, because that’s a calendar method based on calculations and predictions. Whereas with the fertility awareness method, you are literally charting your signs on a day-to-day basis and identifying whether you’re fertile or not based on what you saw. And so you don’t need to have a perfect cycle to chart.

And then you can add the piece of utilizing the chart for identifying health issues as a vital sign. And the additional layer is that, yes, you can chart when your cycle is not falling into those normal parameters, but you also want to take that opportunity to identify what you’re seeing, understand that if the cycle is not falling into normal parameters there is something there that you should be looking at, and then find the support you need to start working on improving those things and bringing those parameters into the normal overall range.

So with that said, I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Sarah. I hope you have a wonderful week, weekend, or whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.