Transitioning from IUD to Fertility Awareness (Episode 309)

Full Transcript: Episode 309

Lisa: This is the fertility Friday podcast episode number 309 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 I’m really excited to share today’s episode with you today I’m sharing a new installment of my fertility awareness reality series and as I was preparing everything for today’s episode it really made me think about one of the topics that has been coming up a ton in my client work and I suppose always does but just the concept of a fear of overcoming the fear of transitioning from a hormonal birth control method to a fertility awareness method for the vast majority of my clients who are in the situation and for women in general just the thought of switching from a hormonal method to a non hormonal method is just absolutely terrifying and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought because I feel like something has shifted within the last you know 10 15 years for women and I think what has really shifted is the message the message that hormonal birth control is the only way to manage fertility and essentially if you’re not on hormonal birth control it’s basically just a matter of time until you get pregnant and so it’s really occurred to me in the last little while that that message is really the source of the fear for the vast majority of women so what I hope with these episodes is that it gives you confidence it shows you that there are tons of women who are switching from hormonal methods every day and it’s possible to successfully prevent pregnancy whether you’re on hormones or not and not being on hormones doesn’t mean that you’re going to automatically get pregnant because there are many ways to prevent pregnancy without hormones there’s many strategies that you can employ you can do this I mean all of the women I know have very complicated careers and have all kinds of really complex and intricate things going on in their lives so there’s no reason to think that this is something that we can’t figure out so if you take one message from my little preamble today it’s that whether you’re on hormonal birth control or not it is possible to prevent pregnancy effectively and if you choose to use fertility awareness it is it’s completely possible to combine your fertility awareness knowledge and skills along with barrier methods doubling up when necessary to ensure efficacy so it’s possible you can do this if you’re feeling afraid you’re in good company because like I said the vast majority of my clients in the situation have to really cope with the fear as they learn fertility awareness and as they start to trust their bodies and all women in general but we can get there you can get to the point where you can trust your body and do this so without further ado let’s jump into today’s episode and I’m really excited to be here tonight with Freya Freya is a member of my current group program we at the time of this recording I think we just finished week 7 I feel like yeah yeah so we’re more than half of the way through we still have a few sessions and yes I’m really excited to have you here welcome to the show.

Freya: Thank you I’m so excited to be here this is such a cool opportunity.

Lisa: Yeah why I mean I’d love just to start by giving you an opportunity to share a little bit about your history so if you can remember when you got your first period what that was like and then if you used hormonal birth control before and if so what was your experience like.

Freya: Right so I got my period when I was 11 I remember it very vividly was not something that I was very I guess prepared for mentally I was one of those kids who always read a lot of like biology textbooks it was like sneaking around trying to figure all this stuff out but still was was pretty strange I don’t really remember much about what my periods really like I didn’t like track them or anything so the feeling that they were pretty normal thankfully you didn’t have paned and have a lot of cramping so that’s a real blessing and then when let’s see when I was about 17 I decided to get some hormone birth control because I had just recently gotten in a relationship and I was like need to be safe all that kind of good stuff and I went in and after about like 15 minutes of discussion my doctor was like okay well it sounds like like something that’s really long-lasting and has a really high effectiveness rate would be great so without really talking about any of the consequences or potential problems I got a Mirena IUD so progestin releasing IUD and insertion was pretty painful didn’t get any painkillers which was probably not a great idea in hindsight.

Lisa: Can I ask you a question about that on that like pain scale from 0 to 10 how would you read it and then were you offered painkillers.

Freya: It was not offered painkillers none were offered the pain was probably at its worst like I’d say maybe six or a seven it was definitely like a really big shirt like huge cramp and I remember I bled a time I was actually really shocked like when like they pulled out like the forceps I guess that’s what their gold was like so a tissue it was kind of scary it freaked me out a little bit so yeah painful not very fun by myself and so after that kind of my body getting adjusted to it for the first six months I spotted pretty continuously and that’s act that was not fun I was in the middle of really stressful school and so it was just a lot to deal with and I didn’t think much about it just because I was so stressed out and busy that it was just like whatever it’s what it is and then I also had issues with really bad hormonal acne I’d never I’d had a few pimples now I’m done I think everyone does and I just started to get like really deep very painful acne breast tenderness and just a whole bunch of things that like I didn’t think of at the time but now looking back it’s pretty clear that was like not great and then this last September I got the IUD oh it’s just kind of decided to get it out and it’s been kind of a slow my body readjusting getting used to being off of hormones but it’s really nice I’m enjoying it.

Lisa: Well and another question for you what prompted you to kind of have it out now and start using fertility awareness.

Freya: Yeah so I started reading take charge of your fertility and actually listening to your podcast I think your podcast was the first thing that like is like wait a second I could do something different instead of just relying on on birth control and relying on something that I can’t really tell what’s going on with my body and I’d always been a super like really into biology and kind of like reproductive nerds so I was like why don’t I know more about my own body so that really prompted me and there is something that really really big happened in my family and it just kind of was a time of like reevaluating my life and like deciding new things for myself so it was like well I can do this safely if I really you know like learn my stock I mean so yeah it’s just kind of this time.

Lisa: When when you described using the IUD how you had a few side effects you mentioned acne and then there was the insertion but did you like your experience on it did you actually suffer from side effects more so or was it kind of overall not that bad.

Freya: I think while I was in it overall it wasn’t that bad and definitely in comparison to the stories that I’ve heard of some women it was by far pretty easy I’m pretty easy right I definitely I think one thing that kind of clouds my ability to say whether it was horrible or were okay was just being super busy with end of high school and not really having time to think about my daily life and needs you know all that good stuff but yeah I think besides that it was really interesting like it definitely changed my physiology and like sexual experience for sure which is unfortunate because I was with my first partner and just like it was not good and then as soon as I got off the IUD just like things were great and that was that was definitely a nice revelation yeah otherwise it was pretty easy if you’re comfortable I just want to ask you if you wanted to tell us a little bit about the experience like was it libido was it sensation like what was it about your experience that was way better when you came off the IUD what my libido was still pretty much the same again it didn’t really affect my mood and sensation was mostly there but I just like couldn’t orgasm and that sucks and so I actually remember reading your book I just got the fifth vital sign it’s great everyone should go read a and you know like reading about the what is that like 20% possible shrinkage in your clitoris and in the older tissue is most like no one told me about this of just yeah so that was kind of the main the main issue that I had.

Lisa: Well thank you for sharing that with us I mean it’s something where as you said it was you weren’t told that it could affect your sexual function at all there’s tons of research to show why that could be and I think what always I guess gets me upset about that is that especially for young women who were put on birth control in their early teens or mid teens or whatever the case is you may not know you may not have anything to compare it to so you may be put on birth control before you become sexually active so you don’t really know what it would be like without it and so that’s obviously a concern because you want to be able to prevent pregnancy but it doesn’t mean that you don’t want to have the libido so yeah for sure.

Freya: And that was definitely my experience and I will say for where I was at in my life it was great it served its purpose and was important for me at that time in my life but yeah I wish that there had been more informed consent for sure.

Lisa: Well yeah I hope that this opens up the conversation I think all the listeners who listen to several of the episodes especially the FEM reality or the pill reality I mean yes I’m sure sharing women’s experiences but the hope in my mind is to open up that dialogue because it doesn’t mean that if you had been told could affect let me know that you wouldn’t have used it because it was the right option for you at the time but it just means that if you do start to experience those things which in your case you know you put the two and two together anyways but partially because you discover that that could be related to it yeah yeah well and so now you’re in in the process of switching over to fertility awareness obviously and we’re in the midst of our class and so let’s jump into the session part of our call today just let me know what you wanted to focus on I’ve got your charts here I’ll pull them up so that we can both look at them.

Freya: Hey so kind of my questions I think I have like probably three or four major ones and the first one is basically and this is kind of relating to the last two cycles is that I’ve been having pretty short luteal phase –is pretty much the whole time I recently you know transitioning off of the birth control and especially the last two cycles I’ve had light pleading and I’ve just been thinking about it and kind of been like maybe is this low progesterone but also those last few cycles I had some pretty big stress events like moving and taking care of teething toddlers and not sleeping for like a week so I know that can also have a huge effect so it might just be kind of a little blip but that’s one I think the other has to do with like we’ve talked about kind of a wet gosh sensation I’ve only been having it pre ovulation but I have been seeing like Janis on the toilet paper basically through most of the cycles so I was curious about like is that potentially cervical dysplasia may be something to look into a little bit more and then the third is kind of some interesting mucus kind of showing up post of and we can get more into that after we’ve looked through some of the other things first okay.

Lisa: Well so at the time that we’re recording this you had the IUD removed let’s see about six months ago almost maybe a little s yeah yeah about six months ago so where to some extent and still in the post pill transition phase but question for you so when you had the IUD removed in September did your just you know did you just resume cycling right away was it pretty straightforward yeah it was pretty straightforward I think it took call me about a month sure to come back and I had some spotting after it got taken out but yeah it resumed pretty quickly and then was I’ve been charting for a couple months before her class started so yeah having a shorter luteal phase is fairly typical just in general for the first couple months post pill but we are in cycle what how many cycles are this is let’s see eight cycles I actually was wondering about that like how do I market is I like a number in the year or number total anyway so yeah I think yeah okay well yeah I know that gives us some information because by cycle eight we typically the there comes a point where we can no longer blame yeah the hormonal contraceptives for what we’re seeing and that’s kind of within that period of time so I’m looking at your January cycle yeah and based on your temperature it looks like ovulation took place around day 16 cycle day 16 and so based on that yeah the luteal phase for January was eight days yeah yeah burnt yes that’s really short and so you mention a few things have been happening lately here and there so tell me about January so.

Freya: January I don’t remember actually so with my mom and I have been moving house for about two and a half months essentially because of weather conditions and all kinds of stuff happened anyway it’s long drawn-out only she and I are doing it so it’s been pretty stressful physical kind of waver and so we kind of dotted in and out that’s been part a part and parcel of the last few months so that could be having an effect but again it’s it’s hard to tell whether that’s rich dude you know I don’t know if it’s that stress or not that’s causing potentially some of this well and if you’ve tracked all eight of your cycles what has been your longest luteal phase if you know that I think my longest luteal phase has been about 15 days okay 15 years which month was that that was in October 2019 yeah so that’s October that’s not right okay and you unfortunately don’t have the charts for those ones since they’re Priya’s class not the right formula well I mean if you want to if you have them in a different format you could shoot it over the email and I could still take a look at it okay I can see if I can sign them real quick I also have them on Kundera I don’t know yep got it home yeah you can yeah you can just send it at work yeah cuz I’d be interesting interested to see that because when you see a pattern like that where you come off of the hormonal birth control and then you do have a few cycles where the luteal phase length is within that normal range and then it kind of shortens up then that’s a sign that it again it might not have anything to do with right the birth control yeah yeah and it’s I think that one that was like 15 was by far either like outlier they’ve all been mostly under like 12 11 days so they’ve all been relatively pretty short but you’re January cycle at 8 days was that the shortest one you’ve had so far I actually know this last let’s see it depends on how you count it so that’s another problem that sometimes they like peak day hasn’t really in terms of mucus hasn’t really correspond to temperature shift and sometimes there’s been crucial missed temperatures and so it’s kind of a little bit of wiggle room so there was let’s see in December through January so December – 19 – January 2020 it was potentially a luteal phase of six or seven days which is crazy short hmm so okay well and so yeah I’d have to take a look so kind of waiting for the charts to come through but in December was there anything I mean it’s the holidays so there’s that but was there anything in particular that stands out my boyfriend was visiting but yeah we it’s kind of started moving and we had kind of recently gotten back from so my father passed and let’s see August and so we kind of went on this really long trip to try and deal with things and we came back home and so it was kind of a whole getting back into the swing of life kind of thing so that’s also been kind of in the background a pretty big I guess emotional stressor okay.

Lisa: Well so I mean in general the things that that we would want to look at for luteal phase a lot of the things that we have talked about in the group so sleep patterns want to get a sense of that want to get a sense of your stress levels want to get a sense of your eating patterns because when we’re stressed when lots of things are going on it’s you know pretty easy to skip meals and those types of things yeah.

Freya: Unfortunately I I do have a tendency to not eat sometimes until kind of later in the day something that I’m trying to work on for sure it’s it’s mostly getting absorbed into things and yeah you know the story I’m shooting it.

Lisa: Well so tell me more on those days are you are you typically having breakfast is typically not having breakfast ha and that’s another thing I forgot to mention is that I would sometimes have nausea well I was on the Mirena IUD and so I kind of got into this habit of not really wanting to eat in the morning because I didn’t feel good if I ate and so I think that’s kind of also translated and for me, wake up kind of late in the day so again not eating for at least 2 ish hours usually that’s released after waking up ok so then on those days where you’re kind of not eating for a while and then you eat.

Freya: Do you end up eating three full meals like if you were to add up all their eating Oh probably more like two if not like one and a half or something to do with officiating and.

Lisa: And what’s your activity level like.

Freya: Not as active as I would like to be I typically go on a few walks in like a week but it depends on what’s going on in life so they’re definitely months where there’s very little activity and there’s some ones where I’m going on a walk every day ok.

Lisa: One you sent me I have like a just from the intake form so do you typically start the day with like black tea.

Freya: I sometimes do I’m trying to transition off of caffeine I think in some of the charts you’ll see that some days it is sometimes not yeah it’s about a 50-50 chance at this point trying to wean myself off though.

Lisa: Well I mean the only reason that I asked it’s not to be all weird about the caffeine but more so because the sometimes I’ve seen the pattern when you’re starting your day with coffee or tea something happening at caffeine caffeinated beverages do you have the tendency to suppress appetite so then it kind of you know you wake up you have the caffeinated beverage of choice and then you don’t eat and then it can kind of be the replacement for breakfast and then what I found is that when that happens it’s not like you’re eating a like another meal yeah it’s just the breakfast was skipped so in terms of your luteal phase one of I think obviously one of my obvious suggestions would be you know just to think about this aspect of life right now and after our call today and think about what are just a few things that you could do to make having like breakfast easier for you so it doesn’t I don’t think that it’s necessary to wake up and immediately gorge yourself on a huge meal because most people don’t feel like eating two seconds after they get out of bed I think that it’s important to start just becoming more in tune with your body definitely you know have some have some water absolutey like some hot water with lemon or something to really get you going in the morning just to hydrate your body you don’t want that and then start to pay attention to your body and but actually consider eating yes yeah it’s yeah it’s something that I would like to try working on more sure and it’s good to have it pointed out again yeah well and when you’re considering this meal that we’re talking about do consider making it like a full meal so if it’s a shake or if it’s an actual meal you want to have a protein source a fat source and carbohydrates you want to have all all three macronutrient categories sort it out so that you’re actually getting some protein you’re actually getting some fat along with the carbs and think of it as a meal and that’s why it’s good to eat it you’re actually hungry so think of it as a meal and think of it that once you’re finished eating you should be satiated and just do that as an experiment going into your next cycle so the cycle that I have right now it’s actually pretty good timing because we’re pre off here so we have a bit of a testing ground and so if you’re able to to give it a try then you’ll have it doesn’t mean that it’ll your your luteal phase will go up to 14 days from the previous one which was nine ish I can see that we had a couple of missing temps so yeah I’ll have to kind of look at that a little bit deeper but nine ish days but at the same time this is something that I’ve seen so yeah certainly could help so tell me then just refresh my memory like how are you sleeping how’s that all going.

Freya: I am sleeping pretty well I don’t have problems falling asleep I generally get around eight ish hours however my sleep hygiene in terms of getting off the screen or you know putting the screens away like an hour before bed is pretty terrible I’ve been trying to work on it but it’s definitely a hard one for me but overall I sleep really well and generally sleep about eight hours so.

Lisa: One is it I know we talked a little bit about it because of where you live there’s often like coming in till is is it a possibility to make your sleep environment dark for the most part.

Freya: I basically no lights nothing on I could definitely put something over the windows for when it gets light later in the later part of the year but I’m just kind of coming out of the winter when it’s very very dark most of the time so the last couple months thankfully it’s been pretty pitch-black.

Lisa: Okay well that’s good because then we know that it’s not necesarily back and so for the screens it’s we talked about this this is one of our topics in one of our recent calls and so I had a few suggestions for because of course like ideally we would all get off of our screens two hours before bed and read wonderful novels that’s our thing and do but is imperfect so when you’re on your screens have you been able to find a couple of apps or you know different settings so that at least you’re making it orange or red or something to block out some of the blue light.

Freya: Yep yeah thankfully I’ve had to do online high school and so I’ve been very protective of like constantly having those screens on a kind of a dimmer or kind of the switching to more incandescent color spectrum.

Lisa: Okay that’s great I think part of it is going down the list of things that could possibly be contributing to the luteal phase length and then attacking them so at this stage I would say definitely you know think about what we were talked about with diet well I should rephrase that with actually eating meals it’s not though it’s really not because eating eating meals requires right grocery shopping planning and it also requires that that time so in order to have the food to eat you have to actually organize that in your day especially when you’re busy and you have to fly out the house to get to wherever you need to go I think that one of the things that you could do like homework would just be to you know sit down and write out five possible breakfasts that meet the criteria of protein fat and carbs and force yourself to come up with a minimum of five ideas and so some of it like one of them sure could be like you actually cooking a meal but you have to be realistic so you might not have time to like fry up bacon and eggs or whatever every day and one could be a shake making sure that it it’s filling the three criteria one could be leftover as one could be but just actually sit down and force yourself to come up with some ideas and then ask yourself like is this realistic for me is will this work on my busiest day ain’t and then start from there okay good advice thank you you’re welcome okay so then I think that’s probably enough homework for the luteal phase and in the sense that when we have our sessions in the group depending on where they fall within your cycle we might start to get it a sense of whether or not it’s actually helping to lengthen it and so just a.

Freya: Couple other practical things that we’ve talked about so when you’re having a shorter luteal phase you want to find ways to support progesterone production so that’s why we’re talking about eating that’s why we’re talking about sleeping because when you’re not sleeping in the dark you can interfere with that when you’re not getting the food you can cause some degree of stress in your body which can interfere with that but in addition to that you might want to just do a few supportive things so we’ve talked a little bit in the group about magnesium so doing like if baths are a thing in your life doing some Epsom salt baths particularly in the luteal phase magnesium is known to support progesterone production so not everyone’s a bath person though is that a thing for you.

Lisa: Unfortunately there’s no bath to my house and it makes me sad every day so there’s you know other.

Freya: Options as well one is to create like a magnesium oil spray it’s called oil but it’s not oil so that’s something where you can you know add it to a spray bottle and then when you’re doing your lotioning routine at night you can actually put it on your body and you can organize it that way or you could consider supplementation with magnesium in the luteal phase and or throughout your cycle in general okay and then you’ll be able to chart and see if that also helps to improve the length of your luteal phase okay.

Lisa: Yeah so yeah so that’s that was the first question before we move on to the other topics did you have any other kind of thoughts around that that seems to be covering it and yes probably eating makes a lot of sense yes.

Lisa: Well, and you mentioned something about your temperatures not always lining up with the mucus pattern. So I’m looking at your February chart here, and you did have some mucus leading up to ovulation based on the temperature information — we could put ovulation around day 14, 15, or 16, so it’s hard to know the specifics without the temp, but the last day that you had mucus that was clear and stretchy —

Freya: That’s actually one of the ones that I wanted to talk about, because I’ve been having some interesting post-O mucus changes. You can see here, it’s stretchy, but it’s kind of more gummy, like the back of a credit card — not quite so sticky, and it’s cloudy. There’s a very distinct change, especially in this chart.

Lisa: Well yeah, I mean that’s one of the signs that we look for, so then you mark day 16 as your peak day, which I would also mark. I feel like what I always say with charting is that it’s short of a daily ultrasound — we’re getting the most accurate estimate of ovulation, and I don’t know anyone who has an ultrasound machine in their house, so there’s that. I would peg ovulation around day 15 or 16 based on what we’re seeing here, and only because there are two temps missing, we’re given a range, but for what it’s worth, it’s probably within a day or so. That’s amazing that we can do that at home. And in this case, even though we don’t have those two temps, the temps still do match up with what we’re seeing, because even after the two missed temps, we do see that the shift is sustained — the temperatures are all higher and consistent.

So this gummy mucus that you’re mentioning — is that something that you experience? Because I’m looking at your January chart, and you didn’t note any of that. There wasn’t much of it in that first cycle.

Freya: But I’ve noticed it a few times — it really came in this cycle number two, in February. I will say though that it was extremely stressful — I had an anxiety attack, I think for the first time in my life, so it was pretty intense. So yeah, it’s very possible, but that cycle is just an anomaly.

Lisa: Well, and have you noticed a change in your mucus? For example, in your January cycle you did note some mucus, in a few days. But have you noticed a change — so you had the IUD out in September — has it been fairly consistent, or have you started to see more than you used to?

Freya: It’s definitely changed, which is helpful for me. So like this cycle, I’m just getting into that kind of very stretchy egg-white mucus, and there’s a lot more of it compared to when I first got the IUD out, and it’s much clearer. The first couple of cycles, I remember I didn’t have any peak-type mucus — it was just kind of gummy, or not gummy but more like creamy, tacky. So yes, it’s definitely been shifting more and more towards a clear, egg-white kind of pattern.

Lisa: Well, so it’s not uncommon to see a bit of a trend in that respect, because one of the modes of action of hormonal birth control is to change the cervical mucus so that you’re not producing fertile-quality mucus. So it’s not uncommon for it to then take several months post-pill — not all women are the same, but generally the trend that I see is that it does take a few cycles before you actually start to fall into more normal patterns. And so for instance, the February cycle with the gummy mucus — there’s quite a bit, a lot more than you were seeing before. The gummy mucus is something that we do want to watch for, because it can be a sign of cervical inflammation, so it could be related to the residual effect of the IUD removal — something we should definitely pay attention to.

And you also mentioned the dampness and wetness that you’ve been seeing — you noted a little bit of dampness post-O. I know you said that you were mostly seeing it pre-O, so now that you’ve been charting for a couple of months, are you ever dry? Do you ever have a day where you’d actually classify it as dry?

Freya: There’s no doubt — it’s hard to remember all of them, but more recently it’s definitely been that there’s always at least some dampness on the toilet paper. It’s definitely not lubricated, and there’s no mucus, though sometimes it has that shiny quality. But there’s always a little bit of dampness. And again, it’s that dampness, but the gush sensation that we’ve talked about a few times — I’ve only been having that pre-ovulatory.

Lisa: So would you say that you’ve had the gushing then, for several cycles? And did you have that while you were using the IUD, do you remember?

Freya: I don’t remember, but I don’t think so.

Lisa: Okay, well, so the dampness and that gushing sensation is associated with potentially abnormal cervical cells, and there is a connection between birth control and abnormal cervical cells. So when I see signs like this, it’s definitely worth scheduling a doctor’s appointment — or whenever the next appointment is that you were going to go to anyway — just ask for a pap smear, and ask them to do an STI screen and a swab for bacteria and yeast overgrowth. Just cover all the bases — a pap is not an STI screening test, those are separate things, and sometimes the doctor will, if you ask for a pap, just do the pap and won’t necessarily do the rest unless you ask. But if you’re in there anyway, you may as well check all the bases, so definitely have a look at that.

And you have The Fifth Vital Sign, so you can have a look at Chapter 11 — I think that’s where I talked about it, in the section on replenishing nutrients after coming off the pill. There are two different sections where I talk about it — Chapter 11, page 159, covers cervical dysplasia, HPV, and cervical surgery. So after our conversation, I’d say go have a read of that.

Well, so I really appreciate you being here today and being so open with your experience. For any woman who is listening to these episodes because she’s currently on birth control and she’s trying to make her decision about how to proceed, what — if any — advice would you want to give her?

Freya: I would say it’s totally normal to feel uncomfortable and unsure. I’d say try and go with your gut, and really try to figure out the ways you can support yourself as you’re going through a transition, if you end up deciding to make the switch — because I would highly recommend coming off birth control. For me, it’s been a huge difference. So I would say, if you need to read the books, read all the books. If you need to listen to great podcasts, listen to this one. If you need to work with an instructor, do that. But really make sure you have a little bit of support if you feel unsteady and unsure. But overall, I’d say go for it, and just be safe and treat yourself kindly — it’s a hard process to learn all this.

Lisa: Well, and for someone who is wanting to know — like in the group program — she’s thinking about it but she’s kind of unsure if it’s going to be worth it, or what it’s really like — what, if anything, would you want to share with her?

Freya: It’s definitely been useful to have someone there while you’re going through charting and learning these new things — someone who has a more trained eye who can look at this stuff, whereas you might be quite new to it, or have no experience at all, and you won’t be able to see some of the bigger trends. So it’s useful to be able to bounce things off of another person and have their experience on your side.

Lisa: Awesome well thank you so much for being here today Freya really appreciate you coming on the show and and yeah I will see you soon in our next in our next session.

Freya: Yeah I’m excited thanks so much for having me.

Lisa: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with your friends. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode at fertilityfriday.com/309. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode with Freya — sending out a special thank you to Freya for coming on the show and sharing her experience. I think it’s so important to continue these conversations, and if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that these are the conversations we need to be having. It’s really important to normalize fertility awareness — it’s really important for women to see that yes, there are women who are really doing this, this method really does work when you learn to use it, and you can gain confidence and use it correctly and effectively to prevent pregnancy without hormones. So that is what I hope you take from this episode. If you enjoy these Reality Series episodes, head over to fertilityfriday.com/reality and listen to all of them — there are more than 30 at this point, where you get to hear real women share their struggles learning fertility awareness, managing their cycles as they return to normal post-pill, dealing with the fear of coming off the pill, and managing their fertility while they learn fertility awareness. So I just want you to know that you can do this — if there’s anything to take away from this episode, it’s that yeah, you can do it, and it does work. And even if you’ve had an unfortunate encounter with a healthcare professional who told you it doesn’t work or didn’t have confidence in the method, that’s okay — most health professionals aren’t well versed in fertility awareness and haven’t learned about the true efficacy or the scientific information to back it up. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week, and whenever you’re listening to today’s episode, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.