Speaker 0
Welcome to the Free Birth Podcast, a supportive space for people who are learning, exploring, and celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth. Together, we'll unpack truths, share personal stories, and claim our ability to birth freely and intuitively. Here's your host, Emily Saldea.
Speaker 1
Exciting news listeners. The Free Birth Society apparel store has opened. Head on over to free birth society dot com and check out the adorable onesies and toddler shirts, adult tank tops, hoodies, and more, all celebrating messages of free birth. Again, that's w w w dot free birth society dot com. What would our society look like if males and females of all ages understood the basics of fertility? What if growing up we were taught truths instead of lies about sex and pregnancy? Well, we have to start somewhere, so this episode is for anyone who doesn't yet know the ABCs of how to track and understand fertility. I'm joined by birth worker and science nerd, Jessica Austin from Vancouver, Canada who goes through the simple steps of how to use fertility awareness method to both conceive a child and to not conceive a child. I do want to note that we do not discuss STDs in this episode and fertility awareness method is simply a tracking method to understand when a woman is fertile and when she is not. It does not in any way alliance with proper STI screenings and communication with partners.
Speaker 2
I came into birth work from a very like my background was always in science and I always thought I would work in healthcare and was kind of just nerdy biology feminist kind of my whole life and then when I discovered how little I knew about birth and how the female body worked and understanding childbirth despite all of my educational background in physiology and human biology and all of that kind of stuff that I had never been taught really about birth in any kind of real physiological way and that was just so shocking to me and when I started learning about the biology of birth and physiological birth and then attending birth and just seeing how misinformed so many of us are about how our bodies work and how, you know we're trained to think of birth and female biology as medical as opposed to biological. And through you know after years of attending birth and just becoming mind blown with the science of childbirth and how we mess it up so much, eventually I also stumbled into the science of fertility and birth control and ATTEMPTING TO GET Pregnant AND, YOU KNOW, IT'S ALL THE SAME THING. ALL THE SAME POLITICS ARE INVOLVED. ALL OF THE SAME, YOU KNOW, Just I mean, that we have. Yeah, like lies that we're programmed to think that the female body is destined to fail, that women are not capable of understanding their own bodies or experiencing their own biology and that we need medicine and other people to control us and like quote unquote help us to experience these like these completely normal parts of our reproductive life cycle and it's you know it's interesting to me on a biological nature science nerd level it's extremely you know it's extremely important to me on a feminist human rights just human empowerment level. Yeah. And it all it's just it is so frustrating to me that it's only people like you and I who somehow have like somehow come across it from our own research or paths or connections that we've made and it's not something that is just common knowledge in our communities that we're taught growing up to feel like we understand our bodies, that we're capable of understanding our bodies and that our bodies are not as complicated and dangerous as they're made out.
Speaker 1
Right. And that we have to actually we actually have to seek this information out. It's not it's not, you know, even remotely in mainstream or default or in norm, you know, common family conversations or, obviously, school or anything like that. So you have to really seek it out. And that's really why we're here today is to provide, an easy, digestible, you know, you know, whatever. It's gonna be an hour or so, where someone can just listen to this and get the basics of what fertility awareness method is, what it means, and to demystify it. Right? Because we were just talking before we were recording that, you know, both of us, you know and and I think many birth workers who are in this field or or I think one once you have this knowledge, then you're blown away by how many people don't have it because it becomes this, you know it's such a normal thing once you've integrated it and you know about it and you come into trust with your body and and awareness with your body. Then when you realize how many of your sisters, you know, and friends and women you meet, are aren't aren't just unaware of it, but also think that it's so complicated they don't want to learn.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
I mean Either
Speaker 2
it's so complicated or not true, you know, when you think about it, like, you know, people think when you're using it to prevent pregnancy, people think, oh my gosh, how irresponsible, don't you know that that doesn't work? Or if you're using it to try to conceive, people think that you can get pregnant anytime in your cycle, so why would you why would you bother working so hard? Like, it's it's not only that the information isn't there, but that there's you're actively discouraged from learning it. Yeah.
Speaker 1
And the and the bottom real. Yeah. And the bottom line, I think, you know, that we'll probably keep coming back to is when women know this, when women claim this, you know, when it becomes, when it when it, you know, when it gets given back to the masses, major shifts will occur. Major shifts because there are whole industries built on, requiring that we do not understand or trust our bodies. Yeah. And so very, very, very simple things like fertility awareness method can destroy these anti feminist structures, you know, and I've I've discovered it within myself. I'm sure you've discovered it within yourself. And so, yeah, that is why we're here to have these conversations and why we don't shut up about
Speaker 2
it. Well, thanks. Thanks for inviting me to have this conversation with you. Hell, yeah.
Speaker 1
So, so let's get into the basics. What is fertility awareness method?
Speaker 2
Fertility awareness method is a a method of understanding your own body so that you know when you're fertile, when you're not fertile, when your body's ovulating, understanding what that means and then using that information to number one either achieve or avoid pregnancy depending on what your your reproductive goals are and also to just understand your your reproductive health and understand how your body is working or things that you might be able to do to kind of improve your improve your reproductive health. And I think like you were just saying the kind of discourse around it is that it's either not possible to identify or tell when you're ovulating. I remember I had a I was dating a guy a few years ago who he's he made a comment. This was before I discovered or it was just it was when I was just discovering fertility awareness and learning that there were these really obvious signs that were completely easy and simple to understand about when you're fertile and when you are not And he made this joke about, If only humans were like this species of baboons where their bums turn red when they're fertile, or something like that. If only it was so obvious that you just looked different when you were ovulating. And I was like, But it is that obvious. Like, it's like our skin doesn't turn a different color, but the signs are not complicated and they are obvious.
Speaker 1
Like, all you
Speaker 2
have to do is look. All you have to do is look and know what to look for. And it's so so so simple that I think it's it's just this isn't information that we should feel like you need a degree in reproductive science to be able to understand or feel confident or trust yourself to use. There's some pretty pretty basic things to look for.
Speaker 1
So let's let's dive into what those are.
Speaker 2
So one of the most obvious fertile signs and the easiest right off the bat easy to easy to identify is how your cervical fluid changes throughout your menstrual cycle. Which a lot of us and for myself were never aware of you know, as soon as you say your cervical fluid changes throughout your menstrual cycle, almost every woman will say like, oh, yeah. I've noticed that. But they never really understood what it meant or noticed that there was a pattern. And in a lot of circumstances, for myself included, before you start teaching people what it is and what it means, they can almost even attribute it to a lack of health. You know, the people will say, yeah, I've noticed that there's times when my cervical fluid is different consistency or a different color or is either present or not present, but they don't necessarily know that that's an identifiable Mhmm. Sign of their fertility and their health.
Speaker 1
And I think, you know, we are taught, whether directly or indirectly, to feel ashamed of that discharge. And so, I mean, I remember in high school when I started to notice it, there was no way in hell I was gonna ask somebody else if they were having it. I thought that it was gross, and I didn't know what it was. You know, I didn't realize it was like a magical, you know, intel into my body until, you know, thankfully not that much later. But, you know, that that piece of shame and, you know, the oppression around our bodies and sexuality and and, you know, reproduc reproduction is so is such a huge part of this staying suppressed and this information, you know, staying out of our hands. Because if you're I I I can't remember the exact time, but I remember multiple times in the beginning in high school when I started towards the end realizing that other people had it and that vaginal discharge was a thing that happened or cervical fluid, that changed throughout the month. I remember that feeling of it normalizing in my body and that I wasn't disgusting and that it was womanhood.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That it's healthy and normal and it's expected and not that there's something weird about you because because you have it. So for people who don't know what we're talking about, what we're talking about is the the discharge or fluid that's excreted from your cervix throughout your menstrual cycle on almost for most days throughout your cycle you'll have some kind of cervical fluid and you notice most women will notice on their underwear throughout the day or when they wipe that there's different types of cervical fluid that change throughout the throughout the cycle. So there's a part of your cycle where it might be either completely dry and you don't notice any discharge or coloring or substance on your underwear at all. A lot of people have at least something throughout their entire throughout their entire menstrual cycle and it'll change. So at some point there might be nothing no kind of no kind of obvious cervical discharge or fluid that you see. At other phases of your cycle it might be like dry or crumbly or a little bit stickier and more kind of gum like looking and later on in your cycle it'll start to look more thin and what we call egg white egg white appearance. It looks like the egg white the egg white of a of an egg. And at different parts of your cycle it might be really really watery and lubricative and you know people will often be able to identify this the sensation that they have in their in their vagina of either feeling dry or moist or really quite damp.
Speaker 1
And what I think we're getting at is that that actually has a rhythm to it. That has a bit of a pattern to it when you start to track it. So fertility awareness method is a tracking method, you know, of our monthly cycles and, you know, I don't know how you feel about apps but I'm against them with tracking, for a number of reasons, which I guess we could get into either now or later. But I really recommend charting with your hand and a physical paper chart, because then nobody's no app is gonna be doing averages on your cycles, which every app that I know of averages out, you know, your input, what you're putting in. Would you agree?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I I've used, I do use an app mostly because I've I've, programmed my partner to follow my cycle along with me. So we have our apps on our own phone, but I don't look the app that I use. There is a part where it averages out your cycle and you can look at it, but there's a separate a separate part where you can just look at your chart.
Speaker 1
And what app is that for anyone interested?
Speaker 2
I use Kendara. Okay. And it does have a fit part where it'll, like, predict when you might be fertile, but there is a place that you can just disregard that information and just look at what you're actually writing. But pen and paper, I do agree, is more useful because it's easier. There's something about putting your pen on a piece of paper and you can make your own notes and look at, you know, like the apps can be good for charting the really basic signs, but they're also not the best for adding your extra more individual kind of overall kind of picture patterns that you're seeing.
Speaker 1
And for anyone who's into, you know, ritual and, you know, kind of using this as a way as it is, you know, as a way to just check-in. You know? It's something that I I used apps for years, and then only in the last year, did I switch to a chart because someone basically told me I should. And I it felt different, you know, to wake up and take my temperature, which we'll get to, and have my pencil and my chart next to my bed. And just to take that, like, physical moment because I so rarely write with utensils, you know, anywhere. And just to take that moment and to souls, you
Speaker 2
know, anymore.
Speaker 1
And just to take that moment and to physically see it, it just felt, I don't know. It felt more real and, like, more connective and, you know, I'm I'm always on my phone, so it felt kind of nice to do this, almost like back to roots, you know, kind of feeling. So yeah. But anyway okay. So we've got the we've got the cervical fluid that's gonna change. So speak to, I guess, the tracking part of the cervical fluid.
Speaker 2
So basic the general kind of the general principles of tracking your cervical fluid is every day taking note of when you're going to the washroom and when you're wiping and when you're looking at your underwear. Different people will track it different ways. Some Some people will track it just externally and just look at what's on their underwear or what's on the tissue paper when they wipe. Some people will insert a finger into their vagina and track internally. I don't personally really think that's necessary and I only do external observation, but there's different kind of schools of thought around that. And then writing, either writing it down or tracking in an app what the quality of that cervical fluid is. So is it not present? Is it dry? Is it dry crumbly looking? Is it sticky? Is it egg white quality? Is it wet? And those are really the only categories that there are and different people will have different variations of those. But once you really start paying attention and looking there's a clear and consistent identifiable change throughout your cycle. The beginning of your cycle, so you know day one of your cycle is the first day when you start menstruating and once you've kind of finished bleeding or your bleeding is tapewearing off it becomes you start to notice the the cervical fluid throughout the rest of the month. The typical start of the cycle the cervical fluid is usually either not present or very very dry And as you get closer and closer to ovulating the cervical fluid will gradually increase in kind of moist wet quality. So the the when you're ovulating the cervical fluid and fertile, the cervical fluid is usually quite lubricative, it's moist, it looks often like egg white where if you put it on your finger and stretched you could stretch it and it would look like you're stretching a slippery white egg white white of an egg. Globby. Globby egg of your fingers. Different people have different amounts of it so for some people especially often typically like younger people will say, I remember having like just globs of it when I was in my early 20s. Like I would just wipe and it would just be tons of it and it's kind of sometimes either as we age or just depending on your own just normal reproduction, it can be either more or less in quantity but it's usually there.
Speaker 1
And what is the genius behind the cervical fluid?
Speaker 2
The cervical fluid is what keeps the sperm alive. So sperm can only live in an in an alkaline environment and our normal the the normal environment in our vagina and in our cervix is quite is quite acidic which kills sperm through most of our cycle. So this is what what really comes down to breaking the lie that we're taught growing up that you can just get pregnant at any point in your cycle. Anything can happen at any time. It's pretty healthy.
Speaker 1
And what a scary thought.
Speaker 2
It's a very scary thought. Oh
Speaker 1
my gosh.
Speaker 2
That you can just get pregnant at any second, and it's not it's really not real, and biology makes it not real. So for most of the month, for most of our cycle, our bodies are actually designed to kill sperm.
Speaker 1
Yeah. To not get pregnant.
Speaker 2
To not get pregnant. So you could have sex for most of your cycle and even if there's sperm present in your body, number one, sperm cannot live for more than about twenty four hours without fertilizing an egg. So if it doesn't come in contact with an egg in that first twenty four hours it's going to die, and it also can't live without the presence of the cervical fluid that that creates an environment that the sperm can survive in. So that means if you when you don't have that fertile moist type cervical fluid you cannot get pregnant no matter how much sex that you're having. Which is also, which is a frustrating thing for a lot of people in our culture who have been actively trying to get pregnant and if they don't have this information, you know their doctors might be telling them to have sex on day fourteen, middle of their cycle, which is what we're what we're all taught the average woman ovulates on. So they could be trying every month for two years to get pregnant and if they're not watching their own fertile signs, they could never once have had sex in two years when they were actually ovulating or actually fertile.
Speaker 1
And we know this happens all the time. I mean, you know, you get labeled infertile if you've been trying for twelve months without success. But exactly like you're saying, you could be trying for twelve months and hitting the wrong day when it's not even possible, but you could be a completely fertile woman. But because, you know, OBGYNs are the primary care providers around fertility, you know, unless you, you know, are now then going to a specialist, nobody's talking about this. Nobody's talking about tracking your cervical fluid and, everyone's just averaging out this fourteen days. And, you know, you might fall on a fourteen day, like I actually do most of the time, but not always. But I actually am quite average in my cycles. But, you know, the next person next to me is is not at all and she's at ten days or she's at twenty days. So just to reiterate what you just said because I I have wondered about this. So if a woman is not seeing that egg whitey stuff in any capacity, if she is not having cervical fluid, she cannot get pregnant? Is it really that black and white?
Speaker 2
If she doesn't well, it kind of if she can if she doesn't have fertile type cervical fluid, she's probably not ovulating and probably not getting pregnant. Now some people might not have it that obvious
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
And need to do a little bit of extra tracking or investigating to see if they are actually ovulating. Some people might have I mean, they might have the cervical fluid, the egg white cervical fluid or the watery cervical fluid and it's just in very small amounts, so it's not obvious to them.
Speaker 1
Because I've definitely had friends, you know, who come off of birth control, for example, and they're tracking and they are doing all their stuff, but they're not seeing that that juicy cervical fluid, and my response has always just been it's gonna take time. You know, it's just it might it might take you way longer than you want to rebalance everything in your body so that it's, it's trackable and so that it's, like, kind of functioning again on its own, but I wasn't really sure if it was that I think, yeah, that's a really good point. It might be happening without you, noticing, particularly if you're not taking note.
Speaker 2
Exactly. Which
Speaker 1
is why it's so important because if you don't want a pregnancy, you need to start taking note. And if you do want a pregnancy, you know, you need to you can therefore have realistic expectations of your body, to avoid just as we all are familiar with the crazy level of stress that, you know, women in our society face around thinking they're infertile and what a what a crazy thing to find out probably a lot of these women are not.
Speaker 2
Totally. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's very frustrating. So, yeah, I think the just to kind of backtrack a little bit, you know, we're all taught or most of us are taught when we're if we're taught anything about our menstrual cycle we're taught that we have a a cycle that's twenty eight days long and that we ovulate on day fourteen. And although that might be an average of what a cycle might look like the a healthy cycle can be anywhere between twenty one and thirty five days long give or take and people might ovulate on day eleven or twelve or they might ovulate on day twenty and it's you're not going to know which category you're in unless you're tracking it. And it's the it's monitoring signs like cervical fluid which you've been talking about and tracking your temperature which we'll get to in a little bit a little bit later on that tells you when you uniquely are ovulating as opposed to assuming that every human that was ever born ovulates on the exact same on the exact same timeline.
Speaker 1
Right. Which we know can change with stress and age and hormones and, you know, everything. You know? If you if you were to track for twelve years, you would definitely notice very real shifts, you know, even month to month. So let's okay. So the first thing, it sounds like probably the most important piece, is being super connected to and aware of your cervical fluid.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
So temperature.
Speaker 2
So temperature is, is kind of another sign of fertility. It's something that you don't just, you know, you have to take your temperature every day as opposed to looking at your cervical fluid. Not everybody. It's not the only way to tell if you're if you're ovulating or when you're ovulating but it is a nice extra way. I have gone through phases of either temping or not temping personally because I attend births for a living and my sleep is very erratic which kind of makes the temperature makes the temperature a little bit a little bit less predictable But ideally, it's a it's a great add on sign to have as a when you have two when you have at least two methods that you're using to track your fertility, you become that much more confident in what's happening in your body. So what taking your temperature, this is just so fascinating. Like I just, the whole temperature thing is just a piece of biology that is mind blowing once you know that it exists. So well, in fertility awareness, we talk about tracking your basal body temperature and what your basal body temperature is is your resting body temperature when you first wake up at rest before you've done anything throughout your day that might increase your body temperature. So when you're at night, when you're sleeping, you're resting, you're not talking, you're not moving around, you're not exercising, your body that's what we call your basal body temperature. And so to take your temperature, to use this as part of your fertility tracking, what is recommended is to take it very first thing in the morning or first thing when you wake up, before you get out of bed, before you go pee, before you get up and start talking and moving around, and that's going to give you an idea of what your resting or basal body temperature is. What's fascinating and fascinating to look at on your chart when you're charting it it's another thing that once you write it down and mark it it's so obvious it's clear as day is in the first half of your cycle your body temperature will be lower than in the second half of your cycle. So the average I'm in Canada so we use Celsius so your average body temperature at the beginning of your cycle is anywhere between like thirty, thirty six point one and or yeah thirty six point one and thirty six point five ish degrees Celsius but everybody's different. You'll have to track your own to kind of see what your normal baseline is. When you ovulate, when your, when your body ovulates and releases the egg, the follicle in your ovary becomes what we call the corpus luteum and that that begins secreting progesterone for the rest of your cycle. And progesterone increases our body temperature. So once you've ovulated, your body starts producing progesterone and that raises your body temperature a significant amount. So if you're charting it you'll see your temperature is you know it'll fluctuate within a little bit of variation but it'll be basically on the low side and then as soon as you ovulate it'll jump up on your chart a noticeable amount and then stay that high for the rest of your for the rest of your cycle. So that is a method that's used to confirm that you have ovulated.
Speaker 1
So when does it go back down? The first day of your bleed?
Speaker 2
It'll usually drops the day before you start bleeding.
Speaker 1
The day before. So if you are pregnant, your temperature will stay up.
Speaker 2
Exactly.
Speaker 1
And that was one of that for for me when I mean, I used it to not get pregnant for years, and then I used it to get pregnant. And well, actually, I used my husband to get pregnant.
Speaker 2
But it was really cool. It
Speaker 1
was really cool because I was temping, and my temperature didn't go down. And because I had this chart and because I knew what my normal was or what my average was, that was a easy and very quick way to realize that at least at this point, it seemed that I was pregnant. Yeah. And, you know, and actually an interesting little note there is, this might not appeal to everybody, but because I have this information, it also is a helpful way to predict a miscarriage. And so it's you know, if you want to know, it can give you a little bit of a heads up. And so I continued to temp because I knew that my temperature was gonna drop if the pregnancy was gone. And so that often happens. It could happen a couple days before you actually bleed. It could happen many days before you actually physically release, you know, the pregnancy tissue. And so, I did that for quite some time until I was over it. I think I did it for most of the first trimester. And and it was a cool nonmedical way to validate that I was pregnant
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
And that because I I will just share that I you know, because I'm in this work and because I I walk with so many women who experience pregnancy loss, it was very heady for me, knowing that I was doing an unassisted pregnancy and that if I were to miscarry, how would I know?
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
At least and, obviously, eventually, I would know when my body expelled, you know, the tissue, but that can take weeks and weeks and weeks. And so that was a little piece of comfort that I could use where I didn't need to go to a doctor. I didn't need ultrasounds. I didn't need any outside validation. Literally just checking my temp and that it stayed in the ninety eights for America Fahrenheit, that it stayed elevated, was such a nice little reassuring thing for me to do every morning. So just for anyone who that resonates with it, it was a such a cool little, like, little gift that I because I knew that it was gonna keep showing me.
Speaker 2
You know and on that topic it's also you know we treat miscarriage as if it's Yeah, we've just programmed women to be so dependent on the medical system for telling them what's going on with their bodies even though it's really information that we have access to easily at home. And for someone who is having signs of a miscarriage you know that often the kind of go to is you know someone will start having spotting or bleeding or cramping and they start wondering you know, am I miscarrying? And then they start going to the doctor and they go get blood work every few days to see if their HCG levels are staying up or going down and a lot of people will describe how clinical that feels and how unsettling it is to be going in all the time and talking with clinicians and people who aren't, you know, they're there doing their clinical job and they're doing their best but they're it's a very it's a very strange experience for a lot of women. And it I think it's very scary. It's scary, it's cold, it's clinical, and it doesn't really give it doesn't give them any more information for the most part typically than they would have if they had been tracking their their temperature and monitoring their own fertile signs and how their body is changing throughout throughout the their menstrual cycle and through their pregnancy. And there's something so empowering for people about knowing like, you know, I do understand my own body and I can see these things on my own and I don't need to go and make something that's actually not a medical event or not clinical and turn it into that.
Speaker 1
Yeah. It makes it it puts the choice into our individual hands to really say, I don't need this system. I can choose it.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
But I don't need it. I'm not completely beholden to this medical model because I don't know anything about what's going on. All of a sudden you can say, I do have a basic foundation and relationship with what's going on, and then I can make a decision if I still wanna use that model or if I'm comfortable with what I have here at home. But, you know, you can't it it's almost impossible to make that decision if you don't have any tools. Oh my gosh. Then you're just, like, in the dark, and it's scary and weird and alone. And, you know, and that's that's what this wonderful, wonderful patriarchal system
Speaker 2
has has taken from us. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1
So it is so fun that it's it's so simple. And, you you know, and then I think, yeah, I think I gave a really great example of of just such a an easy thing that we can do that really helped me with my potential stress level, and not feeling alone and not feeling like because I knew I, of course, wouldn't go to a doctor kind of no matter what. And so it felt really, yeah, powerful to to give myself my my own validation with this own information. So let's just step back real quick to the temperature dropping at ovulation. I think one, confusing piece there for some people might be once you see your temperature rise, you've already ovulated.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker 1
So, in a way, if you were trying to have to have sex to conceive, you've already missed the window?
Speaker 2
Exactly. So, either miss the window or you're very close potentially to missing to missing the window because the egg the egg once you've ovulated your egg will survive for around twenty four hours post ovulation, unless it's unless it's unless a sperm has fertilized it. So ideally to give yourself the most opportunity to conceive you will have also been monitoring your cervical fluid so that you can begin you know, begin either yeah. Begin trying to fertilize your egg with sperm some by some method, before you ovulate.
Speaker 1
And so that's why the chart and doing it for multiple, multiple months or years is so helpful because though we said averages, you know, with the apps are bullshit, averages within your own body are not bullshit. So if you can come up with your own averages and if you know that your average is that you ovulate on day ten because you've seen consistently for nine months that your temp rises on day eleven, well then you know that day ten is a good day to shoot for. And if that's paired with some sticky egg whitey discharge, well then you're good to go and you know your window.
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
Speaker 1
So, what, anything else about temping?
Speaker 2
I just wanted to add that, you know, we talked about how the the egg survives for around twenty four hours. Sperm, if sperm in the presence of fertile cervical fluid can live for up to around five days. So, if there's no cervical fluid present, sperm dies very very quickly but if there is cervical fluid present, the sperm can live for up to five days. So, having sex before you ovulate increases your chances or your it creates the opportunity for fertilization to occur because the sperm may still be alive. So if you've had if you you know if you typically ovulate on day fourteen and you start having fertile cervical fluid around day ten, if you have sex on day ten, eleven, twelve in the presence of that that kind of sperm friendly fluid that'll keep the sperm alive in your body until you ovulate.
Speaker 1
Increasing your chances.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
Interesting. Yeah. I remember this might be a little a little TMI, but I remember when we were I was surprised by because we I had never tried to conceive before. This was the only time in my life I've ever tried to conceive. And so before this, I only used fertility awareness method to not conceive. And so, basically, when I saw the sticky discharge, we didn't have sex, or we had sex with condoms, but I was pretty hardcore about it. Usually, we just didn't have sex. You know, it's a short period of time, couple days. And, and otherwise, you know, I I felt comfortable being more lax about it, because I knew I couldn't get pregnant. And so the I you know, so for a couple of days, we just wouldn't have sex. So in the conception time back in May when we were calling it in, I was surprised because we were having sex so much. I actually had an incredibly hard time seeing my cervical fluid because there was so much come inside me.
Speaker 2
You know
Speaker 1
what I mean though? Like, because I had sold it. Yeah. Because we were having sex, like, you know, once or twice every day. And and so, yeah, it was just really juicy. And I
Speaker 2
asked That's a great problem to have. Totally. And and it
Speaker 1
was but at the same time, I was like, oh, shit. This one thing that I've been relying on to tell me. And I had my charts and I knew my averages and all of that too. But, normally it's quite visible and it it wasn't the week that we actually conceived. And so my fallback was to just have sex, you know, once or twice a day for the whole week. And, you know, I know not every couple can do that and or want to do that. And it was our first time trying, so we were super gung ho and excited about it. You know, I know it's different for people who've been trying for a year or whatever. But anyway, so it totally worked out for us. And we we just kind of assumed if we just, like, you know, hedge our bets and just keep sperm in there, basically. Yeah. For a week, something's gonna take, and it did. But, I remember that feeling of, like, I'm not able to see my cervical fluid. I don't even this is all wet and juicy in there, and it's not you know, it's been mixed now quite significantly.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So And that's where, like, the temping as an added tool really comes in. Right? Because then if you're if there are things that are masking your cervical fluid like that, like semen, you're having sex really frequently, and it makes the signs less obvious. You have the temperature to tell you, like Totally. Yes. They ovulated.
Speaker 1
Exactly. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened. And it was it was really my my first sign because my temp rised, and then it just stayed up. And, you know, yeah, like like we're getting to. It was just such a validating fun thing that you you get that right away. I mean, you can't take a pregnancy test for weeks Right. If you choose to do that. But your temperature rising is immediate, and then when you wait for your you know, it would drop if you're gonna bleed, and I knew when I would be predicted to bleed, and it never dropped. So, yeah, a really a really, really cool, pretty much surefire way to read your body. Like, our bodies are talking to us. How cool to know that and to be in communication with it.
Speaker 2
Totally. You know and it's it's we're talking about it right now. We're talking about, you know, mostly about using it to achieve pregnancy but like you said you've been using it for a long time to avoid pregnancy. I've been using it for a long time to avoid pregnancy as well and although that can be a it can be a scary thing at first almost because we're so programmed to think that we can just get pregnant at any point and you know, we kind of, you know, a lot of people have heard of the rhythm method, which is not what fertility awareness is. The rhythm method is basically assuming everyone ovulates on day fourteen and therefore telling people not to have sex on day fourteen and then of course a lot of people get pregnant because not everybody ovulates on day fourteen. And so there's a lot of fear around watching our fertile signs because of the kind of misconceptions and urban legends and lies.
Speaker 1
And yet it was actually yeah. That was on my list of things to bring up that the rhythm method gets confused, with fertility awareness method also f a m or FAM. And often I see it be most confused by providers. Yes. So I've been to so many panels or conferences or whatever when somebody's asked in the audience about FAM to a provider, and they're like, oh, well, you know, the joke about FAM is, which is actually the joke about the rhythm method, which is it's I can't remember exactly what it is now, but it's something like it's not, you know, rhythm method works until you have a baby, something like that. You know? And and it's getting so mixed up because, like, exactly like you said, the rhythm method doesn't work because it's based on averages, not your personal averages. It's based on the averages of, like, the medical model that they've decided. So it's incredibly important to distinguish those out because that's not what we're talking about here at all.
Speaker 2
No, not at all. The rhythm method is you know the reason it doesn't work is because it's assuming that you ovulate in a way that you probably don't. And the fertility awareness method not only gives you an opportunity to watch your own averages, but if you're watching your cervical fluid, it actually tells you every day, am I fertile today? So, even if your cycle this month is different than your cycle has been for the last four months, you have day to day signs that tell you, like, despite even my own averages, am despite even my own averages, am I fertile today? And, you know, the research around that, as opposed to the rhythm method, is that it's as effective at preventing pregnancy as hormonal birth control is, which is mind blowing to people.
Speaker 1
Yeah. You
Speaker 2
know, and I think the, you know, that we we assume that hormonal birth control is the only way for women to control their own fertility and we also grossly underestimate the risks of hormonal birth control which is a whole other a whole other topic that I just think you know it really is it's I just feel like it's unethical for people to not have the knowledge about fertility awareness method because it's only by knowing it and knowing that you have the option to monitor your own fertile signs to either to either achieve or prevent pregnancy in this case that you can really make a choice about how you want to care for your body and with to meet your reproductive health goals.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And within the patriarchal female oppressive model, birth control was an incredible invention, you know, where women for the first time ever were, you know, in this culture where all of their self knowledge had been taken away from them. It was an incredible external, you know, invention that they could control their pregnancies, you know, or to not have them. But we don't need to have that anymore. That was a time frame, you know, quite some time ago that we can do better than that now, and it's still around, absolutely. And and and it I'm not gonna say it's not the right thing for plenty of people. Of course it is. And and, you know, I'm I'm very grateful for that invention because of the way it liberated women, you know, partially to get us here. And so this is kind of the next step if you're ready to take it and if you have the, you know, kind of the interest and the bandwidth and the curiosity and the, courage really to, you know, dive into this and and see what is beyond hormonal birth control with which Jessica just said has been proven to be as effective as fertility awareness method or FAM is as effective as birth control, which is a pretty big thing to just swallow, you know, and think about for a second.
Speaker 2
And it can take some time, you know, when you're first learning how to chart and you're starting to kind of gain the confidence and trusting your ability to observe your fertile signs and recognize your changing cervical fluid and understand how to track your temperature in a way that you can read when you've had that temperature rise and fall. It can be a bit intimidating at first, but it really doesn't take very long. You know, it really, you know, it only took me a few cycles of practicing, of feeling like, Oh, I don't know. Like, Am I reading this right? Do I really understand my body? And it was, you know, it was a little bit kind of hesitant at first, but it didn't take very long before I started to really see, Okay, this is really, really easy and I really can understand what my what my body is doing to the point that it's once I kind of made that connection and had the practice of monitoring my body, I actually quite quickly became way more confident in using fertility awareness to prevent pregnancy than I ever was in hormonal birth control. You know, I would take, you know, I was on hormonal birth control off and on for a really, really long time, But I often would be worried that it either wasn't going to work or that it hadn't worked. Like I was I had way more anxiety about being pregnant on hormonal birth control than I ever did when I came off of it.
Speaker 1
Well, and being in the birth world, I mean, how many clients have you had who got pregnant on birth control? Because I've had a lot.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And friends and, you know, I I don't really hear about people getting pregnant on fertility awareness method when they don't want to. But I've heard quite, I've met quite a few babies who were products of hormonal birth control.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. You know, and I think there's also this really kind of, I find insulting, conversation around, you know, I think people should be learning fertility awareness method in like in time.
Speaker 1
Six grade.
Speaker 2
Like this is a basic part of, you know, understanding health in our own bodies. And you know, you'll hear the argument of like, well, you don't want to teach teenagers this method because they can't be you know, you can't really trust them to use it responsibly or to pay enough attention. So that's why we need to put teenage girls on birth control because fertility awareness is too complicated and they won't have the discipline to use it. And my answer to that is always you need discipline to use hormonal birth control as well. Right. You don't make it work and for it to have the same effectiveness as fertility awareness method, you have to take it consistently at the same time every day and not miss your pill and not and and It's
Speaker 1
also It's
Speaker 2
It's all like you need to, you need to, we need to trust people to do, to be aware and responsible and conscious and pay attention no matter what method that they're using. So it's not you don't require more knowledge or responsibility or confidence to use fertility awareness method than you do to use hormonal birth control. It's kind of just a it's like an excuse that we use.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think I think it's pretty rape culture rhetoric, to be totally frank, because if a girl, teenager, or a woman, or whatever, is having consensual sex, she's perfectly able of doing fertility awareness method. If she's having sex without consent, you know, on any level, you know, of coercion or or whatever, you know, or doesn't feel like she can ask to put a condom on or doesn't feel like, she can say no, you know, all of the things we know that we all deal with at all ages. Mhmm. You know, I think then that makes a little bit more sense for the hormonal birth control, you know, because that's kind of gonna cover your bases, either way, which, you know, it's something that I don't think people think about when they put their daughters on, you know, birth control or why we're so, devoted to hormonal birth control. But I do think there's a very real element of rape culture there that, fertility awareness method also has to go hand in hand with consent, You know? Yeah. Absolutely. Otherwise, yeah, it won't work if you aren't able to honor the stages of your cycle.
Speaker 2
Exactly. And how to stay and when you are and are not having sex.
Speaker 1
Exactly.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
You know? And and and to not use it, like like we both have said, we both been using it, to not get pregnant, I mean, for quite some time. And, you know, it's you you find your own comfort zone with it. Like, I in the beginning, like, what similar to what you said, I was way more careful, you know, used a lot of condoms. We, kinda, like, didn't take what I thought were chances as I came into trust with, with my cycle. And, you know, everyone makes their own kind of, comfort zone around this. You know, I we we discovered pretty early on that or I discovered or we discovered, I don't know, that, I didn't want him to ejaculate inside of me at any time until we were ready to conceive. And that that felt like something really sacred that I wanted to keep for, for when it was baby making time. And, you know, I definitely was not a virgin when we got together, you know, but it's kind of like an interesting sub sect of that, you know, that keeping this keeping this thing really sacred that, we we weren't gonna play with that because it was such a powerful thing. And I will say for me, I have felt my children so ready to come for so long that, you know, I don't even really know how to describe it, but sometimes when we would have sex, I would feel like my kid. And I would feel like, you know, I'd hear, like, whispers or little, like like, I'd feel like knocking on the veil, you know? And so
Speaker 2
it was like,
Speaker 1
do not come inside me if we do not want our baby here because our baby is ready and we are not. And so that created a lot of reverence. This this fertility awareness method helped both of us create a lot of reverence for our future child, you know, who's now gestating inside of me. And she came the second we asked for her. And so it created a very, yeah, just a really reverent container for the process of both conceiving and not conceiving.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And even just like in in communication around sexuality and your reproduction choices with your partner like I think it just it also just opens up a whole another level of connecting and communicating and bonding even when you you know you need your partner to understand your fertility and your cycle and all of these things that I find that you know you know we often dismiss particularly we dismiss male partners as not being interested in the female cycle or being grossed out by it or we're supposed to keep it a secret from them but my experience really since with my partner we you know using fertility awareness to prevent pregnancy for so long. Now you know a few months ago he had some, he's an electrician and he had some two like manly electrician friends over just to visit and he started teaching them about fertility awareness and I had a girlfriend over and they were just in this deep conversation of like, cervical fluid and the menstrual cycle and Gary was like, you know, like, this is important, like, you guys need to know this and his friend was like fascinated and hanging on to his every word and my, I think my experience is it's not only oppressive to women but it's also, it's empowering for men too to understand what their partner's cycles are and how to understand their bodies and how to understand how to talk to them about their bodies and respect their bodies and
Speaker 1
Right, they've been told all the same lies that we've been told. They think that they can just knock us up anytime, any place, anywhere, you know, at any point of the month. And it it it yeah. Absolutely. Demystifies it for for for males as well because why do females get pregnant, right? I mean Yeah. It it happens one way and it happens with male sperm. And so, you know, to to educate and empower the people who are actually impregnating us, what a concept.
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah. You know? Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1
So what do you what do you have to say, if anything, about, monitoring cervical positioning? As, you know, I've I've know that to be kind of the third thing in in the, fertility awareness method, but it seems like maybe a bit more optional or, what do you what do you have to say about that?
Speaker 2
So monitoring, checking your cervical position which requires you to do basically an internal little cervical exam on yourself, is a third a third way of of knowing where you're at in your menstrual cycle. Not everybody needs to do it to confirm that they are ovulating or have ovulated but it can be a good kind of extra method if you're either new to fertility awareness method awareness method and you're wanting an extra way to be confident about when you're ovulating and when you're not. Or if your other signs your cervical fluid signs or your temperature signs are tricky for you to interpret or not that obvious to you. It's a good extra extra tool. And
Speaker 1
well, let me just let me just chime in there and say also if you've never touched your cervix, give it a go, girl. Yes. You know? I mean, touch it. And and I just I will say for me, I found the easiest is in the shower just getting into a squat. And that that's a really because even if it's high, I'll be able to find it. So just, you know, two clean fingers in a squat, very easy. Some people put a leg up on a toilet. Obviously, you could you could do it in all different ways, but I think a squat is really easy because it kind of pushes things down.
Speaker 2
Totally. And, you know, I think it was like we let other people touch our cervix. Right.
Speaker 1
You know?
Speaker 2
And look at it. And look at it and, you know I've I actually find because I my partner can tell when my cervix is in a different spot more than I can.
Speaker 1
Because of like during sex? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I think it's a really good whether you decide to use it as part of your daily routine or just out of curiosity and body awareness I really do think it's it's an empowering thing to feel your own cervix and feel how it changes. Particularly if you're ever going to have a baby where you know our whole I could go off on a whole other tangent about cervical exams during labor and birth but which I think most of the time are completely unnecessary but it can be really powerful cervix and feel her own body and feel if she can feel her own baby's head. That can be a confidence building tool. Totally. In any case, when you ovulate, around ovulation, your cervix is higher than at the beginning or the end of your cycle. So the acronym that fertility awareness method will use to look for around ovulation in terms of your cervix is SHO, which means soft, high, open, and wet. Nice. When you're around ovulation your estrogen levels increase and those that as those estrogen levels cause the ligaments around your cervix to pull to pull your uterus and your cervix up higher in your body. So it's basically a sign that your estrogen levels are high and that you are ovulating. So in the middle of your cycle around ovulation your cervix will be pulled up higher in your body. It'll be a little bit open so there's a small opening in your cervix to allow the semen to come up into your uterus to let menstruation leave your body to let a baby come out eventually. And during your during most of your cycle the cervix is a little bit lower down in your body easier to reach easier to feel and if you were feeling that for the opening of your cervix it would be like a little tiny little pinhole during ovulation. If you if you get familiar to where that opening is it's not always super easy to super easy to feel but you can often feel that it's a little bit a little bit softer than than the rest of your cycle and a little bit more open and easier to to feel that opening.
Speaker 1
And the squat is helpful with this because you might have a tilted cervix to the left. It might go a little to the right. It might not just be front and center. Mhmm. And so when you're down in that squat, when you start to feel around, you know, go over to the side and go to the other side if if you're not finding that little
Speaker 2
nose feeling thing right
Speaker 1
away. Mhmm. So, during menstruation, it comes down and opens to release the blood, which is why, for many women, myself included, intercourse is, way more painful if if I'm not honoring the depth difference. Yeah. You know, basically, a cruder way of saying it is I can't take it
Speaker 2
as deep. Yeah. It's true and it's like you know what it's not that way
Speaker 1
the actual cervix is lower and so the penis is hitting that versus when it's up and high, you know you you aren't gonna feel it hitting your cervix as likely.
Speaker 2
As easily, yeah. And it's, you know, another just really empowered thing for your sexual relationship with your partner to be aware of that as well because then they are more they can be more tuned into you, more connected to you and realize that what feels good at feels good for your body is gonna be different at different parts of each cycle.
Speaker 1
Totally. They're so much more simple than us. We're just always changing.
Speaker 2
That's right. Poor guys.
Speaker 1
Awesome. But it's
Speaker 2
also, you know, that's powerful for them too. Totally. Like they, you know, they hopefully want you to be to be enjoying sex and feeling feeling good in your body no matter when you're having sex, but they can't do that if they don't understand your body and how it's changing, why it feels different at different times for you.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and I remembered before I had this information just, like, totally not knowing why sex would hurt sometimes or why I didn't want it, you know, rough or deep at certain times. And then other times I did. And I didn't know why, you know, and to actually put, you know, physiology to it and be like, oh, wow. Duh. My cervix is coming down and it's sensitive and it's opening and it's, you know, it feels completely different because
Speaker 2
And it's also, like, lubricated, right? Like, during, you know, when your cervix is low, it's often usually your fluid is drier and not as lubricated. So, it takes more time for your body to to create that kind of arousal fluid to make a moist environment. It takes more work to get that than when you're closer to ovulation where you already are more moist and lubricative to begin with. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
So anything that we've left out about the basics, you know, this is, for anyone listening, this is just the basics. This was our intention was to give you, yeah, just kind of the ABCs so that you can go and and, get, you know, get more information and we know that there are, what's the right term for it? You know, there are unique cases where it's more complicated than just this. Sometimes, you know, breastfeeding right after a baby, trying to track your cycle can look a little bit different. You know, there's definitely situations where it's not maybe as simple as what we've gone over today. So you can get all that information in kind of, kind of the Bible of this of this topic called Taking Charge of Your Fertility. What's the author's name? To Tony Weiss? Or
Speaker 2
Tony something. Tony I have it right here. Tony Weschler.
Speaker 1
Weschler. Yeah. So definitely get that book. It's on Amazon, and it's really it's super simple to read, and it gives you all of this and way, way, way, way, way more. Yeah. Anything else to add?
Speaker 2
I think just to not be afraid to learn this information and to know when you first start, when you first kind of delve into it and start even just simply, even if you're not going to do anything with the information, you're not going to change your practices or your attempts to either conceive or avoid pregnancy. I think just knowing that it probably will feel a little bit intimidating at first because we're so it should undo so much of our programming that it's complicated. But if you really just keep keep your eyes open and allow yourself to practice observing those signs it becomes so simple so quickly and then you won't be able to stop telling everyone you know about it.
Speaker 1
Totally it is. It's like discovering Pandora's box of truth You know? And and and if you are listening to this and feeling intimidating intimidated or feeling, like, oh, it couldn't be this simple or, you know, any of those feelings, just remember that that is our culture, you know, telling you to not be in alignment with your body and that there are, there are really basic tools that we have available to us, which is why we do podcasts like this so that we can take this information back. This is sacred knowledge, and it is it is a privilege to know this in this culture. You know, it's sad that it is a privilege. It should be everyday information, and this is how we make it that. So please don't be afraid of your body and afraid of learning, because just as, you know, Jessica and I, like, we weren't taught this stuff growing up. And Mhmm. I think for both of us, probably the birth world gave us that, you know that open door to learn more and more and it feels so good to be on the other side of this and there's still so much I don't know and understand and of course constantly learning but to have the basics and to know that I can't just get pregnant whenever and that there is a very real formula that not only occurs but that my body tells me that I can listen, you know, every month and that both Jessica and I have successfully not conceived on this method and many, many, many, many, many people that I know who do this. And then at the first time I did try to conceive, I got pregnant. You know, it's it says something for sure. So
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate all your wisdom, and I appreciate your, science nerdy approach. It's nice.
Speaker 2
Little little added little added, little added nerdy insight never hurt anybody.
Speaker 1
So please, everybody, go buy that book and and share this episode. And, and how can people reach you if they have further questions?
Speaker 2
My website is birthtakesavillage dot com, so you can find all my contact information there. I've got some articles on there about fertility, and my main focus there is around promoting the the, self awareness around birth as birth and beyond fertility once you've become pregnant. So feel free to contact me through there and follow me that way.
Speaker 1
Awesome, and yeah for anyone listening who is not yet ready to have a baby but thinks that a baby's in their future, please start learning about birth now. It really is, doing yourself a great service to start learning this stuff before you only have, what, thirty, forty weeks
Speaker 2
to
Speaker 1
get your head on board. It's way more overwhelming if you don't know anything. So her her, website is actually what drew me to contact her because she's a really great resource and has lots of awesome stuff on there. So please check that out, birth takes a village dot com. And thank you, Jessica, so much.
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1
That's it for today, everyone. Join us next week for another episode of the free birth podcast. Thanks for joining us, and remember, your body, your choice. Lots of love.
