Charting your cycle....

Today marks cycle day 6 of our fourth cycle TTC. (Remember the acronyms people!!!) I have to insert the wonderful information regarding charting. While I firmly believe that the use, or lack thereof, of birth control is a decision that a woman makes on her own, I have to plug in my shout out for the NFP/FAM method. So more acronyms you say?? Let me explain....


NFP/FAM stands for Natural Family Planning/Fertility Awareness Method...NOT to be confused with the Rhythm Method from the 70's and 80's which resulted in many of our mothers being pregnant with those of us in our 20's and 30's! After many years on hormonal birth control which started and ended with the Birth Control Pill, the hubby and I agreed that it was time to put that stuff aside. I just could not remember to take it and well...the side effects were less than pleasant. So with that said we started following the principles of NFP/FAM which can be found here http://www.nfpandmore.org/ .



To give you a brief synopsis, the method utilizes a woman's knowledge of her body. It takes into account her basal body temperature, the position of her cervix (CP) and her cervical mucus (CM) which changes throughout the month. When a woman stops taking hormonal birth control, it is an amazing thing to see and observe what your body does to prepare you for a pregnancy. Things that I thought were gross when I was much younger, was just my body doing it's thing.



In a nutshell, a woman buys a special thermometer like this one http://www.fun-kids-stuff.com/images/basal3.jpg and takes her temperature BEFORE moving out of bed. Yes this means before your morning potty trip or teeth brushing! A woman has to have had at least three hours of uninterrupted sleep AND temp the same time each morning. Cervical position and mucus are checked at the same time each day, usually in the evening so that the results are consistent. This information is put into a database aka your chart. Once a woman has a sustained thermal shift, ovulation can be noted on the chart.


Now the above is just a brief rundown of how this works. In order to be successful at charting, a woman needs to do her homework. Just don't take my notes and think you will be successful at it. A website which is a godsend to us NFP/FAMer's is http://www.fertilityfriend.com/ . It has tutorials as well as the interface to record your data is awesome. http://www.tcoyf.com/ also offers a software to use as well but its not free.


You can follow the link to see what my charts look like. I am a lucky one in that I ovulate every month and have every single month since stopping hormonal birth control in November 2007!!! Yea!!!!

http://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/15372d


So there you have it....A brief overview and plug for FAM/NFP! I do not recommend this method of birth control if you are not in a monogamous relationship and if a surprise baby would not be something you are up for. Remember no birth control is 100% effective....

Til next time...
Jorasims