Fertility - The Basics of Fertility Awareness Method
I am currently just under 2 weeks postpartum with my third baby (update: this is actually being posted one month postpartum!). If my body follows its previous trend, I won’t become fertile again until I stop nursing this baby during the night, which in the past has occurred between 12-15 months.
Now that I’m not pregnant anymore though, I have found myself super aware of the sensations within my body, particularly near my uterus, ovaries, and yoni. I want to be tuned into myself, my new natural rhythms and cycle, and prepared and aware when my ovulation does decide to return, whenever that may be!
I thought I’d write up a quick post about fertility awareness method, and how to keep track of fertility naturally to prepare for conception OR avoid conception without the use of hormones or other external forms of birth control.
Let me tell you, when I first learned about fertility awareness method (FAM) as a method of body awareness and natural birth control, my mind was kind of blown and when I implemented this simple method for myself, I felt more free in my own body than I had ever before in my life!
The fact that fertility awareness isn’t taught in schools is kind of mind-boggling and almost seems like a crime. Instead of depending on some institution like a school to teach us about ourselves, though, we are now sharing information amongst ourselves, our sisters, and our friends, much as it used to be in the old days of “the village.”
These are super exciting times, with folks finding pathways to true sovereignty in all areas of their lives! Learning about your body and fertility in this way as I will describe, is a portal to another level of personal freedom.
So, if you’re interested in natural birth control and learning more about your fertility, please get in touch with me!
I love to share whatever info I have and can point you in the direction of experts who know much more than I do about all of this.
If you’re just diving into this topic more deeply, please check out a few amazing resources:
Taking Charge of Your Fertility (book) by Toni Weschler
The Fifth Vital Sign (book) by Lisa Hendrickson-Jack (she also has a podcast!)
Sarah Bly (fertility educator) - graceofthemoon.com
The Garden of Fertility (book) by Katie Singer
What Is Fertility Awareness?
Fertility awareness method is a system by which folks can get to know their own bodies, rhythms, and cycles, including ovulatory cycles and menstruation.
The basic parameters of the method are:
taking your baseline temperature each day and tracking that
checking the texture/consistency of your cervical fluid throughout your cycle and charting it
(optional but super helpful) checking the position and texture/feel of your cervix throughout your cycle
Once you get in the flow of checking and charting these 2 or 3 parameters throughout a few cycles, you will know more about yourself and your fertility than you probably ever have before in your life.
By charting your temperature and cervical fluid and optionally your cervix, you will start to see patterns that will tell you when you’re likely to ovulate, how fertile you are, if you’re having any issues hormonally (for example, IF you’re actually ovulating at all!), how stress/lack of sleep/certain foods affect your fertility/cycle, etc.
Before I get into HOW to check your temp, fluid, and cervix each day, let’s start with the WHY.
What Is The Point Of Fertility Awareness Method?
This is a method of birth control (or used to plan when to conceive) that is completely natural and involves learning more about yourself and your body!
That’s called body literacy.
Sarah Bly uses the term “sexual sovereignty” and I think that is completely on-point too.
Why depend on your partner to put on a condom or pull out every time OR why depend on hormonal birth control or hormonal/heavy metal-laden IUDs to prevent pregnancy, when you can know your body so well that you can have sex how and when YOU want, without depending on anything or anyone else to “work” to prevent pregnancy?
Not to mention, soooo many women experience fertility issues and then go to a doctor or specialist to tell them what is “wrong” with their body.. when they could actually just spend a couple of months tracking their cycle in this way and have an amazingly clear picture of what their body is doing and where it could potentially use more support.
Just based on the pattern of your temps and fluids, you can tell if you are likely to have a hormonal imbalance which could be causing fertility issues.
You can also tell EXACTLY which day you ovulated, which can help you plan accordingly in the following months to time sex to either conceive quickly or not conceive at all, depending on what you’re shooting for.
Most women know how long their cycles are.. and that’s it.
They guess at which day of their cycle they ovulate on, and time sex to conceive (or avoid conception) based on that.
Or worse, they allow an app to “predict” which day of their cycle they ovulate on, based on solely how long their cycle is.
NEWSFLASH: just because your cycle is (for example) 28 days long, DOESN’T mean you ovulate on day 14.
I’ve also talked with a couple of women who used the morning after pill super frequently because they weren’t on birth control and they just assumed that if they had unprotected sex at any point in their cycle, they would conceive (not true!).
This is not the way!
Using this method of fertility awareness can set you free from all of that, help you learn about your body on a deeper level than you ever have before, and can help you either not conceive OR conceive with much less guesswork than you have previously in your life, all without the use of hormones or external “authorities.”
NOTE: the steps outlined below do not work if you’re on hormonal birth control! You don’t have the same temp shifts, cervical fluid, or cervical changes when your body is experiencing synthetic hormones every day.
How To Track Your Temperature Each Day for Fertility Awareness Method
To track your temperature each day, you will need a basal body thermometer. This is the one I like to use.
Each morning, before you get out of bed, grab your thermometer and insert it into your yoni OR under your tongue.
It’s important to not get out of bed before you do this (so keep your thermometer within easy reach of your sleeping spot). Basal body temperature is a measure of your resting temperature, and any activity you partake in (for example, walking to the bathroom) will elevate your body temperature above resting levels.
Try to take your temperature around the same time each morning, and make sure you’ve had three consecutive hours of sleep prior to waking.
If you’re breastfeeding throughout the night or for some reason you don’t get solid chunks of sleep of at least 3 hours, go ahead and take your temp in the morning and record it anyway, but keep in mind that your chart might not look as streamlined as if you had. (Alternatively, you can buy a wearable temp-taking tech device like TempDrop or the Oura Ring to take your temp all throughout the night, and then record the lowest one.)
Once you have your temp, record it on Kindara or your paper chart. (If you’re looking for paper charts to use, the Taking Charge of Your Fertility website has some you can download.)
Once there is a surge of nightly temperatures of about .5 degrees higher than your lower range, you will know you have most likely ovulated in that cycle (IF the series of higher temps lasts more than just a handful of days AND you start your period after these consistently high temp days).
The rise in temps is due to increased progesterone in your system, and is THE sign that you’ve ovulated. Since temps rise AFTER ovulation have occurred, taking your temp is not a way to PREDICT that you’re ovulating. They just show that you HAVE ovulated.
If you look up at the charts below, there is an obvious shift in temps on day 17 or 18 respectively, which means ovulation likely occurred on day 16 or 17 respectively.
Please note: using an electric blanket, drinking alcohol the night before, taking certain medications, having a fever or being sick can all affect your basal body temperature and should be noted on your chart.
How To Check Cervical Fluid For Fertility Awareness Method
I am begging you to read The Fifth Vital Sign because she has some really amazing info in there about how the cervix works and why it releases different types of fluid throughout a cycle.
One important reason it does so, is to provide a lubricating and nourishing medium for sperm to be able to travel through the cervix and make its journey towards the egg.
If there is no fluid or unfavorable fluid, the sperm is not allowed through the cervix. How cool is that? The person with the uterus/cervix is the person who decides if the sperm is allowed to enter the uterus or go near the eggs. :) #boundaries
So, how do we check and chart cervical fluid?
To check for cervical fluid, you wipe from front to back with toilet paper before and after you pee and notice how the sensation feels. Does it feel dry? Wet? Smooth? You can also just pay attention throughout the day, how your yoni feels as you walk around. If you’re super curious, you can reach one finger inside and up to your cervix and feel the sensation there, too.
(Cervical fluid is different than vaginal fluid/secretions.. so if you have wetness in your underwear all throughout your cycle, learning how to differentiate between vaginal secretions and cervical fluid is key. One major way to tell the difference is that vaginal secretions on your underwear will leave a mark in a long line or bar pattern. Cervical fluid will leave a mark in a circular pattern.)
Generally, depending on your hormone profiles and levels, your yoni will feel pretty dry after your period finishes, and gradually get more and more lubricated-feeling as you get closer to ovulation time. Then when you’re in your most fertile time, you will probably see or feel fluid coming out of your yoni that is similar to raw egg white.
If you see this on the toilet paper or in your underwear, and you pick it up and rub it between your finger and thumb, then pull your finger and thumb apart, it will stretch a lot when it is most fertile! (For me, it always has pretty much the exact texture, clarity, and consistency as raw egg white when I’m ovulating. For some women it is more gelatinous or creamy or more opaque or thinner…)
That being said, if you’re having cervical fluid, no matter what the consistency/texture/clarity/stretch, congrats, you are in your fertile window! You should use some method of protection against pregnancy if you’re not wanting to conceive. I’ll go more into the “rules” for conception or avoiding conception below.
After you’ve ovulated and your temps rise, your cervical fluid will probably dry up and you won’t feel much or any lubrication on your yoni when you wipe or walk around. Eventually you’ll start your period again and the whole cycle restarts.
How To Check Your Cervix (Optional) For Fertility Awareness Method
Checking the position and “feel” of your cervix is usually the most intimidating part of this whole method for most women. Why is that? Why is it so strange for women to reach inside themselves and feel this extremely intrinsic part of their bodies?
I could go on and on about the cultural conditioning that women receive (compared to men) as they are growing up in this country.. Mostly about the inappropriateness of touching themselves or exploring what feels good about their own yonis. There is also a push for women and girls to be disconnected from their own power and to not have strong boundaries… and I can’t think of a more powerful place of a woman’s body than the gatekeeper to her womb: her cervix.
So, back to the topic at hand. :)
Women either love to do this or they don’t, Fertility Awareness as a method of birth control works either way.
To check your own cervix, if you never have before, you might want to try for the first time in the shower. Squat down and insert a clean finger as far as you can. Feel along your yoni canal. The cervix feels like the tip of your nose (firm) or your lower lip (soft), depending on where you are in your cycle. It also points either toward your back or more straight down, depending. It has a little hole in the center, so you’ll feel a little depression there in that spot.
If you want to check out some pics of different cervices to help you see yours in your mind’s eye, click here.
Around ovulation, the cervix rises and gets soft and opens slightly. Basically, it’s your body’s way of saying “Welcome home!” to sperm.
You can use a mnemonic device to remember how your cervix should feel if/when you’re in your fertile window:
S - soft
H - high
O - open
W - wet
The softness of a cervix during the fertile window and especially during ovulation feels like your lower lip. Go ahead and relax your mouth and feel your lower lip :) Some cervices are more soft and mushy than others, especially if you’ve given birth before.
When you’re not fertile, your cervix will feel lower, firmer (like the tip of your nose), closed, and dry.
Check your cervix every day for a month or two and you will feel the difference throughout your cycle!
Please note: check your cervical FLUID before reaching in to check your cervix. Stimulating the cervix could cause it to release arousal fluid, which could confuse your charting.
Phases of Your Monthly Cycle
Menstruation - you should consider yourself potentially fertile during menstruation. This is for a few reasons.. the first of which is that some women ARE fertile during their period (ovulation is possible from day TWO onward!). The second is that bleeding can mask or make your fertile fluid hard to interpret. Another is that your cervix is OPEN during your bleed. Better to be safe than sorry/worried if you’re trying to avoid getting pregnant.
If you didn’t conceive during the previous cycle and you ovulated the previous cycle, bleeding will almost always occur 11-17 days after ovulation. The first day of bright colored bleeding (not spotting) counts as day 1 of your cycle.
As bleeding tapers off, the cervix closes again and a plug of mucus forms within the opening of the cervix. When this plug is there, sperm cannot go past it into the uterus or further.
Pre-Ovulation (AKA The Follicular Phase) - You’re not fertile during this time! The cervix is closed by the mucus plug, and you will feel a sensation of dryness or unchanging slight moistness on your yoni.
If you have a short cycle of 26 days or less, this phase may be absent and you could go from bleeding directly into your fertile phase.
Fertile Phase - You’re fertile during this phase! Your mucus plug dissolves, your cervix is open, and you have wetter and wetter fluids that are favorable to sperm. The sensations on your yoni change from moist to wet to slippery. The last day you feel these sensations is called The Peak Day. Ovulation usually occurs on the peak day or the day after.
Pregnancy is possible on all days that cervical fluid is present, plus for three days afterward. If you’re avoiding getting pregnant, this is the phase in which you’ll use a barrier method or pulling out or abstinence.
Post Ovulation (AKA The Luteal Phase) - You’re not fertile during this time! This phase starts on the fourth day past the peak day and continues until menstruation occurs. Your sensations on your yoni should feel dry or just slightly moist.
Right before your period begins, your cervix can open a bit and your mucus plug will dissolve (don’t worry, you’re not fertile during this time even though your cervix is open because the egg from this cycle has died and another is not released yet).
THE RULES To Follow For Using FAM To Avoid Conception
These rules are simple and not negotiable. Meaning: FAM doesn’t work unless you follow these! They might seem like a lot to consider, especially if you’re used to using hormonal birth control. But I promise, once you get these down, this is a system you will use for the rest of your life :)
Use a barrier method during heavy bleeding days of your period. This is to ensure your bleeding isn’t covering up or masking fertile fluid.
You can have unprotected sex on EVERY OTHER EVENING during the dry days BEFORE your fertile window begins each cycle. The reason for “every other” is because when you have unprotected sex, the sperm and vaginal fluid from having unprotected sex can look and feel like fertile cervical fluid OR mask your fertile fluids. Most people who begin learning about and somewhat practicing this method will tell you that they had a day after unprotected sex scare when they saw what they thought was fertile fluid in their underwear or when they wiped! The reason for the “evening” part of this rule, is because sometimes it takes a whole day of walking around and doing stuff in order for fertile fluid to make its way from the cervix down the vaginal canal and out of your yoni. Waiting for the evening (when you can check for fertile fluid and be SURE none will show up later) will ensure you’re REALLY in the infertile phase of your cycle.
If you notice any sensation BESIDES dry, treat that as a fertile day. Sensations other than dry or wet include spotting, bleeding, and moistness. If this change then returns to a dry sensation, count three days of consecutive dryness to confirm you are in fact in an infertile phase. These three days are necessary to ensure that the plug of mucus that blocks your cervix from allowing sperm to enter has been able to reform completely.
Unprotected sex can occur on the FOURTH day AFTER your peak day, and can continue until your period begins. After ovulation, your cervical fluids dries up, your mucus plug in your cervix reforms, and the pH of your yoni returns to being acidic.. all of these factors are preventative of conception and hostile to sperm. Waiting til the fourth day ensures all of these processes have taken place.
Use a barrier method like condoms or use withdrawal (correctly) when your fluid signs and temps show you that you are fertile.
Examples of Fertility Awareness Charts
This screenshot is from a tracking app called Kindara, by the way, and it’s pretty much the only fertility/cycle tracking app that I recommend.
So in the chart, you can see there is a series of lower temperatures on the left half of the chart, represented by blue dots connected by a blue line. There’s also a horizontal blue line (called the “cover line”), and a second series of higher temps above the cover line in the right half of the chart. Each dot/temperature is one day of the cycle.
There are also different colored bars, rising from the bottom side of the chart. These bars represent menstruation (the pink bars far to the left) or cervical fluids (the orange bars that correspond to the “creamy” or the “egg white” categories listed on the left hand side/axis of the chart.
Here is another example of a chart, but this one is a paper chart (which is what I prefer using, actually!).
In this chart, you can see the temps are charted by circling the temperature on the chart, and connecting those circles with a line.
This chart also shows a cover line, which is the solid blue horizontal line.
Temps on the left side of the chart are below the line and then there is a spike in temps during the second half of the chart.
The cervical fluid or menstruation is charted by filling in the squares in the section below the temperature section (there are also boxes to check when you’ve had sex), and below the sections for cervical fluid and vaginal sensation, there’s a section for charting cervical position and feel.
So, hopefully I’ve explained this in a straightforward way and it doesn’t seem confusing.. but if it DOES, please reach out to me via email or leave a comment below this post with any questions you may have!
Some Key Points For Fertility Awareness Method
The peak day is the day of ovulation. The signs of this are:
this is the last day of your cervical fluid being wet and slippery before returning to dry
you experience a rise of temperature and this is confirmed by your temperature remaining high for the rest of this cycle
your cervix is soft, high, open, and wet
Fertile fluid is a sign your body is open and accepting of sperm. This fluid can keep sperm alive for up to 6-7 days in some cases, nourishing and feeding it until your egg is released and fertilization can occur. Please plan accordingly when avoiding conception or trying to conceive!
Infertile fluid is thicker and stickier, and not accommodating to sperm at all (basically trapping them and blocking them from entering your uterus). Sperm will die in about 2 hours when trapped in this infertile fluid. The majority of your cycle will showcase this type of fluid, or none at all.
Ovulation only occurs one time during each cycle, on one day, and if fertilization doesn’t occur during that day, the egg dies within 12-24 hours.
You can not get pregnant unless you have unprotected sex during your fertile window. We are only able to get pregnant if we have unprotected sex during a window of 5-7 days each cycle. (Cool! Not what we were taught growing up usually, right?)
It’s possible to have a cycle where ovulation doesn’t occur. This would show on your chart as temperatures that do not rise for a sustained period of time.
FAM when combined with barrier methods (ie condoms) during the fertile window is 99.4% effective “provided the appropriate guidelines are consistently adhered to” (Frank-Herrmann et al., 2007). So, read some books, find an awesome teacher, and be confident in the method as long as you follow the rules!
Chart your signs (temp + cervical fluid/menstruation + optional cervical position) EVERY DAY for about three months at least in order to be able to use this method as a pregnancy preventative confidently.
Phew! That is a lot of info!
I’m sure I’ve missed something, but hopefully that makes some sense and gives you an idea of the basics of Fertility Awareness Method! I’ll go into more detail in a future post about what certain chart patterns could mean and perhaps troubleshooting fertility issues with this method!
FAM really is a way to learn more about yourself in a deep way, and depend solely upon yourself and the signals your body gives you in order to have control over your body and your fertility. Super cool! I love this method so much and I’m really passionate about helping women learn more about themselves in this way.
