I've noticed that most of the time that people are getting introduced to Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), it is when they are wanting to get pregnant which totally makes sense. Charting your cycle and seeing if you are actually ovulating, checking to see if your cervix is opening, and whether or not you are getting fertile cervical fluid. But charting your cycle through FAM is not only for those that want to get pregnant, I myself use it for a variety of reasons including making sure that I don't get pregnant.
FAM or, for me, the symptoms-thermal method, is something that I discovered when debating whether or not to get off birth control. My go-to-girl was Femmehead, I found her on youtube and heard about her journey of going off the pill and using a non-hormonal birth control method. She's fabulous. When I first got off of hormonal birth control I was a bit nervous don't get me wrong. I was using Natural Cycles and heard people that had a lot of success with it and some that had little to none. I was super nervous about getting pregnant because I was taking my temperature every day and this app was telling me whether or not it was safe to not use any type of barrier method to prevent pregnancy. But as I continued, I decided that I wanted to fully educate myself about my menstrual cycle and this is when I became obsessed with menstrual cycles & all of women's health. The education I found was phenomenal through all of these books that I managed to get my hands on. Because I found the book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility, I knew that I wanted to fully chart my cycle. Not just my temperature but also my cervical fluid and my cervical position and actually understand what everything means.
My partner and I know that we don't want kids for a while, for me, definitely not for another 5 or 6 years. So it was super important that this method worked for me. Through Taking Charge of Your Fertility and Femmehead's Chart Your Cycle course I was able to learn and understand how to interpret my own charts to know when I can have unprotected sex. I enjoy this because the responsibility and knowledge is from me and I'm not relying on an app. I also enjoy it because often times when I tell doctors about what I am doing, they automatically dismiss me and offer my birth control. When I was on Natural Cycles I didn't feel confident about the accuracy of it and thus, I would always sit back and stay quiet with doctors and even families who were skeptical. But now that I have truly educated myself I can confidently say to people, "No, it's not the rhythm method. It is 99.6% effective and I know my signs of nearing ovulation so that I can make the best decision for myself to prevent pregnancy and I love it." Obviously this is not verbatim but something along this lines is what I say!
It's also amazing to know that I don't go into a panic after I do have unprotected sex. When I was on birth control and I didn't understand what birth control did, I used to panic every time my partner and I had sex because I never fully understood what the pill did and how ejaculation and sperm worked. I used to be embarrassed of this but this is truly the fault of the United States education system. I love knowing that I can have unprotected sex and not worry afterwards about, am I pregnant? Have I ovulated? No, I fully know and am capable of understanding my ovulation date.
I can confidently say that I know when my period is coming, when I am ovulating and I get to have unprotected sex for 18-21 days of my menstrual cycle.
FAM can be used for a variety of reasons but I use it to protect against pregnancy and learn about my menstrual cycle. I have been using it for almost 12 months and have not have had to have any accidental pregnancies or abortions. If you are interested in hearing more about FAM, let me know! I think it's a non-hormonal birth control method that needs to be advocated more because more women are opting for no birth control or coming off of hormonal birth control and they don't think there is another option but there really is!
Xoxo,
Moonli
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