By: Nate Grigg – CC BY 2.0 I’ve been on the combined pill as contraception constantly for 12 years. It was a choice of convenience and availability back in the day, and I’ve just stuck with it after I met the man who became my husband last year. He’s never really had to participate in any contraception decisions with me, because I’d made a default decision before I met him.
We are thinking that kids are definitely in the cards, but not just yet. My husband likes the pill because it is reliable, easy and he doesn’t have to think about it. But I’m really sick and tired of the pill.
I’ve been reading up about fertility awareness methods (Toni Weschler has a great book on this topic) and am being drawn more and more toward this path, first for contraception but then maybe for baby making in the future. But I’m really scared to take the leap, and I’m not sure if our young professional lifestyle fits the method. I like to sleep in on weekends and drink alcohol in the evenings, both of these aspects of my life seem incompatible with Weschler’s advice about taking your temperature.
I’m finding it really hard to work out these two kind-of conflicting aspects of my life: my desire to get off the pill and get to know my body, and our desire to wait before we have a baby. I was wondering how other Offbeat Families readers work out what contraception method is good for them and their partners, and I’d love to hear about your experiences with natural fertility awareness. — Cinnamon Girl
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Comments on Have you switched from the pill to Fertility Awareness Method?
I used Implanon for more than 10 years, problem free, until I started to get problems. Hair loss, to be exact, coming out in great handfuls. I’m a bit of a data fiend so I decided to try FAM as a backup to a barrier method, figuring we’d abstain during my fertile period. Also, we want to start a family in the next few years, so I was partially motivated by the desire to make sure I was fertile.
Fast forward 8 months and I am deeply ambivalent about FAM. I do like that i know more about my uterus and menstrual cycle, but do I feel more ‘in tune’ with my body? Goodness no. My cycles are all. Over. The. Place. Every month I take to my FAM forum of choice panicked and pleading to know what it all means. My cervical mucous in no way aligned with my temps. FAM works if your body has read the textbooks, and mine hasn’t. It makes me feel like a failure, and the worst thing is there’s nothing I can do about it.
I had some bloodwork done and it looks like I have a prolactinoma which might make it hard to conceive on my own. So I’m glad my charts helped me find that, but it’s a bittersweet result. I very much miss my carefree Implanon days.
So I’m pretty in tune with my body and have an extremely regular cycle. But I know FAM would not work as contraception for me at all. I usually know when I ovulate, partly because I become extraordinarily horny right at ovulation. Hello Biology! Avoiding sex during the time when I want it most would not work out well for me or my marriage.
Ditto! That’s why your BC of choice has to complement your lifestyle.
For me, I can tell when I’m ovulating because it is the ONE day when I want children out of the whole month. And the sex is always best right then, even though we’re actively NOT trying for kiddos.
MC I am glad you brought up the horny factor. I am recently married (Oct 2012) and was on Nuvaring for 7-8 years. I had my annual appointment right after our wedding and had not at that point decided to TTC. So my Dr. warned me to ‘be ready because it could happen quickly.’ if we chose to stop taking BC and start trying. (I guess some folks have less issues with irregularity with Nuvaring because of the super low dose of hormones that it has).
I had read about FAM and natural methods in preparation for TTC and when DH and I decided a few short months after getting hitched that we were going to ‘not prevent’ pregnancy, I started paying attention to my body closly without temping. I didn’t want to go crazy charting. I have this impression that I will become so obsessed with the details (super detail oriented person here) that I would be consumed by it and loose the ‘happy/fun’ while TTC.
Prior to BC I was a super regular kind of menstration gal and assumed my body would adjust back to that. The first month off, I totally thought I was pregnant. I mean full blown pregnancy symptons. I had heard it was common to feel that way while your body adjusts to the lack of hormones. I was 6 days late and not preganant. The second month I started to feel more normal and HAD THE BEST SEX OF MY LIFE. I was so happy to have my libido back. (A serious consideration of mine for not going on hormonal BC after baby). I paid attention to cervical mucus the most. I didn’t temp. And could not for the life of me find my cervix position (still not sure if it was because I couldn’t or because I was already pregnant when I was trying). As I have alluded to, I got pregnant that second month.
Based on how far I am and how they track preganacy timing, I am pretty sure I ovulated around the ‘average’ time women do. I remember that weekend very well. I was NON-STOP horny. So my biggest concern with FAM and other natural methods is how the heck do DH and I resolve my actual desire to have sex with preventing another preganancy in the future?? I should note that we are absolutely THRILLED with our little on on the way and we are prefectly fine with the timing etc. I just don’t know if I want more than one child or not.
So back to the conundrum of dealing with desire and preventing pregnancy at the same time. Condoms did not work for us (sex would hurt too much for me with them).
I wish you luck with your decision and hope that it works out well for you. I also want to hear from some of the ladies about the desire factor that they seem to leave out when discussing FAM etc. thanks!!
We don’t abstain during peak fertility days; there is lots of stuff we do instead of ejaculating inside me when I’m fertile. There’s the old “pull out” method, which tends to work well, especially if you orgasm before your partner finishes. Studies have shown that women who orgasm before their partners ejaculate have lower chances of getting pregnant (tho, I offer the caveat that this science may be outdated – I learned it about 20 years ago when initially studying female fertility). Blow jobs are usually never turned down and my husband is usually pretty happy to hear the, uh, backdoor’s been unlocked. 😉 Haha! Of course, condoms are also useful during the couple days you may feel unable to help yourself.
Part of great sex for me is complete inhibition- letting go of everything. I think the sex would suffer drastically if I was worried about husband pulling out or if I had charted correctly or if I was stressed out about something that altered my cycle, or if i mistook cervical mucus for arousal vaginal secretions, or if my husband had super sperm, or, or, or, or, or……etc.
I tried charting for awhile, but I just couldn’t handle it. I have ADD, but I do not medicate unless there is something big I need to concentrate for, because I am not a big fan of taking amphetamines. It was so hard to try and force myself to check with any sort of consistency. I also sleep like a rock, so waking up just to check my temperature was a 45 minute ordeal with multiple alarms. I didn’t have many problems with the pill, once we found the right one, and they seemed to actually help me regulate mood swings and such.
That said, I think you should try FAM with a backup, because you will never know if it is your thing unless you do.
I am not crazy into charting, but I can easily check the cervical fluid stuff as I produce enough that I will get it when wiping. I have an app that charts my cycle. A few days before the app says I will start to hit fertile days (which it shows 2 days before to the day after ovulation) it becomes mandatory condoms. I require hubby to wear them until the fluid fades out which is usually 3 days afterwards so a little more than a week.
And tracking helped me not panic when his pull out sucked a week before my period because I knew we were safe otherwise I would have ran for plan b for peace of mind. We are however in a state that if an oops does happen it will be welcomed, but another year wait would just put us in so much better of a financial place.
If you are one of those women with a clockwork cycle and you stick to your temp/charting/mucus thing with 100% accuracy 100% of the time and your partner is 100% committed to it as you are, you might not need a barrier method on your safe days to prevent pregnancy. I would start a diaper fund just in case, though.
And since condoms are not 100% effective, you aren’t even guaranteed to not get pregnant.
(I think FAM can work for some people, but it would be a shame for someone who REALLY REALLY REALLY doesn’t want kids/CAN’T have them to get pregnant because they thought that this method was completely safe. So thus all the disclaimers.)
We did. Any BC method that requires abstention when I’m most interested and most likely to enjoy it was a non-starter for me. Condoms are fine for me – my husband preferred the peace of mind during that time rather than pulling out.
We did something very close to what the poster is talking about – I got my IUD out about a year before we thought we wanted to actually “try” for kids, and charted to get a better sense of what my body would do without birth control (which I’d been on for about 10 years in various forms at that point). I found it really reassuring to know that I was ovulating, that things were pretty normal, etc. Because I had never been off birth control as an adult, and was acutely aware that I might not get pregnant right away, and wanted some more information about the whole thing.
That worked great for many months, until the perfect storm of crazy travel (our month-long honeymoon in Japan) and thyroid problems (I’m hypothyroid and it turned out my dosage needed adjustment) made my cycles irregular right as my thermometer broke when we were out of town. So in the end I got pregnant about six months before we really intended. But we were conscious of being sloppy and taking risks, and could have easily just used more condoms during irregular cycles if we’d felt like getting pregnant at that point was a big no. As it was it just meant we had to move out of our awesome artist warehouse/intentional-community-with-laser-cutter a bit sooner than planned. (This was us: http://offbeatfamilies.com/2012/02/living-with-house-mates-and-pregnant)
Anyway, I think it’s a great option as long as you’re clear on what you’re really okay with and you and your partner are on the same page. For us it ultimately worked out to be a slow ride from relaxed to sloppy to negligent, which we’re really happy with. But it could have been much less good if we hadn’t been in that place emotionally. Good luck!
I stopped taking bc pills in ’06. I used condoms most of the time until after my littlest fella was born. I started FAM (based on Wechsler’s book) in ’07 when my active fertility returned and have had a flawless, easy experience preventing pregnancy.
If you have a fairly normal period all you really have to do is not have sex when you see clear watery secretions in the morning. Easy peasy! I also track my periods using an app on my ipod and that gives me a really accurate window, highlighted on a calendar, for which are my most fertile days and they coincide with my clear, watery secretion days.
I tried tracking my cycles properly with Toni’s chart and a thermometer but eventually decided not to bother.
Honestly, I don’t understand why they don’t teach Wechsler’s book in Grade 9 women’s health classes! I’m a doula and thought I was pretty smart but even I was blown away by how little I understood about my own fertility.
We find it’s no bother to follow this method: there is little tracking, just a bit of self-awareness and then about 4 days in your second cycle week where you have to use a condom, give a bj, go in the back door or pull out. Ha! Lots of options!
I think that in addition to knowing YOUR female body, you also need to know the relevant MALE body. Sperm are not all the same. Your partner could have super sperm that stick around in the womb for longer than 6 days, and this could make your “collective fertile period” longer. It’s not just about the ladies!
Because hormonal BC makes me crazy, despite being on it for the better part of 10 years (and I’ve tried a lot of different types of pill to see if any make me less crazy, plus the nuvaring), *and* I may or may not have PCOS or a thyroid condition (and just found a doctor who is listening to me about the symptoms I’ve had for at least 8 years) I made the decision in Jan to go off the ring and not try any more pills.
When I say ‘I’, however, I mean my partner and I had a series of discussions about consequences and alternatives. He agreed that going off it and trying to see what my own baseline is (in terms of mental health and physical health) and seeing just how irregular I am or not without the hormones is in my best interest, particularly if my issues might cause problems TTC later. We also agreed that while now wouldn’t be awesome to have a kid, it wouldn’t be unawesome (we could always be in better financial shape. Then again, the ‘perfect’ time might always be in the future, you know?).
I’ve learned a few things about my body in the intervening months, although haven’t gone full blown with charting (we’ve been using barriers/pulling out). I think I’m going to start charting though, just because data makes me happy, and it will help with explaining issues to my doctor. Also, I’m not pregnant, so it seems to be working… then again, there’s a possibility that getting pregnant could be difficult for me, so take that with a grain of salt.
I began charting my cycles about 5 years before I met my husband, after having read the book, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. I was lucky in that my cycles were almost always 27 days and that I ovulated on my 14th day. I did not take my temperature but was very aware of my cervical mucus and did not have intercourse the 5 days leading up to when I was suppose to ovulate. I used condoms with my male partners during those 5 years. I took Plan B twice, when I was cutting the whole “5 days rule” too close and did not have any pregnancy scares.
Flash-forward to meeting my husband. We became serious very quickly and dived right into the pre-engaged stage very early into our relationship. With that development, we stopped using condoms, while still using Fertility Awareness. Our daughter was conceived on our 6 month anniversary which was 5 WHOLE DAYS before I ovulated. So, I highly recommend that if you are truly trying to avoid getting pregnant MAKE SURE you follow the guide-line of abstaining from intercourse for those 5 days.
I am currently 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant with our second daughter. We had gotten to the point of “it wouldn’t be a diaster if I got pregnant again,” when we conceived this baby. My cycle had returned to normal after weaning and I was charting again. I miscalculated and we ended up having intercourse 4 days before I ovulated. I took a Queen Anne’s Lace Tincture several times after we had sex. But, I didn’t take Plan B. Obviously, we conceived.
I remembering reading in a book about Tantric Sex how intention is VERY important in conception. BOTH partners need to make sure they are on the same page in regards to conception. So, after sex sending out the intention of “no babies, please…we’ll not ready.” Honestly, with my first daughter, part of me was ready to have a baby.
I think Fertility Awareness is a really empowering experience that makes you much more in tune with your body. BUT, I would not use it as your only method of Birth Control, if you are very, very serious about NOT having a baby.
I love the fact that I am 100% confident in knowing when the date of my Last Period was and that I know the exact dates when both my girls were conceived. On a side note, this also helped in me being able to name our second baby. Because I had read about the Shettles Method of conception and knew we had sex 4 days before I ovulated, I entered a bet with my husband. If we had a boy, he got to name him and if we had a girl, I got to name her. I won. 🙂
Once this one is born, I will be swapping out my reliance on Fertility Awareness with a copper IUD. Very excited about 10 years of use! I will continue to chart and abstain for the 5 days before I ovulate because this Mama is DONE.
I remembering reading in a book about Tantric Sex how intention is VERY important in conception. BOTH partners need to make sure they are on the same page in regards to conception. So, after sex sending out the intention of “no babies, please… we’re not ready.”
Yeah, while I’m all for being intentional about conception, babies get conceived under all kinds of conditions… including IVF, when neither parent is present at all.
Thank you…you bring up an excellent point, I hadn’t even considered. You are right, it does sound too close to Todd Akin’s comment and is very insensitive to those who who are dealing with fertility issues. Scratch that I said that…I apologize for being insensitive.
Your partner will be happy to know that he has super sperm! Planned parenthood says that sperm can survive for up to 6 days, so his swimmers clearly lasts that long!
I was on the pill for several years, and heard that you should get off the pill at least 6 months before trying to conceive. I looked into the awareness method as well, but the temperature part never worked for me. I didn’t ever notice a spike before fertility like they said I would. Instead, I marked every day that I had my period, and from that I could figure out how long my cycles were. I had abnormal cycles, but because I was so diligent in marking my calendar every morning, I was able to find my fertile spots every month. I also marked every day that my husband and I had sex, so that I could calculate when I had conceived. We are now expecting our first child in July, and I was able to gain more awareness about my body because I was so closely watching my monthly cycles. Good luck!
We’ve mostly used FAM (specifically, the Billings method, with condoms when I’m fertile) and we LOVE it because hormonal BCs just don’t agree with me. I’m not keen on a non-hormonal IUD because of my medical history. I also have wonky cycles, anything from 28 days to 8 weeks is normal for me, and it still works for contraception.
All of our kids were planned, but even with using the Billings Method to help with conception, we still took some time to conceive.
I’ve been using FAM for about two years with condoms whenever we’re uncertain. I was on the pill for about five years on and off, and hated it. Yeah, my cycle was predictable, but I felt weird about it. I still had cramps. My acne never went away, and I had this weird hormone in my body. When my last relationship ended I was thrilled to just go off of it forever.
Now I’m married and we both HATE condoms, but hate hormonal birth control and the idea of a copper thingy inside me even more, so FAM it is. Whether you use it as your form of birth control or not I would recommend it to every menstruater out there. I’ve gotten to know so much more about myself and my body’s rhythms.
I use a neat-o little app for android called “ovuview.” There are all kinds of free apps available so choose whatever tickles your fancy. This way if I’m out on the town and notice my cervical fluid is particularly creamy I don’t have to remember until I get home to record it. I can also record intercourse (with or without protection), sex drive, mood, headaches, meds and other factors.
I used to take my temp every single morning at 6am and then fall right back asleep. It was beautiful. Lately my sleep patterns have been more irregular, but since I tracked really well for over a year I’ve learned how to read my signs in a lazier way. I try to take it at the same time every few days at least and pay very close attention to cervical fluid build-up. As long as you’re not taking any allergy meds or other drugs that interfere with cervical fluid, this is really the most useful sign.
The only thing that really sucks about FAM, for us, is that of course my sex drive is the highest around the time when I’m the most fertile. What a draaag, especially for someone with a fairly low sex drive to begin with. Blarg.
Thank you so much everyone for sharing your experiences with me here. You’ve given me lots to think about and some great tips and advice. I was really excited when I saw my question up on Offbeat Families today! I’m going out to buy me a thermometer!
I use a mucus-only method of FAM/NFP — the Creighton Method in my case, since it works better for me than Billings — and it’s been a good fit for me over the last 5-6 years. Not only is my sleep schedule too irregular for temping to work well, but I’m also sick often enough that my temp can be wonky from that. But my mucus is nice and predictable and easy to interpret, so that method works for me. I also have friends who use the Marquette method using the clear blue easy fertility monitor — I’ve thought about that, but the test strips aren’t cheap.
I’ve been using FAM for the past 4 months or so, and I loove it! As mentioned by others, I feel empowered and connected to my body in new ways, which is pretty dang sweet. I also really love the charting/list-taking aspects of FAM because a) it makes me feel in control in the midst of grad school, not an easy feat and b) another project for which I can use highlighters!
We are also using condoms as a back up because my partner is not yet sure whether he is ready to take the full FAM leap. That is another benefit of FAM- we have been able to communicate more clearly and openly about what we are comfortable, and each take responsibility for our reproductive choices, instead of the burden falling solely on me.
One other side note- I’ve seen a few comments on this thread about Plan B and just wanted to share some info I recently learned– Plan B (and most Emergency Contraceptives) are only effective if used prior to ovulation. Once the ole egg leaves the nest (ie ovary) and is fertilized, it will not generally prevent implantation. This was something that was pretty mind-blowing to me, especially as I was pretty much unaware of when I ovulated pre-FAM. Another reason to use barriers while getting accustomed to your cycles!!
Here’s a link to more information: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/22/172595689/morning-after-pills-dont-cause-abortion-studies-say
I used FAM to avoid pregnancy for 10 years, and loved it — even though I don’t get up at the same time every day, and drink alcohol, etc. For the first 6 months or so, you have to be really on top of checking your temperature and mucus every day, but once you become aware of what’s going on with your body, the signs of ovulation are really obvious. I got lazy, and started checking mucus and temperature only every few days until around the time I was expecting to ovulate, and even then I was fine. (Not that I’m recommending that — but if you’re using temperature, mucus, and awareness of your cycle patterns, it’s a pretty robust method). Then I was ready to get pregnant, used FAM for that too, and got pregnant on the first try! (I’m typing this as I’m nursing my 6 month old!)
The one thing I would say is that if you’re using that method, you do actually have to follow it pretty strictly at first until you really know how your body works. A friend of mine told me she tried it and it didn’t work (and she ended up pregnant when she didn’t want to be). I asked her if she had been taking her temperature every day, and she said no, she was just noticing if she felt warm! It really bugs me that this sort of thing gets included as part of the supposed high failure rate of FAM, because really she wasn’t using FAM at all! Used properly, it has a failure rate of about 2%.
I just don’t understand the premise. Sperm can live inside a woman for 3-6 days. And your temp changes only 1-2 days before you ovulate? 6 > 2
And how do you know that all the people that it works for don’t just have low fertility? Some people get pregnant on the first try, and others can take years.
1) The ability of sperm to survive inside a woman varies by where she is in her cycle. When she is closer to ovulation, she had cervical mucus that is more “fertile” — which means that it provides a good survival environment for sperm, and has properties which help the sperm travel in the right direction. In earlier and later parts of the cycle, without the cervical mucus, the vaginal environment is considerably more hostile to sperm, and they do not live long at all. Part of most FAM/NFP methods involve checking your cervical mucus daily (or many times a day, in my method), so that you know whether or not you’re currently providing an environment where sperm would be likely to survive until ovulation.
2) The answer to this is that it’s the same as it is for all clinical treatment research for every topic, they do randomized controlled trials. If 50% of the study is randomly allocated to use a FAM method, and 50% is randomly allocated to do something else (in some studies this control is comparing FAM to birth control pills, in others it is being compared to no birth control at all), then the random assignment means that the results aren’t just from one group having more infertile partners than others — that would be equally distributed across groups.
While informative, your comments didn’t really answer my questions. If you can only tell that you are about to ovulate 1-2 days beforehand, and you had sex before that, the sperm could already be there is the comfy mucus lounge waiting to to their thing when the egg arrives. It sounds like your method is better than the temperature method because it is a direct measure of if the cervical mucus, but 3-6 days of sperm party is still longer than 1-2 days of warning before ovulation.
I understand the clinical trial aspect also, although I have not read the primary literature concerning FAM v. other methods. I am more referring to the comments like “we used FAM as contraceptive for 2 years before we decided to get pregnant.” It takes some couples 2 years to conceive naturally. So how do they know if it was FAM that worked or if they took a long time to get pregnant anyway so it didn’t matter if they actually did FAM or not?
Basically, I think there are lots of variables that influence why FAM works for some couples and not others at the biological level (how thick your mucus is, how persistant his sperm is, etc) even with 100% compliance to your charting, etc.
My point is that there is no way to test yourself for these variables before you start FAM, so you should be 75% ok with having a kid as soon as you start it. But, hey, that’s why we double up with the pill AND condoms because it’s not time for us (yet) and we want to be as close to 100% as possible.
Hmmm, maybe I wasn’t communicating clearly enough, I’ll try again.
1) The sperm can only survive for any length of time in the vagina when there is fertile cervical mucus and a favorable vaginal pH. Both of those things only happen during the “fertile” phase of your cycle, what many methods of FAM/NFP refer to as “phase 2”. So if you have sex before that time, the sperm don’t survive, and it’s not an issue.
2) When you are in phase 2, your body is producing fertile cervical mucus, which you can detect. Some women will have a full week of fertile cervical mucus before ovulation, some women will have only a few days, but either way you can detect the mucus and know that you should take the appropriate measures. So if I see fertile cervical mucus, I know that having sex then could conceivably get me pregnant, regardless of how far away ovulation actually is.
3) As a result, women who use my particular method of fertile cervical mucus are advised to take the appropriate measures starting from the first day of fertile mucus, and all the way until 3 days after the mucus dries up. Again, for some women this ends up being a 6-day period, and for some women it ends up being considerably longer.
4) Anecdotal “evidence” about contraception is equally an issue for every other kind of contraception. If someone has used the birth control pill and condoms for two years without conceiving, you don’t know if their success is because of the contraception or because of infertility.
5) This is why randomized controlled trials are so valuable. In the randomized trials I consider well done, FAM/NFP tends to perform better than condoms alone and slightly worse than birth control bills — so around 94% successful. Some NFP/FAM methods appear to be more effective than others, probably in part because people have an easier time complying with some, and in part because some detect the early signs of phase 2 better than others. When someone using NFP/FAM correctly becomes pregnant, it is most often because they had intercourse just as their body was moving from phase 1 to phase 2 — and so fertile cervical mucus was being produced, but none had come out yet.
6) People who are being super conservative about their use of NFP/FAM (i.e., really really not wanting to be pregnant) will often do one of the two following things:
* Treat phase 1, or all of phase 1 after day 2, as equally risky as phase 2. Basically, this means that they only have phase 3 as open, which can be hard because most women are less aroused during phase 3.
* Use barrier methods (like condoms) during phase 1 and phase 3, and abstain entirely during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being more effective than either NFP/FAM alone or condoms alone, and is expected to be at least as effective as birth control pills and possibly somewhat more so.
On the other hand, some people who use FAM will use no protection during phase 1 and phase 3, and use condoms during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being less effective than the stats you see for condoms alone (because after all, some people in those studies were never having sex during their fertile times at all, just by chance), and is probably around 80%, even lower if you take into account sloppy usage.
Part of using FAM for birth-control is abstaining from sex or using another method of birth-control (condom/withdrawal) from start of menstruation until 48 hours after ovulation.
I have not considered it, and I won’t any time soon. The inconvenience, and the risk involved, and just how much I do NOT want to have a child at the moment means my partner and I are definitely not going to use it. I was on the pill for 5 years, but decided to get a Mirena IUD to hopefully stop my periods and reduce my painful cramps and heavy periods. I would only use that sort of method if I was okay with having a baby – and in my mind, the use of contraceptives means that I am not okay with having a baby. The use of artificial hormones and chemicals are not something that I’m frightened of, or against at all, so that probably plays into it. Some people are more into being “all natural” and I imagine that would influence their choices.
I agree. I really wish people wouldn’t flat out demonize artificial hormones for birth control. Sure, I don’t want to eat artificial hormones in my food, but using artificial hormones as a medication are a completely different story. Some people really need them, and it can change their lives. Also, they don’t work for everyone, so you don’t know until you try, and they can take a couple months to stabilize your symptoms. The great thing about OffBeat blogs is that we can discuss different options that might work for different people.
Of course each person should choose the contraception method that works best for them, but I’m surprised at how dismissive you are of non-hormonal methods, especially since I know people who have gotten pregnant while on the pill and with an IUD. Basically, if you’re having any kind of P-in-V sex you have to deal with the risk of getting pregnant.
I’ve used FAM (with condom backup) for 7 years successfully and with little fuss. I didn’t choose FAM for frivolous reasons because I’m “into being ‘all natural,'” but because I used BCP for a decade and was fed up with the serious side effects–mine were weight gain and extremely low libido. To each her own, right?
Yeah, each to their own – I was just saying that, compared to a lot of these posts where people don’t want to put artificial hormones into their bodies, I have no issue with it whatsoever. I know I’m at risk for getting pregnant, but the chances are very low, and I’d much rather have as little room for personal error as possible. I also hate using condoms, so I wouldn’t want to do that method.
I am so saving my rant on guys’ contraception laziness. ^^
Fertility awareness methods are a great way to improve family planning. I tried different pills, but all ended up warping my mood and turning me int an everyday version of my usual PMS monster. Since I am allergic to latex… well, here we are, six years of relationship and no kids yet. ^^
just remember charting doesn`t work for everyone. It never worked for me, despite religiously taking my temp at the same hour, and carefully tracking with fertilityfriend.com. My doctor confirmed it doesn`t work for everyone. Plus I found it added a level of stress to family planning.
My husband and I just used condoms for years with no issues. When we were ready for a family, I tried charting again – nope, didn`t work. I just used ovulation predictor kits. Using your last period date minus 14 days (well, 12 for me) is also a good indicator of when you ovulate in your cycle.
I’ll add my two cents too, though you’ve already had plenty of similar responses.
I’ve used FAM for about 2.5 years to successfully prevent pregnancy. I haven’t actually temped for the last 9 months or so because I was away from my partner (and not having sex) for a month and just got out of the habit. I’d always found temping a bit annoying anyways and found that my erratic sleep patterns/alcohol/bed-partner-vs-no-bed-partner affected my temp so much that it often muddied the waters more than helped. Now, I pretty much exclusively chart mucus as well as cervical position when I fancy it. During my fertile days, my partner and I use the pull-out method. We are fairly conservative with estimating when my fertile days are though (often giving it an 8-10 day window or so) – for reference, my cycles range from 27 to 37 days – i.e. I’m not particularly regular.
Reading up on FAM and starting using it was such a great decision for me. It’s made a huge difference to how I feel about my body and the awareness it’s given me (and, importantly, my partner!) about my cycle has been beneficial in so many ways. I highly recommend it. It’s true that it doesn’t have perfect statistics, but no birth control does. What you can always consider are ways of lowering the chances – giving yourself a longer window when you are fertile (from ‘first sight of fluid’ rather than ‘first sign of wetness’ to ‘5 days post-high-temp’ rather than ‘3 days post-high-temp’), and doubling up (barrier + pull-out, for example) during your fertile days.
If it’s relevant, I was on hormonal birth control for about 6 months several years ago and just didn’t enjoy it – though I could never quite put my finger on why. For a few years after that I relied exclusively on condoms as I had multiple partners, but FAM has been my method of choice in recent years (minus a few months of condom usage before everyone got tested when another partner joined my current relationship).
I tried FAM for 9 months after getting off 2 years of the pill. Sadly for us however, it didn’t work out. We ended up getting pregnant and miscarried. Although I’m fine with what happened (we don’t want kids), that’s not something I’d personally do myself again. Now I have the ParaGuard IUD. However for people who want kids and aren’t against the idea of a surprise..I say go for it. It does make you feel empowered and does help you feel more in control of your body and help you get to know your own body better. I read Taking Charge of Your Fertility. It’s a really good book.
What Miki said above that made so much sense I just copied and pasted it:
“1) The sperm can only survive for any length of time in the vagina when there is fertile cervical mucus and a favorable vaginal pH. Both of those things only happen during the “fertile” phase of your cycle, what many methods of FAM/NFP refer to as “phase 2″. So if you have sex before that time, the sperm don’t survive, and it’s not an issue.
2) When you are in phase 2, your body is producing fertile cervical mucus, which you can detect. Some women will have a full week of fertile cervical mucus before ovulation, some women will have only a few days, but either way you can detect the mucus and know that you should take the appropriate measures. So if I see fertile cervical mucus, I know that having sex then could conceivably get me pregnant, regardless of how far away ovulation actually is.
3) As a result, women who use my particular method of fertile cervical mucus are advised to take the appropriate measures starting from the first day of fertile mucus, and all the way until 3 days after the mucus dries up. Again, for some women this ends up being a 6-day period, and for some women it ends up being considerably longer.
…….
some detect the early signs of phase 2 better than others. When someone using NFP/FAM correctly becomes pregnant, it is most often because they had intercourse just as their body was moving from phase 1 to phase 2 — and so fertile cervical mucus was being produced, but none had come out yet.” (THIS CLARIFIED MY POINT, THANK YOU! You can’t be sure if YOUR body will always let you know in time, so if you REALLY don’t want pregnancy, I would not experiment with this or would always use condoms during this time. You don’t have a control group uterus to help you figure out if your body will always let you know in time. -Jane)
“6) People who are being super conservative about their use of NFP/FAM (i.e., really really not wanting to be pregnant) will often do one of the two following things:
* Treat phase 1, or all of phase 1 after day 2, as equally risky as phase 2. Basically, this means that they only have phase 3 as open, which can be hard because most women are less aroused during phase 3.” (THIS IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY THAT YOU SAID MUCH BETTER! -Jane)
“* Use barrier methods (like condoms) during phase 1 and phase 3, and abstain entirely during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being more effective than either NFP/FAM alone or condoms alone.
On the other hand, some people who use FAM will use no protection during phase 1 and phase 3, and use condoms during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being less effective than the stats you see for condoms alone (because after all, some people in those studies were never having sex during their fertile times at all, just by chance), and is probably around 80%, even lower if you take into account sloppy usage. ” (Makes sense to me too!-J)
(I don’t know how to do the tricky cut and paste thing to make it look like the original poster, so I wanted to give credit to Miki for the information posted above. I think it helped explain some of the questions I had about the transition from phase 1 to phase 2 very well. It accounts for how this method can fail, but also what you need to do to make sure it is as effective as possible! Thank you!)
No advice, but I’m in the same boat and loving reading the responses! I’ve been on the pill for about four years now, and lately I’ve just been feeling like it’s affecting my body/brain in ways I’m not liking. Neither my husband or I are really fans of condoms, though, and we’re not quite ready for a baby yet… so I’ve been feeling like I’m stuck with the pill until we change our minds. I’m still kind of scared of the idea of going off the pill, but I’ve been considering it more and more… and reading suggestions is really helpful!
I used the FAM for 1.5 years after briefly trying the pill (which made me depressed and dislike sex, and Needed To Go). I wasn’t crazy with trying other hormones to wait and see what would happen, so FAM it was!
The first six months or so, I was very good at taking my temperatures, but more important than that for me was being aware of other signs of ovulation – vaginal mucous, sexual arousal, etc. After that, I’d chart my temps occasionally, but mostly my mucous, period, and intercourse on a free app on my phone.
Then… I got pregnant in January. Which was really because I had been lazy, and had let the the battery on my basal thermometer die. We got in the mood, and I had the thought of, “I might be ovulating right now”, but still didn’t go for the condom.
THAT SAID, we’ll go back to this once the baby is born in the fall. If you can find a way to adapt this to your lifestyle, I think it’s worth it.
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I used Implanon for more than 10 years, problem free, until I started to get problems. Hair loss, to be exact, coming out in great handfuls. I’m a bit of a data fiend so I decided to try FAM as a backup to a barrier method, figuring we’d abstain during my fertile period. Also, we want to start a family in the next few years, so I was partially motivated by the desire to make sure I was fertile.
Fast forward 8 months and I am deeply ambivalent about FAM. I do like that i know more about my uterus and menstrual cycle, but do I feel more ‘in tune’ with my body? Goodness no. My cycles are all. Over. The. Place. Every month I take to my FAM forum of choice panicked and pleading to know what it all means. My cervical mucous in no way aligned with my temps. FAM works if your body has read the textbooks, and mine hasn’t. It makes me feel like a failure, and the worst thing is there’s nothing I can do about it.
I had some bloodwork done and it looks like I have a prolactinoma which might make it hard to conceive on my own. So I’m glad my charts helped me find that, but it’s a bittersweet result. I very much miss my carefree Implanon days.
Everyone’s body is different! For some people it is much easier than others. For some people being “irregular” is “regular.”
You are not a failure, it’s just not right for you!
So I’m pretty in tune with my body and have an extremely regular cycle. But I know FAM would not work as contraception for me at all. I usually know when I ovulate, partly because I become extraordinarily horny right at ovulation. Hello Biology! Avoiding sex during the time when I want it most would not work out well for me or my marriage.
Ditto! That’s why your BC of choice has to complement your lifestyle.
For me, I can tell when I’m ovulating because it is the ONE day when I want children out of the whole month. And the sex is always best right then, even though we’re actively NOT trying for kiddos.
MC I am glad you brought up the horny factor. I am recently married (Oct 2012) and was on Nuvaring for 7-8 years. I had my annual appointment right after our wedding and had not at that point decided to TTC. So my Dr. warned me to ‘be ready because it could happen quickly.’ if we chose to stop taking BC and start trying. (I guess some folks have less issues with irregularity with Nuvaring because of the super low dose of hormones that it has).
I had read about FAM and natural methods in preparation for TTC and when DH and I decided a few short months after getting hitched that we were going to ‘not prevent’ pregnancy, I started paying attention to my body closly without temping. I didn’t want to go crazy charting. I have this impression that I will become so obsessed with the details (super detail oriented person here) that I would be consumed by it and loose the ‘happy/fun’ while TTC.
Prior to BC I was a super regular kind of menstration gal and assumed my body would adjust back to that. The first month off, I totally thought I was pregnant. I mean full blown pregnancy symptons. I had heard it was common to feel that way while your body adjusts to the lack of hormones. I was 6 days late and not preganant. The second month I started to feel more normal and HAD THE BEST SEX OF MY LIFE. I was so happy to have my libido back. (A serious consideration of mine for not going on hormonal BC after baby). I paid attention to cervical mucus the most. I didn’t temp. And could not for the life of me find my cervix position (still not sure if it was because I couldn’t or because I was already pregnant when I was trying). As I have alluded to, I got pregnant that second month.
Based on how far I am and how they track preganacy timing, I am pretty sure I ovulated around the ‘average’ time women do. I remember that weekend very well. I was NON-STOP horny. So my biggest concern with FAM and other natural methods is how the heck do DH and I resolve my actual desire to have sex with preventing another preganancy in the future?? I should note that we are absolutely THRILLED with our little on on the way and we are prefectly fine with the timing etc. I just don’t know if I want more than one child or not.
So back to the conundrum of dealing with desire and preventing pregnancy at the same time. Condoms did not work for us (sex would hurt too much for me with them).
I wish you luck with your decision and hope that it works out well for you. I also want to hear from some of the ladies about the desire factor that they seem to leave out when discussing FAM etc. thanks!!
We don’t abstain during peak fertility days; there is lots of stuff we do instead of ejaculating inside me when I’m fertile. There’s the old “pull out” method, which tends to work well, especially if you orgasm before your partner finishes. Studies have shown that women who orgasm before their partners ejaculate have lower chances of getting pregnant (tho, I offer the caveat that this science may be outdated – I learned it about 20 years ago when initially studying female fertility). Blow jobs are usually never turned down and my husband is usually pretty happy to hear the, uh, backdoor’s been unlocked. 😉 Haha! Of course, condoms are also useful during the couple days you may feel unable to help yourself.
Advice I have heard is similar to yours here. There are other ways of having sex, and there’s always barrier methods like condoms and diaphrams.
Part of great sex for me is complete inhibition- letting go of everything. I think the sex would suffer drastically if I was worried about husband pulling out or if I had charted correctly or if I was stressed out about something that altered my cycle, or if i mistook cervical mucus for arousal vaginal secretions, or if my husband had super sperm, or, or, or, or, or……etc.
So no FAM for me until I use it to conceive!
I tried charting for awhile, but I just couldn’t handle it. I have ADD, but I do not medicate unless there is something big I need to concentrate for, because I am not a big fan of taking amphetamines. It was so hard to try and force myself to check with any sort of consistency. I also sleep like a rock, so waking up just to check my temperature was a 45 minute ordeal with multiple alarms. I didn’t have many problems with the pill, once we found the right one, and they seemed to actually help me regulate mood swings and such.
That said, I think you should try FAM with a backup, because you will never know if it is your thing unless you do.
That is a fantastic idea! No harm in using condoms for 6 months until you really get the hang of how to do FAM accurately and correctly.
However, I guess you can’t ever REALLY know if you’re doing it right. There’s no control group here.
I have a question – if you are using FAM do you also have to use condoms? I never even thought about that.
I am not crazy into charting, but I can easily check the cervical fluid stuff as I produce enough that I will get it when wiping. I have an app that charts my cycle. A few days before the app says I will start to hit fertile days (which it shows 2 days before to the day after ovulation) it becomes mandatory condoms. I require hubby to wear them until the fluid fades out which is usually 3 days afterwards so a little more than a week.
And tracking helped me not panic when his pull out sucked a week before my period because I knew we were safe otherwise I would have ran for plan b for peace of mind. We are however in a state that if an oops does happen it will be welcomed, but another year wait would just put us in so much better of a financial place.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm
If you are one of those women with a clockwork cycle and you stick to your temp/charting/mucus thing with 100% accuracy 100% of the time and your partner is 100% committed to it as you are, you might not need a barrier method on your safe days to prevent pregnancy. I would start a diaper fund just in case, though.
And since condoms are not 100% effective, you aren’t even guaranteed to not get pregnant.
(I think FAM can work for some people, but it would be a shame for someone who REALLY REALLY REALLY doesn’t want kids/CAN’T have them to get pregnant because they thought that this method was completely safe. So thus all the disclaimers.)
We did. Any BC method that requires abstention when I’m most interested and most likely to enjoy it was a non-starter for me. Condoms are fine for me – my husband preferred the peace of mind during that time rather than pulling out.
We did something very close to what the poster is talking about – I got my IUD out about a year before we thought we wanted to actually “try” for kids, and charted to get a better sense of what my body would do without birth control (which I’d been on for about 10 years in various forms at that point). I found it really reassuring to know that I was ovulating, that things were pretty normal, etc. Because I had never been off birth control as an adult, and was acutely aware that I might not get pregnant right away, and wanted some more information about the whole thing.
That worked great for many months, until the perfect storm of crazy travel (our month-long honeymoon in Japan) and thyroid problems (I’m hypothyroid and it turned out my dosage needed adjustment) made my cycles irregular right as my thermometer broke when we were out of town. So in the end I got pregnant about six months before we really intended. But we were conscious of being sloppy and taking risks, and could have easily just used more condoms during irregular cycles if we’d felt like getting pregnant at that point was a big no. As it was it just meant we had to move out of our awesome artist warehouse/intentional-community-with-laser-cutter a bit sooner than planned. (This was us: http://offbeatfamilies.com/2012/02/living-with-house-mates-and-pregnant)
Anyway, I think it’s a great option as long as you’re clear on what you’re really okay with and you and your partner are on the same page. For us it ultimately worked out to be a slow ride from relaxed to sloppy to negligent, which we’re really happy with. But it could have been much less good if we hadn’t been in that place emotionally. Good luck!
I stopped taking bc pills in ’06. I used condoms most of the time until after my littlest fella was born. I started FAM (based on Wechsler’s book) in ’07 when my active fertility returned and have had a flawless, easy experience preventing pregnancy.
If you have a fairly normal period all you really have to do is not have sex when you see clear watery secretions in the morning. Easy peasy! I also track my periods using an app on my ipod and that gives me a really accurate window, highlighted on a calendar, for which are my most fertile days and they coincide with my clear, watery secretion days.
I tried tracking my cycles properly with Toni’s chart and a thermometer but eventually decided not to bother.
Honestly, I don’t understand why they don’t teach Wechsler’s book in Grade 9 women’s health classes! I’m a doula and thought I was pretty smart but even I was blown away by how little I understood about my own fertility.
We find it’s no bother to follow this method: there is little tracking, just a bit of self-awareness and then about 4 days in your second cycle week where you have to use a condom, give a bj, go in the back door or pull out. Ha! Lots of options!
I think that in addition to knowing YOUR female body, you also need to know the relevant MALE body. Sperm are not all the same. Your partner could have super sperm that stick around in the womb for longer than 6 days, and this could make your “collective fertile period” longer. It’s not just about the ladies!
Because hormonal BC makes me crazy, despite being on it for the better part of 10 years (and I’ve tried a lot of different types of pill to see if any make me less crazy, plus the nuvaring), *and* I may or may not have PCOS or a thyroid condition (and just found a doctor who is listening to me about the symptoms I’ve had for at least 8 years) I made the decision in Jan to go off the ring and not try any more pills.
When I say ‘I’, however, I mean my partner and I had a series of discussions about consequences and alternatives. He agreed that going off it and trying to see what my own baseline is (in terms of mental health and physical health) and seeing just how irregular I am or not without the hormones is in my best interest, particularly if my issues might cause problems TTC later. We also agreed that while now wouldn’t be awesome to have a kid, it wouldn’t be unawesome (we could always be in better financial shape. Then again, the ‘perfect’ time might always be in the future, you know?).
I’ve learned a few things about my body in the intervening months, although haven’t gone full blown with charting (we’ve been using barriers/pulling out). I think I’m going to start charting though, just because data makes me happy, and it will help with explaining issues to my doctor. Also, I’m not pregnant, so it seems to be working… then again, there’s a possibility that getting pregnant could be difficult for me, so take that with a grain of salt.
I began charting my cycles about 5 years before I met my husband, after having read the book, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. I was lucky in that my cycles were almost always 27 days and that I ovulated on my 14th day. I did not take my temperature but was very aware of my cervical mucus and did not have intercourse the 5 days leading up to when I was suppose to ovulate. I used condoms with my male partners during those 5 years. I took Plan B twice, when I was cutting the whole “5 days rule” too close and did not have any pregnancy scares.
Flash-forward to meeting my husband. We became serious very quickly and dived right into the pre-engaged stage very early into our relationship. With that development, we stopped using condoms, while still using Fertility Awareness. Our daughter was conceived on our 6 month anniversary which was 5 WHOLE DAYS before I ovulated. So, I highly recommend that if you are truly trying to avoid getting pregnant MAKE SURE you follow the guide-line of abstaining from intercourse for those 5 days.
I am currently 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant with our second daughter. We had gotten to the point of “it wouldn’t be a diaster if I got pregnant again,” when we conceived this baby. My cycle had returned to normal after weaning and I was charting again. I miscalculated and we ended up having intercourse 4 days before I ovulated. I took a Queen Anne’s Lace Tincture several times after we had sex. But, I didn’t take Plan B. Obviously, we conceived.
I remembering reading in a book about Tantric Sex how intention is VERY important in conception. BOTH partners need to make sure they are on the same page in regards to conception. So, after sex sending out the intention of “no babies, please…we’ll not ready.” Honestly, with my first daughter, part of me was ready to have a baby.
I think Fertility Awareness is a really empowering experience that makes you much more in tune with your body. BUT, I would not use it as your only method of Birth Control, if you are very, very serious about NOT having a baby.
I love the fact that I am 100% confident in knowing when the date of my Last Period was and that I know the exact dates when both my girls were conceived. On a side note, this also helped in me being able to name our second baby. Because I had read about the Shettles Method of conception and knew we had sex 4 days before I ovulated, I entered a bet with my husband. If we had a boy, he got to name him and if we had a girl, I got to name her. I won. 🙂
Once this one is born, I will be swapping out my reliance on Fertility Awareness with a copper IUD. Very excited about 10 years of use! I will continue to chart and abstain for the 5 days before I ovulate because this Mama is DONE.
Best of luck!
I’d urge you to rethink what you’re saying here, which seems to amount to a strange twist on Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_and_pregnancy_controversies_in_United_States_elections,_2012#Todd_Akin:_.22legitimate_rape.22
Yeah, while I’m all for being intentional about conception, babies get conceived under all kinds of conditions… including IVF, when neither parent is present at all.
Thank you! This really made me uneasy, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Thank you…you bring up an excellent point, I hadn’t even considered. You are right, it does sound too close to Todd Akin’s comment and is very insensitive to those who who are dealing with fertility issues. Scratch that I said that…I apologize for being insensitive.
Your partner will be happy to know that he has super sperm! Planned parenthood says that sperm can survive for up to 6 days, so his swimmers clearly lasts that long!
I was on the pill for several years, and heard that you should get off the pill at least 6 months before trying to conceive. I looked into the awareness method as well, but the temperature part never worked for me. I didn’t ever notice a spike before fertility like they said I would. Instead, I marked every day that I had my period, and from that I could figure out how long my cycles were. I had abnormal cycles, but because I was so diligent in marking my calendar every morning, I was able to find my fertile spots every month. I also marked every day that my husband and I had sex, so that I could calculate when I had conceived. We are now expecting our first child in July, and I was able to gain more awareness about my body because I was so closely watching my monthly cycles. Good luck!
We’ve mostly used FAM (specifically, the Billings method, with condoms when I’m fertile) and we LOVE it because hormonal BCs just don’t agree with me. I’m not keen on a non-hormonal IUD because of my medical history. I also have wonky cycles, anything from 28 days to 8 weeks is normal for me, and it still works for contraception.
All of our kids were planned, but even with using the Billings Method to help with conception, we still took some time to conceive.
I’ve been using FAM for about two years with condoms whenever we’re uncertain. I was on the pill for about five years on and off, and hated it. Yeah, my cycle was predictable, but I felt weird about it. I still had cramps. My acne never went away, and I had this weird hormone in my body. When my last relationship ended I was thrilled to just go off of it forever.
Now I’m married and we both HATE condoms, but hate hormonal birth control and the idea of a copper thingy inside me even more, so FAM it is. Whether you use it as your form of birth control or not I would recommend it to every menstruater out there. I’ve gotten to know so much more about myself and my body’s rhythms.
I use a neat-o little app for android called “ovuview.” There are all kinds of free apps available so choose whatever tickles your fancy. This way if I’m out on the town and notice my cervical fluid is particularly creamy I don’t have to remember until I get home to record it. I can also record intercourse (with or without protection), sex drive, mood, headaches, meds and other factors.
I used to take my temp every single morning at 6am and then fall right back asleep. It was beautiful. Lately my sleep patterns have been more irregular, but since I tracked really well for over a year I’ve learned how to read my signs in a lazier way. I try to take it at the same time every few days at least and pay very close attention to cervical fluid build-up. As long as you’re not taking any allergy meds or other drugs that interfere with cervical fluid, this is really the most useful sign.
The only thing that really sucks about FAM, for us, is that of course my sex drive is the highest around the time when I’m the most fertile. What a draaag, especially for someone with a fairly low sex drive to begin with. Blarg.
Thank you so much everyone for sharing your experiences with me here. You’ve given me lots to think about and some great tips and advice. I was really excited when I saw my question up on Offbeat Families today! I’m going out to buy me a thermometer!
I use a mucus-only method of FAM/NFP — the Creighton Method in my case, since it works better for me than Billings — and it’s been a good fit for me over the last 5-6 years. Not only is my sleep schedule too irregular for temping to work well, but I’m also sick often enough that my temp can be wonky from that. But my mucus is nice and predictable and easy to interpret, so that method works for me. I also have friends who use the Marquette method using the clear blue easy fertility monitor — I’ve thought about that, but the test strips aren’t cheap.
I’ve been using FAM for the past 4 months or so, and I loove it! As mentioned by others, I feel empowered and connected to my body in new ways, which is pretty dang sweet. I also really love the charting/list-taking aspects of FAM because a) it makes me feel in control in the midst of grad school, not an easy feat and b) another project for which I can use highlighters!
We are also using condoms as a back up because my partner is not yet sure whether he is ready to take the full FAM leap. That is another benefit of FAM- we have been able to communicate more clearly and openly about what we are comfortable, and each take responsibility for our reproductive choices, instead of the burden falling solely on me.
One other side note- I’ve seen a few comments on this thread about Plan B and just wanted to share some info I recently learned– Plan B (and most Emergency Contraceptives) are only effective if used prior to ovulation. Once the ole egg leaves the nest (ie ovary) and is fertilized, it will not generally prevent implantation. This was something that was pretty mind-blowing to me, especially as I was pretty much unaware of when I ovulated pre-FAM. Another reason to use barriers while getting accustomed to your cycles!!
Here’s a link to more information: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/22/172595689/morning-after-pills-dont-cause-abortion-studies-say
I used FAM to avoid pregnancy for 10 years, and loved it — even though I don’t get up at the same time every day, and drink alcohol, etc. For the first 6 months or so, you have to be really on top of checking your temperature and mucus every day, but once you become aware of what’s going on with your body, the signs of ovulation are really obvious. I got lazy, and started checking mucus and temperature only every few days until around the time I was expecting to ovulate, and even then I was fine. (Not that I’m recommending that — but if you’re using temperature, mucus, and awareness of your cycle patterns, it’s a pretty robust method). Then I was ready to get pregnant, used FAM for that too, and got pregnant on the first try! (I’m typing this as I’m nursing my 6 month old!)
The one thing I would say is that if you’re using that method, you do actually have to follow it pretty strictly at first until you really know how your body works. A friend of mine told me she tried it and it didn’t work (and she ended up pregnant when she didn’t want to be). I asked her if she had been taking her temperature every day, and she said no, she was just noticing if she felt warm! It really bugs me that this sort of thing gets included as part of the supposed high failure rate of FAM, because really she wasn’t using FAM at all! Used properly, it has a failure rate of about 2%.
I just don’t understand the premise. Sperm can live inside a woman for 3-6 days. And your temp changes only 1-2 days before you ovulate? 6 > 2
And how do you know that all the people that it works for don’t just have low fertility? Some people get pregnant on the first try, and others can take years.
In answer to your two questions:
1) The ability of sperm to survive inside a woman varies by where she is in her cycle. When she is closer to ovulation, she had cervical mucus that is more “fertile” — which means that it provides a good survival environment for sperm, and has properties which help the sperm travel in the right direction. In earlier and later parts of the cycle, without the cervical mucus, the vaginal environment is considerably more hostile to sperm, and they do not live long at all. Part of most FAM/NFP methods involve checking your cervical mucus daily (or many times a day, in my method), so that you know whether or not you’re currently providing an environment where sperm would be likely to survive until ovulation.
2) The answer to this is that it’s the same as it is for all clinical treatment research for every topic, they do randomized controlled trials. If 50% of the study is randomly allocated to use a FAM method, and 50% is randomly allocated to do something else (in some studies this control is comparing FAM to birth control pills, in others it is being compared to no birth control at all), then the random assignment means that the results aren’t just from one group having more infertile partners than others — that would be equally distributed across groups.
While informative, your comments didn’t really answer my questions. If you can only tell that you are about to ovulate 1-2 days beforehand, and you had sex before that, the sperm could already be there is the comfy mucus lounge waiting to to their thing when the egg arrives. It sounds like your method is better than the temperature method because it is a direct measure of if the cervical mucus, but 3-6 days of sperm party is still longer than 1-2 days of warning before ovulation.
I understand the clinical trial aspect also, although I have not read the primary literature concerning FAM v. other methods. I am more referring to the comments like “we used FAM as contraceptive for 2 years before we decided to get pregnant.” It takes some couples 2 years to conceive naturally. So how do they know if it was FAM that worked or if they took a long time to get pregnant anyway so it didn’t matter if they actually did FAM or not?
Basically, I think there are lots of variables that influence why FAM works for some couples and not others at the biological level (how thick your mucus is, how persistant his sperm is, etc) even with 100% compliance to your charting, etc.
My point is that there is no way to test yourself for these variables before you start FAM, so you should be 75% ok with having a kid as soon as you start it. But, hey, that’s why we double up with the pill AND condoms because it’s not time for us (yet) and we want to be as close to 100% as possible.
Hmmm, maybe I wasn’t communicating clearly enough, I’ll try again.
1) The sperm can only survive for any length of time in the vagina when there is fertile cervical mucus and a favorable vaginal pH. Both of those things only happen during the “fertile” phase of your cycle, what many methods of FAM/NFP refer to as “phase 2”. So if you have sex before that time, the sperm don’t survive, and it’s not an issue.
2) When you are in phase 2, your body is producing fertile cervical mucus, which you can detect. Some women will have a full week of fertile cervical mucus before ovulation, some women will have only a few days, but either way you can detect the mucus and know that you should take the appropriate measures. So if I see fertile cervical mucus, I know that having sex then could conceivably get me pregnant, regardless of how far away ovulation actually is.
3) As a result, women who use my particular method of fertile cervical mucus are advised to take the appropriate measures starting from the first day of fertile mucus, and all the way until 3 days after the mucus dries up. Again, for some women this ends up being a 6-day period, and for some women it ends up being considerably longer.
4) Anecdotal “evidence” about contraception is equally an issue for every other kind of contraception. If someone has used the birth control pill and condoms for two years without conceiving, you don’t know if their success is because of the contraception or because of infertility.
5) This is why randomized controlled trials are so valuable. In the randomized trials I consider well done, FAM/NFP tends to perform better than condoms alone and slightly worse than birth control bills — so around 94% successful. Some NFP/FAM methods appear to be more effective than others, probably in part because people have an easier time complying with some, and in part because some detect the early signs of phase 2 better than others. When someone using NFP/FAM correctly becomes pregnant, it is most often because they had intercourse just as their body was moving from phase 1 to phase 2 — and so fertile cervical mucus was being produced, but none had come out yet.
6) People who are being super conservative about their use of NFP/FAM (i.e., really really not wanting to be pregnant) will often do one of the two following things:
* Treat phase 1, or all of phase 1 after day 2, as equally risky as phase 2. Basically, this means that they only have phase 3 as open, which can be hard because most women are less aroused during phase 3.
* Use barrier methods (like condoms) during phase 1 and phase 3, and abstain entirely during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being more effective than either NFP/FAM alone or condoms alone, and is expected to be at least as effective as birth control pills and possibly somewhat more so.
On the other hand, some people who use FAM will use no protection during phase 1 and phase 3, and use condoms during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being less effective than the stats you see for condoms alone (because after all, some people in those studies were never having sex during their fertile times at all, just by chance), and is probably around 80%, even lower if you take into account sloppy usage.
Part of using FAM for birth-control is abstaining from sex or using another method of birth-control (condom/withdrawal) from start of menstruation until 48 hours after ovulation.
I have not considered it, and I won’t any time soon. The inconvenience, and the risk involved, and just how much I do NOT want to have a child at the moment means my partner and I are definitely not going to use it. I was on the pill for 5 years, but decided to get a Mirena IUD to hopefully stop my periods and reduce my painful cramps and heavy periods. I would only use that sort of method if I was okay with having a baby – and in my mind, the use of contraceptives means that I am not okay with having a baby. The use of artificial hormones and chemicals are not something that I’m frightened of, or against at all, so that probably plays into it. Some people are more into being “all natural” and I imagine that would influence their choices.
I agree. I really wish people wouldn’t flat out demonize artificial hormones for birth control. Sure, I don’t want to eat artificial hormones in my food, but using artificial hormones as a medication are a completely different story. Some people really need them, and it can change their lives. Also, they don’t work for everyone, so you don’t know until you try, and they can take a couple months to stabilize your symptoms. The great thing about OffBeat blogs is that we can discuss different options that might work for different people.
I definitely agree about artificial hormones being all bad – they’re great! Almost all the women I know use them happily and successfully.
Of course each person should choose the contraception method that works best for them, but I’m surprised at how dismissive you are of non-hormonal methods, especially since I know people who have gotten pregnant while on the pill and with an IUD. Basically, if you’re having any kind of P-in-V sex you have to deal with the risk of getting pregnant.
I’ve used FAM (with condom backup) for 7 years successfully and with little fuss. I didn’t choose FAM for frivolous reasons because I’m “into being ‘all natural,'” but because I used BCP for a decade and was fed up with the serious side effects–mine were weight gain and extremely low libido. To each her own, right?
Or his own! Or their own! Not everyone who uses birth control methods identifies as a woman or as a man.
Yeah, each to their own – I was just saying that, compared to a lot of these posts where people don’t want to put artificial hormones into their bodies, I have no issue with it whatsoever. I know I’m at risk for getting pregnant, but the chances are very low, and I’d much rather have as little room for personal error as possible. I also hate using condoms, so I wouldn’t want to do that method.
I am so saving my rant on guys’ contraception laziness. ^^
Fertility awareness methods are a great way to improve family planning. I tried different pills, but all ended up warping my mood and turning me int an everyday version of my usual PMS monster. Since I am allergic to latex… well, here we are, six years of relationship and no kids yet. ^^
Since I use FAM my husband is much more knowledgeable, aware, and involved in the intricacies of my cycle and our birth-control. 😉
I used FAM for 2 yrs – both as birth control & then to get pregnant. It’s easy & well worth the switch.
just remember charting doesn`t work for everyone. It never worked for me, despite religiously taking my temp at the same hour, and carefully tracking with fertilityfriend.com. My doctor confirmed it doesn`t work for everyone. Plus I found it added a level of stress to family planning.
My husband and I just used condoms for years with no issues. When we were ready for a family, I tried charting again – nope, didn`t work. I just used ovulation predictor kits. Using your last period date minus 14 days (well, 12 for me) is also a good indicator of when you ovulate in your cycle.
I’ll add my two cents too, though you’ve already had plenty of similar responses.
I’ve used FAM for about 2.5 years to successfully prevent pregnancy. I haven’t actually temped for the last 9 months or so because I was away from my partner (and not having sex) for a month and just got out of the habit. I’d always found temping a bit annoying anyways and found that my erratic sleep patterns/alcohol/bed-partner-vs-no-bed-partner affected my temp so much that it often muddied the waters more than helped. Now, I pretty much exclusively chart mucus as well as cervical position when I fancy it. During my fertile days, my partner and I use the pull-out method. We are fairly conservative with estimating when my fertile days are though (often giving it an 8-10 day window or so) – for reference, my cycles range from 27 to 37 days – i.e. I’m not particularly regular.
Reading up on FAM and starting using it was such a great decision for me. It’s made a huge difference to how I feel about my body and the awareness it’s given me (and, importantly, my partner!) about my cycle has been beneficial in so many ways. I highly recommend it. It’s true that it doesn’t have perfect statistics, but no birth control does. What you can always consider are ways of lowering the chances – giving yourself a longer window when you are fertile (from ‘first sight of fluid’ rather than ‘first sign of wetness’ to ‘5 days post-high-temp’ rather than ‘3 days post-high-temp’), and doubling up (barrier + pull-out, for example) during your fertile days.
If it’s relevant, I was on hormonal birth control for about 6 months several years ago and just didn’t enjoy it – though I could never quite put my finger on why. For a few years after that I relied exclusively on condoms as I had multiple partners, but FAM has been my method of choice in recent years (minus a few months of condom usage before everyone got tested when another partner joined my current relationship).
I tried FAM for 9 months after getting off 2 years of the pill. Sadly for us however, it didn’t work out. We ended up getting pregnant and miscarried. Although I’m fine with what happened (we don’t want kids), that’s not something I’d personally do myself again. Now I have the ParaGuard IUD. However for people who want kids and aren’t against the idea of a surprise..I say go for it. It does make you feel empowered and does help you feel more in control of your body and help you get to know your own body better. I read Taking Charge of Your Fertility. It’s a really good book.
What Miki said above that made so much sense I just copied and pasted it:
“1) The sperm can only survive for any length of time in the vagina when there is fertile cervical mucus and a favorable vaginal pH. Both of those things only happen during the “fertile” phase of your cycle, what many methods of FAM/NFP refer to as “phase 2″. So if you have sex before that time, the sperm don’t survive, and it’s not an issue.
2) When you are in phase 2, your body is producing fertile cervical mucus, which you can detect. Some women will have a full week of fertile cervical mucus before ovulation, some women will have only a few days, but either way you can detect the mucus and know that you should take the appropriate measures. So if I see fertile cervical mucus, I know that having sex then could conceivably get me pregnant, regardless of how far away ovulation actually is.
3) As a result, women who use my particular method of fertile cervical mucus are advised to take the appropriate measures starting from the first day of fertile mucus, and all the way until 3 days after the mucus dries up. Again, for some women this ends up being a 6-day period, and for some women it ends up being considerably longer.
…….
some detect the early signs of phase 2 better than others. When someone using NFP/FAM correctly becomes pregnant, it is most often because they had intercourse just as their body was moving from phase 1 to phase 2 — and so fertile cervical mucus was being produced, but none had come out yet.” (THIS CLARIFIED MY POINT, THANK YOU! You can’t be sure if YOUR body will always let you know in time, so if you REALLY don’t want pregnancy, I would not experiment with this or would always use condoms during this time. You don’t have a control group uterus to help you figure out if your body will always let you know in time. -Jane)
“6) People who are being super conservative about their use of NFP/FAM (i.e., really really not wanting to be pregnant) will often do one of the two following things:
* Treat phase 1, or all of phase 1 after day 2, as equally risky as phase 2. Basically, this means that they only have phase 3 as open, which can be hard because most women are less aroused during phase 3.” (THIS IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY THAT YOU SAID MUCH BETTER! -Jane)
“* Use barrier methods (like condoms) during phase 1 and phase 3, and abstain entirely during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being more effective than either NFP/FAM alone or condoms alone.
On the other hand, some people who use FAM will use no protection during phase 1 and phase 3, and use condoms during phase 2. Statistically, this ends up being less effective than the stats you see for condoms alone (because after all, some people in those studies were never having sex during their fertile times at all, just by chance), and is probably around 80%, even lower if you take into account sloppy usage. ” (Makes sense to me too!-J)
(I don’t know how to do the tricky cut and paste thing to make it look like the original poster, so I wanted to give credit to Miki for the information posted above. I think it helped explain some of the questions I had about the transition from phase 1 to phase 2 very well. It accounts for how this method can fail, but also what you need to do to make sure it is as effective as possible! Thank you!)
No advice, but I’m in the same boat and loving reading the responses! I’ve been on the pill for about four years now, and lately I’ve just been feeling like it’s affecting my body/brain in ways I’m not liking. Neither my husband or I are really fans of condoms, though, and we’re not quite ready for a baby yet… so I’ve been feeling like I’m stuck with the pill until we change our minds. I’m still kind of scared of the idea of going off the pill, but I’ve been considering it more and more… and reading suggestions is really helpful!
I used the FAM for 1.5 years after briefly trying the pill (which made me depressed and dislike sex, and Needed To Go). I wasn’t crazy with trying other hormones to wait and see what would happen, so FAM it was!
The first six months or so, I was very good at taking my temperatures, but more important than that for me was being aware of other signs of ovulation – vaginal mucous, sexual arousal, etc. After that, I’d chart my temps occasionally, but mostly my mucous, period, and intercourse on a free app on my phone.
Then… I got pregnant in January. Which was really because I had been lazy, and had let the the battery on my basal thermometer die. We got in the mood, and I had the thought of, “I might be ovulating right now”, but still didn’t go for the condom.
THAT SAID, we’ll go back to this once the baby is born in the fall. If you can find a way to adapt this to your lifestyle, I think it’s worth it.