Do you have a biggest fear when it comes to using the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness? Are you often playing in your head “It sounds great, but…”
In this case, “but” can be anything from worrying about how many days each cycle you will be in your fertile window to if your partner would ever go for it?
Well, let’s dig in! I’m going to start with what MY biggest fear was in this video for your viewing pleasure.
The crazy part is, I can’t believe that I lost two years that I could have been using fertility awareness just because of fear. Maybe if someone had told me it’s no big deal, or to just give it a try and see for myself things would have been different, but it’s my experience that all of the fear is based off of our fear to take responsibility for something so important.
We aren’t really taught that we can do something so cool and absolutely vital all on our own, so why should we immediately believe that we can?
So, what about you? Leave a comment with your biggest fear below and let’s talk about it.
Join the FREE mini-school!
+ Learn the top tips for coming off hormonal birth control
+ Understand all of the non-hormonal birth control options
+ Discover if fertility awareness is right for you
+ Free weekly updates
Your information will be kept private. Directions and log in details will be sent to you via email.
Hello! My current fear is not being able to chart my cervical mucus correctly. I’ve been charting for about 4 months and haven’t noticed a pattern with it. It’s frustrating to me that my body is not clear when it comes to this sign. I am able to notice when I ovulate (or ovulated) by taking my temperature, but the cervical mucus is confusing me. I don’t have very many “dry” days, so it’s hard to chart.
Hi Mia, thank you for your comment!
Cervical fluid can take a little while to see your pattern. Let me tell you the three three things that helped me:
1.) Checking with toilet paper. For me it helped it determine the cervical fluid from the cell slough or other moisture.
2.) Letting go of pre-conceived notions of how it “should” be. Notice what your baseline is and notice what is part of a deviation from that. Notice the drying up post-peak. Don’t worry about what it “should” look like, but notice how it changes.
3.) Write down cervical fluid on your chart using your own words. Don’t worry about categorizing it into something yet. I recommend using just peak and non-peak categories in the classes I teach. Notice the moisture content level, color, stretchiness and how that changes.
You can also check in with an educator to talk about what you are seeing/if it’s normal or if any weird things might have to do with possible hormonal imbalance. If you don’t want to do that maybe even if you have a friend that has charted for a while :)
Hope that helps, let me know if you have any more questions.
Thank you for the helpful tips!! :) I will try charting my cervical mucus that way. :)
My biggest fear is that since I’m breastfeeding with no menses I’m going to start using NFP and end up pregnant again! I have no period so I have no cycle and I hear that temps are crazy when nursing… Totally afraid :)
Hi Bethany,
Thanks for the comment!
Yes, temps while nursing are crazy. You basically are using cervical fluid to determine your fertility. The good thing is that it’s no less effective to use NFP/fertility awareness while breastfeeding as long as you are using the cervical fluid sign and not trying to guess when you are fertile.
Sometimes you can have more days of possible fertility than you would normally while you body is getting ready to be fertile again, but other than that it’s not too bad. Just be sure to have a teacher your can ask questions to and go over your charts ;)