The app that accompanies this book can be found at tcoyf.com.
The First Day of Charting
Although it may be easier to wait until the first day of your next period in order to start charting, you can begin on any day, provided it reflects accurately how long it has been since the first day of your last period. (See Emily’s chart below.) Just remember that you should close your chart by drawing a vertical line between the last day of your partially completed cycle and the first day of your new period. You will then be ready to begin charting your first complete cycle on Day 1 of a new chart.
Emily’s chart. Beginning to chart in midcycle. Note how Emily didn’t start observing her fertility signs until April 9, which was midcycle for her. So she first filled out the Date column, starting with the first day of her last period. This allowed her to start charting in the middle of her cycle, on Day 17, rather than waiting for Day 1 of a new cycle. As soon as she got her period on April 19, she took out a fresh sheet and repeated that one day, April 19, on her new chart. This cycle was 26 days.
Note that while the sample Sample Natural Birth Control and Sample Pregnancy charts below allow you to record much more information than the chart above, the only parts of those charts that are necessary for practicing FAM are above the row marking the fertile phase in magenta.
WHEN TO START CHARTING FOLLOWING SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
Coming Off the Pill or Other Hormonal Methods
There is no way to predict how long it will take for your cycles to return to their former patterns before you were on hormones. Some women ovulate within a couple of weeks, while others take several months or longer. Ideally, you should begin charting on the first day of the withdrawal bleeding you typically experience during your week off the pill, recording Day 1 as the first day of that bleeding. If you’d prefer to start sooner, follow the directions on the chart above for beginning midcycle. At the end of this chapter you’ll find more information about coming off the pill and other hormones.
Irregular Cycles
Unless you’ve been recording at least your period on a calendar, it can be challenging to begin charting cycles that vary a lot from month to month. Assuming you have been, follow the directions above. But if you haven’t, just start recording your observations on Day 1 of the chart, acknowledging that the cycle day numbers don’t reflect the true days of your cycle. Once you menstruate, that will become Day 1 of your first full cycle.
Miscarriage
The amount of time it takes you to resume cycling following a miscarriage will depend on a number of factors, including how far along you were when you miscarried. If you didn’t have any major complications, you might resume ovulating shortly after, with your body perceiving the miscarriage as a period. This means that you could start charting within a few weeks, counting Day 1 as the first day you started bleeding. Of course, you should start charting only when you are emotionally ready.
Childbirth
How quickly you resume ovulating after giving birth will depend on several factors, with the most important being whether or not you breastfeed. If you don’t, your cycles may resume very quickly, as soon as a month or so after you give birth. If you do breastfeed, it could take up to a year or more, depending on how frequently you do so. In any case, charting during breastfeeding can be somewhat tricky, so I encourage you to read Appendexes I and J carefully.
CERVICAL FLUID
Virtually all ovulating women experience an observable pattern of changes in their cervical fluid throughout their cycles. Once they learn to recognize these subtle differences, they realize that interpreting the pattern is really fairly simple and predictable. Basically, after a woman’s period and under the influence of rising levels of estrogen, her cervical fluid will start to get progressively wetter as she approaches ovulation, at which point it will dry up until the next cycle. On the days before ovulation, when a woman is extremely fertile, her cervical fluid may even feel wet and humid. You could say it gives a whole new meaning to the expression “feeling hot and steamy.”
For those of you who think of yourselves as too squeamish to observe it, all I can say is that once you’ve checked it a few times, you realize it’s really no big deal. And if you are even considering having a baby one day, I can assure you that the world of diapers and infant regurgitation is a thousand times more traumatizing than cervical fluid!
Copyright © Viv Quillin, “The Opposite Sex.”
A QUICK LOOK AT YOUR BASIC INFERTILE PATTERN
Before getting into the details of observing and charting your cervical fluid, you should understand a basic principle: every ovulating woman has a pattern of dry days or non-wet secretions immediately following menstruation that is unique to her. It is the quality indicative of low levels of estrogen before it rises and changes the cervical fluid to a wetter consistency.
For most women with average cycles, it will probably include at least several days of dry before starting to get wet. Others may immediately produce a type of sticky-quality secretion for days before they start to get wet. Still for others who are clearly not ovulating because they are in a specific phase in their life such as dealing with chronic illness, stress, breastfeeding, or premenopause, they may have weeks or even months on end of the same unchanging-quality cervical fluid.
In each case, that type of non-wet cervical fluid is called the woman’s Basic Infertile Pattern (BIP). It is the type of secretion her body produces specifically when her hormone levels are low, indicating that she is not yet near ovulation. Such BIPs may be challenging for both those trying to conceive and those practicing natural birth control. Yet throughout the rest of the book, you’ll find useful information on how to deal with them, no matter what your reproductive goals are.
The Point of Change
The key to observing your cervical fluid before ovulation is to be on the lookout for a “Point of Change.” In other words, right after your period, you will want to carefully observe the quality of your cervical fluid. After you have determined your Basic Infertile Pattern, or BIP, you should be on the lookout for any change in amount, color, or vaginal sensation. For example, your period may end on Day 4, then you may observe nothing, and it feels dry day after day until Day 10. On that day, you realize that it has started to change and it’s now white and sticky and your vaginal lips tend to stick to your underwear. Your Point of Change would be Day 10. The estrogen in your body is now starting to increase, causing you to begin to produce cervical fluid as you prepare to ovulate a few days later.
Observing Your Cervical Fluid
1. Begin checking cervical fluid the first day after menstruation has ended. You can already start observing at the tail end, but avoid using tampons on light days of your period since it can obscure observations. Regardless, it’s not healthy to use tampons when you are merely spotting, because you risk leaving some residual pieces of cotton behind when you pull them out, to say nothing of the ouch factor!
2. Focus on vaginal sensations as you go about your day. (Does it feel dry, sticky, wet, lubricative? Does it feel like you’re sitting in a puddle of eggwhite?) Vaginal sensations are essential in identifying fertility, and are the one part of observing your cervical fluid that doesn’t involve physically seeing or touching it.
3. Try to examine your cervical fluid every time you use the bathroom, doing vaginal contractions on the way (see Kegels! section for how to do Kegel contractions). This will aid the cervical fluid in flowing down to your vaginal opening. Find creative times to do Kegels throughout the day, such as while washing dishes or waiting for an annoying red light to change.
4. Check cervical fluid at least three times a day, including the morning and night. When checking, remember that cervical fluid is on a continuum, from dryer and less-fertile qualities to wetter and more-fertile qualities close to ovulation.
5. Be sure to check when you are not sexually aroused, since sexual lubrication can mask cervical fluid. (In other words, it would be somewhat ineffectu
al to whisper in your partner’s ear after an hour of foreplay, “Let me just check my cervical fluid to see if I’m fertile, babe.”)
6. Both before and after urinating, while you are sitting there with nothing better to do, take a tissue and fold it flat. Separate your vaginal lips and wipe from front to back, wiping especially across the lower opening of your vagina closest to your perineum, where it tends to collect (see External Female Reproductive Anatomy if you can’t remember where it is!). Always wipe from front to back to avoid spreading bacteria.
7. Focus on how easily the tissue glides across your vaginal lips and perineum. Does it feel dry, smooth, or lubricative?
8. Lift the secretion off the tissue to feel it with your thumb and middle finger, glancing away before really observing it. Focus on the quality as you rub your fingers together. Does it feel dry? Sticky? Creamy? Slippery or lubricative (like eggwhite)?
9. Then look at it while slowly opening your fingers to see if it stretches, and if so, how much before it breaks. Is it clear or cloudy? Is it tinged with blood? In other words, focus on its qualities as it changes over the days leading up to ovulation.
10. Check your underwear throughout the day. Remember that very fertile-quality cervical fluid often forms a fairly symmetrical circle, due to its high concentration of water. And even though sweat and urine may also form a similar round shape on your underwear, only the cervical fluid will remain, usually leaving some color, consistency, or texture. Nonwet-quality cervical fluid tends to form more of a rectangle, square, or line on your underwear, as seen in Cervical Fluid on Underwear section.
But be aware that if you use a panty liner, you won’t be able to discern the quality of any of them as easily because of the pattern on it. And if you tend to wear them in between periods, you may want to stop for a few hours in the middle of the day so that you can observe more easily. Or you may prefer to use dark-colored cotton or organic reusable pads that will allow you to easily observe your cervical fluid.
11. If you find it hard to differentiate between cervical fluid and basic vaginal secretions, remember that cervical fluid won’t dissolve in water. So a little trick that can help you initially learn to tell the difference is the water test. Take the sample between two fingers and dip it into a glass of water. If it’s true cervical fluid, it will usually form a blob that sinks to the bottom or simply remains a distinct secretion. If it’s basic vaginal secretions, it will just dissolve.
12. Note the quality and quantity of the cervical fluid (in other words, color, opacity, consistency, thickness, stretchiness, and most important of all, slipperiness and lubricative quality).
13. The most obvious time when fertile cervical fluid will flow out is after bearing down while using the toilet. Of course, to prevent infections while checking, you should first use a separate tissue for wiping your vaginal opening from front to back.
14. Around your most fertile time, look in the water while you use the toilet. You would be surprised at how stretchy cervical fluid can flow out so quickly that you could miss it if not paying attention. In addition, it’s interesting to see how it often forms a ball when it hits the water, appearing like a cloudy marble sinking to the bottom. Ironically, if that happens, you may feel dry the rest of the day because it slides out so fast. So around ovulation, pay close attention when you’re using the bathroom.
15. Other good times to observe cervical fluid are after exercising or doing Kegels.
16. Be aware that as you get closer to ovulation, your cervical fluid may become so thin that it may be hard to finger test, but very fertile-quality cervical fluid will usually make your vaginal sensation feel lubricative, both while walking around during the day and when wiping with tissue after going to the bathroom.
17. Learn to tell the difference between semen and fertile-quality cervical fluid. Semen sometimes appears as a rubbery whitish strand or slippery foam. It tends to be thinner, breaks easily, and dries on your fingers quicker. By contrast, eggwhite tends to be clear, shimmering, and often stretchy. Since the two are similar, though, it’s imperative that you mark any ambiguity with a question mark in the Cervical Fluid row. Doing Kegels to eliminate semen after sex should minimize any potential confusion.
KEGELS!
Kegel exercises strengthen the vaginal muscles, which are usually referred to as pubococcygeus muscles or, thankfully, just PC muscles. Strengthening them serves many useful purposes, including aiding in:
•increasing sexual pleasure
•pushing cervical fluid down to the vaginal opening
•pushing semen out of the vagina (see SETs, below)
•restoring vaginal muscle tone following childbirth
•maintaining urinary continence in older women
How to Identify the PC Muscles
Sit on a toilet and stop and start the flow of urine without moving your legs. Your PC muscles are what turn the flow on and off.
The Exercises
When you are first learning to chart, you may want to do Kegel exercises at set times to get used to strengthening your vaginal muscles. But soon it will become such a habit that you’ll find yourself doing them throughout the day without even thinking about it.
Slow Kegels: Tighten the PC muscles as if you were stopping the flow of urine. Hold it for a slow count of three. Rinse and repeat. No, wait—wrong instructions. Relax and repeat.
Fast Kegels: Tighten and relax the PC muscles as rapidly as you can. Repeat.
When to Do Kegels
You can do Kegels any time during your daily activities. Be creative and find times throughout the day, such as while driving your car, watching television, or wasting time on Facebook.
What You May Initially Experience When You Start Doing Kegels
When you first start practicing Kegels, you will probably notice that the muscles don’t want to stay contracted during the slow exercises and that you can’t do the quick ones as fast or evenly as you’d like. In addition, sometimes the muscles will start to feel a little tired, which is not surprising. You probably haven’t used them much before. Take a few seconds and start again. In a week or two you will probably notice that you can control them quite well.
A good way to check how you are doing is to insert one or two fingers into your vagina and feel if you are able to tighten your PC muscles around your finger.
Semen Emitting Technique (SETs)
In order to determine daily fertility without confusing semen (or spermicide) with fertile cervical fluid, you should eliminate the semen as soon as possible. The first time you urinate following intercourse, push out as much of it as you can, absorbing the rest with tissue. The next couple of times, stop and start the flow with Kegels, wiping away the semen after each contraction. You will usually be able to get rid of it by the time you are through urinating. (Those who want to get pregnant should wait at least half an hour after intercourse to assure enough time for the sperm to swim up through the cervical fluid before doing SETs.)
“Between Friends” reprinted with special permission of King Features Syndicate
Charting Your Cervical Fluid
1. Day 1 of the cycle is the first day of red menstrual bleeding. If you have brown or light spotting in the day or two before the flow, it is considered part of the previous cycle.
2. The graphic below shows how the various types of cervical fluid are recorded on your chart. Note that menses is marked by , while spotting is marked by a smaller to show that the latter is much less blood. For clarity, both should be marked in the Period, Spotting, Dry, or Sticky row.
Menses: Red blood flow.
Spotting: Brown, pink, or discolored.
Nothing: Dry. No cervical fluid present. May feel dampness on tissue that quickly dissipates after you check your vaginal opening.
Sticky: Opaque, white, or yellow. Can be fairly thick. Critical quality is its stickiness or lack of true wetness. May be crumbly or flaky like paste, or gummy and rubbery like rubber cement. May form small peaks when y
ou separate your fingers.
Creamy: Milky or cloudy, white or yellow. Creamy or lotiony. Wet, watery, or thin. When separating fingers, doesn’t form peaks, but remains smooth like hand lotion.
Eggwhite: Usually clear but can have opaque streaks in it. Very slippery and wet, like raw eggwhite. Often causes extremely lubricative feeling at vaginal opening. May stretch several inches. (Surprisingly, you may experience a completely dry sensation after it slides out.)
3. Record the most fertile- or wet-quality cervical fluid of the day, even if you are dry all day except for one single observation. Obviously, any spotting should also be recorded. Your Cervical Fluid row may appear similar to Abigail’s chart. (If you have spotting inside your cervical fluid, you can make a small dot in the appropriate square.)
Abigail’s chart. A typical cervical fluid pattern. Note how her cervical fluid becomes progressively wetter as ovulation approaches, around Day 15 in this cycle. Also notice that in this particular cycle, Abigail’s last day of wet cervical fluid coincides with her last day of a wet vaginal sensation.
4. Record the wettest vaginal sensation you notice throughout the day, since it’s an extremely important indicator of your fertility. Don’t be surprised if the cervical fluid itself disappears a day or so before the lubricative vaginal sensation dissipates.
5. Treat all signs of semen or residual spermicide as a question mark in the Cervical Fluid row, since they can mask cervical fluid. Remember, doing Kegels following intercourse will usually get rid of both.
Identifying Your Peak Day
Once you have learned to chart your cervical fluid, you will want to use this information to determine your most fertile day. This is considered the last day that you have either a lubricative vaginal sensation or produce a wet, fertile-quality cervical fluid during any given cycle. It’s called the Peak Day because it denotes your most fertile day of the cycle. It most likely occurs about a day or two before you ovulate or on the day of ovulation itself (the only way to know for certain would be to have an ultrasound). Practically speaking, this means that your Peak Day will usually occur one or two days before your thermal shift.
Taking Charge of Your Fertility Page 9