“ Why didn’t I know about this?”
I’ve probably heard this question at each Fertility Awareness class I’ve taught over the last seven years.
“Why don’t they teach this in school?”
There is sometimes a hint of sadness in their voice, sometimes resentment or anger. I’ve witnessed this humble moment of reckoning so many times. Luckily, it is often followed by a deep inhalation of empowerment as the class continues and the information settles in to its’ rightful place, the body of the woman. This is one of the many, many reasons I love to teach women (and their partners) about Fertility Awareness.... because a woman has the right to know about her fertility.... to know that she has all the tools within her to monitor her cycle; to know when she is fertile, when she is not, and to use this wisdom to choose when and if she would like to conceive a child. Why DIDN’T we learn this in school?
Women hear about FAM and often associate it with the rhythm method or Catholic based methods of Natural Family Planning. Perhaps they have heard stories of a mother with 7 children who “used NFP”... or they are happy with their current form of birth control and don’t really give the class a second thought. But FAM isn’t anything like the rhythm method, and it certainly is not only about birth control. (Though recent studies find FAM to be equally effective to the birth control pill, with a 99.6% effectiveness rating!) It is about making a choice to be conscious and a choice to find power in being a fertile woman in a body designed to reproduce.
In the Fertility Awareness Method a woman learns what hormones are the main players in the dance of fertility she experiences each cycle during her reproductive years. She learns how these hormones have dozens of health promoting actions and are intricately woven into many other systems of the body. With a basic lesson on reproductive anatomy a woman can then be instructed on how to observe and chart the ways in which these hormones present and express themselves in her body.... such as how estrogens are cell producers and make your skin and hair shine, or how they increase the wetness you feel in your genitals when they are at their height.... Or how progesterone warms up your body and increases your metabolism... which explains how hungry women can get before their period... or why seeing their temperature rise (and stay high) is confirmation of ovulation. With FAM a woman can discover if her irregular cycles are a variation of normal or if her hormones could serve to have some support in becoming more balanced... She can perhaps even learn if other discomforts might be easily resolved with similar hormonal support (and at my class she’ll even learn how diet and lifestyle changes can do this!). She can learn why she is not getting pregnant though she’s been trying for months... or she can learn how to not get pregnant by following simple rules of the method.
With this education, a woman is gifting herself with a deep personal intimacy and the empowering discovery of her own personal ebb and flow. Perhaps this is all she will use the method for, or maybe she will choose to use FAM to avoid pregnancy or to conceive consciously when she is ready....
I am a firm believer that each and every young woman should be given this information when they begin to cycle during puberty. It is my goal to help make this happen. Until this time comes, I will do my best to help educate women, one by one, of the brilliant, ancient and proven practice that has changed my life, my sexuality, my health and my relationship to my body for good. I LOVE FAM!
Please check out the following links for more information!
~For statistics on this method, showing an effectiveness rating of over 99%, check out:
(Note that both are slight variations from what I teach.) http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/dem003v1 (sympto-thermal) -http://www.woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol27/no4/chinaEvaluation.html (BOMA)
~For a recent article published on the FAM in an online publication: http://www.doublex.com/section/health-science/your-grandmother%E2%80%99s-birth-control-might-actually-work?page=3,1
~For a great and very informative website from my colleague Mikhal in Israel:
http://www.poriutivit.com/page.asp?p=10
~To see my website: http://www.graceofthemoon.com (check again in a month to see the
new and improved site!)
Sarah Bly is a certified Fertility Awareness Educator who lives outside of Ashland, Oregon. She is trained as a midwife but finds her passion in FAM. She offers workshops up and down the west coast (and sometimes elsewhere) and she does private consultations for pre-conception and fertility optimization. You can find her at 541-821-2522 or sarah@graceofthemoon.com . Her next FAM workshop in the Ashland area begins on November 2nd, 2009.
We are here to love. We are made to reproduce. Why not do it with conscience?
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