FemTech Series
It’s All in the Timing!
By: Abigail Chamberlain
Director’s Note: As we continue our FemTech Series, we follow up on our recent review of the Natural Cycles U.S. research study with a personal story from a Natural Cycles user who successfully used the app to time her pregnancy amid her husband’s lengthy deployments. Abigail Chamberlain conducted the interview as part of the FACTS two-week online elective with Dr. Marguerite Duane, Executive Director and co-founder of FACTS About Fertility. If you are interested in sharing your experience using FABMs with one of our students, please let us know here.
The timing of a pregnancy can be crucial. Conception may need to be planned around major life events, such as deployment cycles, educational milestones, or stressful seasons at work. For women like Lili,* planning a pregnancy down to the exact month can be hugely beneficial and important. Lili’s husband, a member of the U.S. Navy, is deployed for six months at a time. As many military families know, the military does not plan around anyone’s personal schedules — even pregnant spouses. As Lili and her husband began discussing their future family, Lili sought meticulous control over the timing of her due date, hoping to deliver while her husband was home from deployment. Given his deployment cycle, she knew her window to conceive was at most three months long.
After taking oral contraceptive pills for 10 years, Lili had no idea what her ovulatory window looked like. Her experience is common. Women often start some form of hormonal birth control when they are in high school, well before the thought of starting a family crosses their mind. As a grade school biology teacher, Lili wanted to learn more about her body and research the most effective method for conceiving. In her search, she stumbled upon fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs) and how charting her cycle could indicate when ovulation is likely to occur.
“As a grade school biology teacher, Lili wanted to learn more about her body and… in her search, she stumbled upon fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs) and how charting her cycle could indicate when ovulation is likely to occur.”
As a busy, tech-savvy woman, Lili wanted a method of tracking her fertility that took little time each day and was accessible through an app. During a Google search, she discovered the Natural Cycles app and immediately downloaded it. Natural Cycles is an app that uses an algorithm to calculate green (non-fertile) and red (fertile) days during a woman’s cycle. The app requires a participant to take their temperature every morning and also input menstrual cycle data. An increase in basal body temperature (BBT) by 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit indicates that ovulation has occurred, as the rise in progesterone observed during the luteal phase is associated with an increase in body temperature. To complement her charting on the app, Lili also bought the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which offers a thorough exploration of additional fertility indicators (including cervical mucus) and provides insights into recognizing them within your own body. It guides the reader in utilizing this awareness to either prevent or achieve pregnancy and feel more connected to their own fertility. Lili quickly started reading, stopped her oral contraceptive, and began charting her cycles.**
When she first started charting, Lili’s primary goal was to avoid pregnancy and get to know her own body. She experienced irregular cycles after coming off the birth control pill, so she heavily relied on her basal body temperature and cervical mucus to indicate her fertile window. She recalls that the app was extremely user-friendly and catered to women like her with a consistent schedule. While reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility, Lili remembers being anxious about accurately evaluating her cervical mucus. However, to her surprise, this was an easy charting step for her to learn. To have even more data points indicating ovulation, Lili also utilized LH strips as a third biomarker.
“She experienced irregular cycles after coming off the birth control pill, so she heavily relied on her basal body temperature and cervical mucus to indicate her fertile window.”
When I asked if she was still anxious about conceiving before their intended window, even with the multiple data points, she replied that she actually had more peace of mind than when she was on the pill. Lili also observed a sense of relief while tracking her fertility.
When the three-month countdown before her husband’s deployment arrived, Lili felt confident that she understood her fertile window and would successfully be able to time conception. The couple conceived in the first month! Lili recalls knowing she was pregnant before taking a test because she did not observe the normal temperature drop after her luteal phase.
Lili’s entire experience charting is self-taught and self-guided. She did not see a medical professional or work with an instructor.** Rather she learned about her cycle by reading and the information she gained from the Natural Cycles app to understand her cycle.** While her biology background laid the foundation for her understanding, all the specifics regarding charting were easily accessible at a low cost. FABMs provide women with significant control over their family-planning decisions, enabling them to time pregnancies to unique family situations.
“FABMs provide women with significant control over their family-planning decisions, enabling them to time pregnancies to unique family situations.”
While not every situation is as ideal as hers, Lili is grateful for the role that FABMs played in achieving pregnancy so easily. At the time of the interview, Lili was six months into her pregnancy with a healthy baby boy and a due date perfectly planned around her husband’s return.
*Names have been changed to respect the privacy of the interviewee. All information has been shared with permission.
**As always, FACTS recommends learning how to use an FABM with guidance from an educator or clinician trained to teach these methods. Check out our Directory to find a physician or educator near you. To increase access to FABM services, consider applying to be listed in our directory if you are a FABM-trained medical professional or educator.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abigail Chamberlain
Abigail Chamberlain is a fourth-year medical student at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, CA. She completed her undergraduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. She plans to do her residency in Family Medicine and is extremely interested in preventative medicine and women’s health. She enrolled in the FACTS elective to gain a better understanding of natural family planning methods to help future patients achieve pregnancy before escalating care to expensive specialists and invasive treatments.
