just bought the book and a thermometer, i ant start until Ive had my implant out, no periods atm, but I'll get a cap and some condoms when i have my implant out ot keep me going unitl i can use it, should give me time to read the book :) super excited!
I'm so excited! My book is here!
boogaloo
question: I've only just started reading the book so don't know much yet, but I've realised I have been ovulating regularly while on the implant by the description of the cervical fluid. Although I haven't been menstuating, do you thing I could start FAM while I still have my implant in? Or will it all be messed up when I get my implant out? I'm not sure :/
trust me when youve got a 10cm head forcing its way through your vaginal cavity and you get told ythe heart rate is dropping ect you wont care what or who is prodding around myt placenta ebruted when i had my baby and the midwives had to scoop yes arms deep inside my womb to get the placenta out other wise i couldve died they manages to leave a bit in and i was rushed in 2 weeks later in agony and had to be prodded then to find out i had a womb infection.
had my first at 16 you can imagine how scary it was i didnt let anyone touch me but her fatehr so it was embarrassing especially at that age but trust me once you know you need to be prodded you wont really care as long as you and the baby are okay you wont care about what the midwife is doing also good luck !
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You can certainly start charting while you have your implant in, I charted before I had my mirena coil removed just to get into the swing of it. You shouldn't rely solely on FAM for at least 3 cycles after you have it removed though, because bare in mind that your cycles may change a bit, and you can still get CM without ovulating (I have had a few cycles with very promising CM, so my body was trying, but didn't follow through on the end).
Ah good point. It's a bit disappointing about the waiting 3 cycles but it makes sense, it's about learning your own cycles. I'm going to start before I have my implant out just to get used to it, it will be interesting to see how much the implant changes things. Thanks for all your help, I wouldn't have even considered this without you x
No worries :) if you have any more questions just pop them here and I'll answer when I can. My best friend got me into FAM, I was really skeptical then she told me all about it and I was straight down the clinic having my coil removed, haha! Hope you get on okay with it :)
This is so interesting! Might have to bring it up with my OH. Thanks for sharing!
As a guy reading this it makes me think; don't use this method unless you intend to have children, to me it just screams you are going to get pregnant at some point, I'm not saying don't use it, but if it was me with my OH I just wouldn't trust it?
Just a male prospective?
That's a very naive way of looking at it! Many studies have proven FAM to be over 99% effective, as effective as other hormonal methods (such as the pill or patch), and certainly more effective than condoms. People would have you believe that hormones are the only proper way to avoid pregnancy, but that's nonsense!
The rhythm method is often confused with FAM, but it's not the same thing at all, and that is really unreliable. Once you know the science behind FAM it's easy to see how it successfully prevents pregnancy, and there's no silly maths or guessing involved.
No matter what the method of contraception is, you will always get people saying "I got pregnant on this!", and that goes for everything, including FAM. The vast majority of the time that's down to user failure, plus you very rarely hear from the people who are successful because they're busy getting on with it and not complaining on the Internet.
I really wish there wasn't such a stigma about it. It's a medically recognised form of contraception, in no way is it 'guaranteed to get you pregnant' as many people assume (unless you use it for that purpose).
Sorry for the rant, it's a real pet peeve of mine!
Quiet ones are worse! wrote:
As a guy reading this it makes me think; don't use this method unless you intend to have children, to me it just screams you are going to get pregnant at some point, I'm not saying don't use it, but if it was me with my OH I just wouldn't trust it?
Just a male prospective?
Im thinking along the similar lines, no disrespect to those who use it of course.
to me it relies a lot on you knowing yourself and being able to follow it correctly. Ive heard a lot about examining your cervical mucus and to me that sounds difficult and that there could be room for error?
Also it relies a lot on self control. If you know its unsafe to have sex can you guarentee you wont, or you will use condoms? I guess things can get out of control in the heat of the moment so its not failsafe.
In a way you're kind of right, it relies on you being your own form of contraception. A lot of people will be lazy or irresponsible and not do it every day or have sex despite thinking the are fertile. But then a lot of people have sex without contraception because they forgot the pill or don't have any condoms within arms reach. Lazy people will always find a way to be lazy.
the idea that the only reliable contraception so are those that don't involve human involvement is common but absurd. Personally one of the things that drew me to it is that I want to be responsible for my own body and understand the different things happening, I don't want to not be in control. Also, 40 years of having my body pumped with artificial hormones among other chemicals? No thanks.
I admit I would not be brave enough to rely just on the FAM (not that I am ever likely to need any form of birth control). I know several ladies who (usually for religious reasons) were (some of them would later decide that other forms of birth control were actually not that likely to pave their way tomnhell)/have been convinced that the only form of contraception that wasn't sinful was tracking their cycles and using the FAM (and not having sex when they were fertile). All of them (even those who I know to be immensely meticulous about everything they ever do and who would - pun intended - religiously follow the FAM rules) got pregnant within a couple of years, despite their best efforts to wait for a bit until they had their first baby (most of them got married when they were about 20, they were "typical", old-fashioned Catholic virgin brides who nevertheless wanted to finish their uni education before they became mothers). I suppose that when you, for example, go through loads of stress or when you get ill (or when you use some medications), your cycle may get kind of funny, rendering the FAM somewhat... unreliable. When you really want to avoid pregnancy without being fed hormones, I guess you have to try combining as many methods as possible (probably the FAM & condoms & spermicide)...
Briona that does happen, but if you have been ill or your cycles change you're supposed to stay protected 100% of the time until things settle down, or you get used to your new pattern again. Of course a lot of people don't follow the rules because they get lazy or content with it, and that's where problems arise. If you're committed then it's a fantastic and very reliable method of contraception.
Hormonal birth control has the benefit of reducing certain types of cancer, but also increases the risk of other cancers and can wreak havoc on your body in the long run. I feel so much better now that I'm hormone free, I didn't realise how much all that stuff had changed me until I stopped using it.
Boogaloo wrote:
Cycles can vary, your previous cycles may give you an idea of when to expect ovulation, but really you just work it out as you go along based on your fertility signs. The 20 days for me includes the 5 at the start, then every dry day, and my luteal phase. My fertile window is about 10 days long, so that's the time I can't have unprotected sex. My fertile window starts as soon as I start getting cervical fluid, and ends 4 days after my peak cervical fluid day, and when I've had 3 high temps, which confirms ovulation.
It sounds tricky, but honestly that book is so simple and easy to understand. There's loads of example charts in there too :)
In terms of cervical fluid, you're checking colour and consistency. Sticky and opaque is usually what you'll get first, then it becomes more watery as you get more fertile. When it's clear and really stretchy, like raw eggwhites, that signals that you're about to ovulate. Your peak CM day is the day you've had the most fertile cervical fluid, usually the eggwhite kind, but some women may not get this so in that case it's whatever is normal for them.
I'm sorry I probably haven't explained this very well! X
I definitely can't use this method then as EVERY day i have the eggwhite type and in quite large ammounts, what i'd give to get a "dry" day!
I think it's one of those things where you need to know everything before you start, like how you know when ovulation is delayed and how your period can mask cervical fluid. There is a lot to learn.
ive only done it one day but examining cervical fluid I think I have BV so will have to get that sorted before I use it as contraception anyway as that discharge can mask cervical fluid. As a biology student I find it fascinating that you can see a temp shift and know you've ovulated.
Boogaloo wrote:
That's a very naive way of looking at it! Many studies have proven FAM to be over 99% effective, as effective as other hormonal methods (such as the pill or patch), and certainly more effective than condoms. People would have you believe that hormones are the only proper way to avoid pregnancy, but that's nonsense!
The rhythm method is often confused with FAM, but it's not the same thing at all, and that is really unreliable. Once you know the science behind FAM it's easy to see how it successfully prevents pregnancy, and there's no silly maths or guessing involved.
No matter what the method of contraception is, you will always get people saying "I got pregnant on this!", and that goes for everything, including FAM. The vast majority of the time that's down to user failure, plus you very rarely hear from the people who are successful because they're busy getting on with it and not complaining on the Internet.
I really wish there wasn't such a stigma about it. It's a medically recognised form of contraception, in no way is it 'guaranteed to get you pregnant' as many people assume (unless you use it for that purpose).
Sorry for the rant, it's a real pet peeve of mine!
No offence intended I just couldn't cope with the are we having a baby this month or not question, when compared with the only types of BC we have used in the past, and having had an unexpected little one, that's where my fear comes from.
This app has a community side where you can share your cycle and ask questions. So many people either do like 4 temp readings and 2 cervical fluid readings in a whole month and start asking when they ovulated. Or you can see that they've had unprotected sex right when they're fertile when they're trying to avoid pregnancy. Just shows how people can have all the information and think they're doing it properly and they're pretty much unprotected
That's true. You're using Kindara aren't you Y&F? It's a great app, the staff at Kindara are very friendly and helpful too if you ever have questions :)
I think the method is only as successful as you make it, you have to be 100% comitted or accidents will happen, and you shouldn't blame the method for that. Of course there is the 0.4% who will fall pregnant regardless, so I guess anyone using it will have to decide if that's an 'acceptable risk' or not. For me that was always acceptable, because I wanted kids at some point and it's a tiny risk anyway, no different from other methods.
When I told my mum I was practising FAM (she's very nosy!) she immedietly jumped on the pregnancy bandwagon, so I said to her "if you had a 99.6% chance of winning the lottery, you'd play wouldn't you, because those odds pretty much guarantee you a win? This is 99.6% effective, I'm pretty much guaranteed not to get pregnant if I follow it properly". :)
Haha! Very good point with the chances! Well it's like most contraception, if you don't use a condom, pill, cap, diaphragm, pull out method right you'll probably get pregnant but there's no excuse on this., you know whether you're fertile or not