What is Fertility Awareness?
Fertility Awareness Method is an umbrella term for any method used to:
observe the female body’s signs of fertility
identify the fertile and infertile phases of each menstrual cycle and therefore
avoid or achieve pregnancy
Observe, identify and track hormonal imbalances and menstrual cycle conditions
Most methods, of which there are several, use a combination of ‘signs’, ‘biomarkers’ or ‘symptoms’ to identify the levels of oestrogen and progesterone, open the fertile phase, and close the fertile phase.
Do you have a menstrual cycle? Okay, I’m talking to you:
You were born with all the eggs in your ovaries that you will ever have. In contrast, males release millions of sperm at every ejaculation, and produce them constantly throughout the day in the testicles. Your menstrual cycle probably ranges between 23 and 35 days, with the bleed length lasting between 3 and 5 days.
Ovulation is the event - generally mid cycle - of one egg being released from one of your ovaries (you have two, one on each side within your abdomen). This ovulated egg has a finite 24 hour life span in every person. Ovulation can only occur once each menstrual cycle.
Inside the neck of your cervix (the opening of your uterus), you produce a substance called Cervical Mucus, or cervical fluid, which can keep sperm alive for up to 5 days. It allows sperm to be able to wait around inside the vagina and cervix for this time, waiting and hoping to get a chance to fertilise the egg during its 24 hour life span.
So when using a Fertility Awareness Method for conception and contraception, we work on the basis that you are only fertile for 6 days of any given cycle. That’s 5 days of sperm survival and 1 day of egg survival.
Most symptothermal methods (meaning using ‘symptoms’ and ‘thermal’ tracking ie waking temperature) of fertility awareness use 3 main signs to get as close as possible to identifying these 8 days.
The main three are:
1: Cervical mucus.
Cervical mucus is produced in the crypts on the cervix, which is the opening to the uterus. It’s role in conception is huge: it is a transporter and nurturer of sperm, without which sperm wouldn’t be able to penetrate an egg. In cervical mucus, sperm is kept alive and nourished for up to 6 days whilst it waits for an egg. When CM is not present, sperm cannot stay alive in the vagina or cervix longer than 6 hours, before it perishes due to starvation and the natural acidic PH of a non fertile vaginal canal. The fertility of Cervical mucus (meaning its alkalinity, water and sugar content) starts rising soon after the bleed, under the influence of increasing oestrogen levels. Estrogen falls immediately after ovulation, and so cervical mucus dries up.
The quality, texture, colour, quantity and sensation of cervical mucus can tell us:
Whether estrogen is present and in what quanitity
when we are approaching ovulation
if we are post ovulation
2: Basal body temperature
BBT is taken upon waking throughout the cycle. After ovulation, progesterone is produced by the ovary. The presence of progesterone warms the body by around 0.2 degrees Celsius. You can think of this like ‘warming a bun in the oven’: ovulation has occurred and the body doest yet know if fertilisation has happened so progesterone (the ‘pro-gestation’ hormone) does everything in its power to help a possible conception take root in the uterus. Progesterone maintains the lining of the uterus and when it starts to fall around 12-16 days after ovulation, 2 things happen: BBT also falls and the shedding of the uterus (a period) begins.
Basal body temperature observations can tell us:
That ovulation has already happened
The levels of progesterone
That a period is approaching
That we have closed the fertile phase (once progesterone is present at a high enough level, we can be sure that the egg has died already in this cycle)
3: Cervix position
…is a secondary sign to the first two (eg recommended to be used as a ‘double checking’ sign, although some people and methods give it more attention).
The cervix, the opening of the uterus, and can be felt by the fingers on inserting them into the vagina and feeling around for a firm bottle neck type organ with a little dimple in the middle (the os, or cervix opening). Under the influence of estrogen in the first half of the cycle, the cervix moves to better accommodate for conception. During infertile times, or when progesterone is dominant, it is nestled low down and against the side of the vaginal canal, and the opening (os) feels firm and closed - like the tip of your nose. When estrogen starts prepping the body for ovulation, it starts to change until, at ovulation is at its highest and straightest in the vaginal canal, is soft and open, and probably covered in peak, most slippery and stretchy, cervical mucus.
You can see some photos of most fertile cervix positions here thanks to the beautiful cervix project.
Cervix position can tell us:
Its softness, openness, wetness and height up inside the vaginal canal tells us that estrogen is rising towards ovulation
Its firmness, closeness and low position tells us that we are probably in an infertile phase (either ovulation has already happened this cycle, or it is not close yet in this cycle).
You must get to know your own cervix changes to be able to discern these subtle yet communicative differences
Another sign used by some FAMs are Lutenising hormone test (pee) sticks, because LH surges to trigger ovulation once estrogen has reached a peak.
Some FAMs only use cervical mucus observations.
After some time of charting, or even immediately, you will also notice shifts in your energy and moods that sync up with the signs you are charting. You might also notice changes in your breasts, skin, hair, desire, digestive system, sleep patterns, and more. Some people notice sensations in the abdomen around the time of ovulation.
All of these things can greatly add to your knowing of yourself and your rhythms, and help you align your life with your cyclical energy to create and flow with ease. If you are experiencing a difficult cycle symptom you can use your charting to monitor how that symptoms changes under the influence of cycle healing practices that you undertake. *Although not advised to be reliable signs of fertility if you are using the method to avoid pregnancy.
Like the symptoms you possibly feel around you period, you will notice that there are signs to be observed throughout the cycle. None of these should be painful, but sometimes it can be uncomfortable or challenging to feel so changeable all the time: just when you’ve started feeling motivated and confident, the next day you feel anxious and tired. And repeat.
Common rhetoric about ‘women having to deal with so much’ and the ‘unfairness’ of having a menstrual cycle serves a victim mentality. It doesn’t empower us to see the gift of being so tangibly cyclical, in mirror to the way 99.9% of the rest of life of earth functions.
Every cycle we have an opportunity to come face to face with all the many sides of ourself. Yes, it’s challenging in a world that has denied us of our nature, oppressed and abused the wildness of this natural cycle within us. But we can choose to refuse to be shamed about it any longer, to refuse to see ourselves as broken or wrong for our shape shifting, and instead step into such deeper levels of self acceptance and power from within.
Go well,
Isobel