Fertility Awareness & Natural Fertility Resources

Long time no blog… Its been a while!  But I am back today with something I have become SUPER passionate about lately- fertility- and more importantly- natural fertility and dealing with it holistically.

I think its so important for us women to get to know our bodies.  Its something that I avoided and honestly didn’t ever care about for most of my life.  I was put on birth control at age 13 (!) and didn’t get off of it until age 28…. That’s a long time to suppress my body’s natural rhythms and cycles.  Now that I am not taking the pill anymore I am completely blown away by the symptoms and side effects that I dealt with for so long that I didn’t even know were from it.  When I think about it I honestly get pissed at my doctors and pissed at myself that I took it for so long.  More so at myself because I allowed it. But also at doctors because they “prescribe” birth control to help with cramps and other symptoms.  It is not a treatment drug…. All it does is mask the symptoms of whatever you’re dealing with.  And whatever you’re dealing with is an underlying problem caused by something else.  Sometimes it is easy to figure out that underlying cause and sometimes it takes a little digging.  

This brings me to my first recommendation.  If you are dealing with any hormone-related issues and/or problems I cannot recommend The Period Repair Manual enough.  It is FULL of information about how to fix a lot of hormonal imbalances and problems through food, supplements, herbs and lifestyle.  I mean, what do you have to lose by trying these things out?  You have to eat every day so why not make food medicine?  

The book was written by Dr. Lauren Briden, a Naturopathic Doctor with nearly 20 years of experience in women’s health.  Some of the topics include How to come off of birth control, What your period should look like, What can go wrong, and How to talk to your doctor.  For $10 this book is just such a good reference manual.

My second resource is the mother of all fertility books- Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. I will recommend this to anyone who will listen to me. I read this huge book in one weekend because I was so fascinated by all of this information about my own body that no one ever taught me and I never learned.  This is what they should give young girls in sex ed.  Its amazing! It teaches you all about how the female reproductive system works.  It is also how I learned, along with so many others, how to chart my cycles for birth control.  

I’ve also been obsessed with listening to podcasts while I commute lately.  One of my favorites is The Fertility Friday Podcast. 

Lisa, a Fertility Awareness advocate for over a decade, discusses a wide range of women and fertility-related topics each week.  She has great guest speakers that I have learned so much valuable information form.  

I know this is a controversial topic and highly personal but I think this is information that needs to be out there in the world.  I consider myself not only a health-conscience person but intelligent also.  I had no idea about any of this.  I would go out of my way to buy foods with no additives and dairy with no hormones but I continued to pump my body synthetic hormones every day for over 15 years.  I wish I knew all of this sooner.  My goal is to inform people of the information we have been taught is taboo or that no one should talk about.  It is our bodies.  We only have one.  It does so many amazing things for us.  We should honoring it by being intuitive and listening to it.  The reproductive system is such a tell-all for what is going on in our bodies.  But we have been taught to either ignore it or mask it and make the signals go away.  

If I can turn even a few people on to learning about this I would be overwhelmed with joy.  The amount of freedom and empowerment I have felt from learning this information is too much for words.  It has made me appreciate being a woman and appreciate all it does for me.  If anyone needs help or advice and/or is interested in learning more please let me know!