Today (December 1) is World AIDS Day. A day to remember that people around the world are still living with HIV and still dying from AIDS-related illnesses.
How is HIV related to fertility awareness? All women have decisions to make regarding contraception, planning for pregnancy, being sexual with their partners, and their relationship with their bodies, and these are all impacted by living with HIV.
I was recently asked if I teach women to understand their cervical mucus or if I only teach temperature charting. What I want every woman to understand is that cervical mucus is Queen when it comes to practicing fertility awareness methods (FAM)!
In fact, did you know that there are some methods of FAM that only use mucus?
As I said in my How To Chart (Quick & Dirty Version) article, the practice of using Fertility Awareness Methods (FAM) involves monitoring your body’s signs of fertility.
The three signs of fertility that can be monitored are cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and cervical position. I now want to explain in a bit more detail how this works and why you need to look at these particular body signs.
So you’ve heard about charting your fertility or using the fertility awareness method (FAM) and you’re wondering what it actually looks like. Is it easy or hard? Take a lot of time or a little?
While it may seem a bit overwhelming, I promise you that it’s really simple, and once you get into the habit of doing it it’ll be as simple as brushing your teeth.
Here’s how to chart in three easy steps.
I keep talking about cervical mucus, so I want to make sure that it’s clear what I’m referring to.
Cervical mucus is a type of fluid that your body makes when you are fertile (close to ovulation). This is a magical fluid because it allows sperm to live up to five whole days inside the woman’s reproductive tract. This is why it’s so important to know what it is and how to interpret it, because knowing this will allow you to know when you can (or cannot) get pregnant in each menstrual cycle.