How a Fertility Awareness Educator Can Help You Conceive Faster Naturally
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What Is a Fertility Awareness Educator?
A Fertility Awareness Educator is a professional trained to teach individuals or couples how to understand and track their natural fertility signs to achieve or avoid pregnancy or to monitor reproductive health.
These educators specialize in teaching Fertility Awareness Methods (FAMs), which involve identifying biological markers that indicate fertility.
Some of the important biomarkers we teach you to identify include changes in your cervical fluid, rises in your Basal Body Temperature (BBT), and position changes of your cervix.
How Does a FAM Educator Help Me Conceive Faster?
A FAM educator helps individuals identify and optimize their fertile window.
Through 1:1 instruction, your FAM educator will help you identify the opening and closing of your fertile window. Since pregnancy can only occur during a woman’s fertile window, it is important for couples to time sex appropriately when trying to conceive.
What is the Fertile Window?
In health class you may have been led to believe that you are fertile every day of the month. This is simply not true. While men are fertile every day of the year, women are ONLY fertile during their fertile window.
The fertile window refers to the period in a woman's menstrual cycle when she is most likely to conceive.
This window lasts about 6 days because sperm can live inside the female reproductive tract for up to 5 days, while an egg can only be fertilized for about 12–24 hours after ovulation.
Wait, Can’t Ovulation Tests Determine When I Ovulate?
Yes, and no. Ovulation tests detect the presence of luteinizing hormone (LH) in your urine. LH is released just prior to ovulation. For women with regular cycles, ovulation tests can be a fairly accurate predictor of impending ovulation. For women with irregular cycles, including those with PCOS, these tests tend to yield many false positives.
When trying to increase the odds of conceiving it is important that the sperm are already waiting in the reproductive tract when the egg is released.
Sometimes timing intercourse after getting a positive LH test means that the best time to try for a baby has already passed for that cycle. For some women, the fertile quality cervical fluid needed for sperm to survive is already dried up at the time of their positive LH test.
So How Do I Identify My Fertile Window?
The fertile window can be identified and opened by paying attention to changes in a woman’s cervical fluid. You may notice a wetter sensation at the vulva as estrogen rises, and ovulation approaches. You may observe a change from dry to moist, or from moist to slippery, and lubricative.
Wipe before and after using the restroom. Notice whether it feels dry and halting with no visible mucus, or whether there is a slippery, gliding sensation. As estrogen rises during the first half of a woman’s cycle, cervical fluid becomes wetter, slipperier, and more abundant.
Without this fertile medium, sperm cannot survive long enough in the vagina to make the journey to fertilize an egg.
Various Fertility Awareness Methods categorize cervical fluid in different ways. Some methods categorize the fluid as dry (nothing seen or felt), sticky or gummy, creamy, egg white, or watery.
Dry and sticky are least fertile, while creamy, and especially egg white or watery are most likely to facilitate conception.
Working with a FAM educator can take the guesswork out of identifying and interpreting the differences in your cervical fluid.
Contact Us Today to Optimize Your Fertile Window as Soon as THIS Cycle.
Take our TTC Course, includes a 60-90 minute virtual class & 3 months of 1:1 charting support*
*Does not cover the rules for using FAM as contraception.
What is Basal Body Temperature?
Basal Body Temperature (BBT) is your body’s lowest resting temperature, typically measured first thing in the morning before any activity.
Tracking BBT can help identify ovulation, as it slightly rises after the release of an egg, under the effects the hormone, progesterone. When working with a fertility awareness educator you will likely be taught best practices for taking and recording your BBT. When charted on a graph, a biphasic pattern will appear when a woman is confirmed to be ovulating.
BBT is a great tool to confirm that ovulation is happening. It is fairly simple to do at home, and cost effective. Remember, ovulation tests can’t confirm that ovulation is happening, and without ovulation, a pregnancy cannot occur.
If your FAM educator notices a pattern of anovulation (not ovulating), they will likely suggest you see a provider to explore and address the possible reasons that your body is not releasing an egg each month.
Discovering anovulation early in your TTC journey can help you determine when it's time to see a practitioner sooner than the general recommendation of after 12 months of trying.
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What is Cervical Position?
Your Cervix is the lower part of your uterus that can be felt through the vagina. The cervix is what opens and thins out to allow a baby to descend from the uterus into the birth canal. During your period, the cervix opens slightly to allow menstrual flow to pass out of the body.
Your cervix is very sensitive to the hormonal changes that occur throughout your cycle.
When estrogen is low, your cervix feels hard like the tip of your nose, is closed, and sits lower in the vagina. When estrogen is high around the time of ovulation, the cervix rises higher in the vagina, feels more open, and becomes soft like the tip of your tongue.
Changes in your cervix are often subtle and can take practice and careful observation to detect. Checking your cervix isn't always necessary, but some women like to corroborate their other findings by adding in this additional biomarker.
Conclusion
In conclusion, understanding and tracking your body’s natural fertile signs, such as cervical fluid, basal body temperature, and cervical position, can significantly improve your chances of conception, and potentially allow you to conceive faster.
By identifying your most fertile days, you can time intercourse more effectively to maximize your chances of conceiving. For many couples without known fertility issues, learning to time intercourse to conceive can help avoid unnecessary and potentially costly fertility treatments.
By identifying anovulation early through charting, you can make sure not to delay seeking help when needed.
For those new to fertility awareness, consulting a trained educator can provide personalized support and insights.
Contact Us Today to Optimize Your Fertile Window as Soon as THIS Cycle.
Take our TTC Course, includes a 60-90 minute virtual class & 3 months of 1:1 charting support*
*Does not cover the rules for using FAM as contraception.
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