Book Review: Taking Charge of Your Fertility

Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler is a manual for people who menstruate (and people intimately involved with people who menstruate) to learn more about their bodies by charting certain fertility signs. These include waking temperature, the presence/consistency of cervical fluid, and menstruation. Charting your cycle provides a wealth of information about your health and well-being, whether you are trying to avoid or achieve pregnancy, or if you just want a better understanding of how your body works.

Most of us did not receive adequate information from our parents and schools about the biological functions of our bodies and those of our partners. It’s important to be informed so that we can make the best decisions regarding our reproductive health. By paying attention to our own bodies we can take some power back from the medical and pharmaceutical industries, which maintain an imbalance of power when consumers and patients are uninformed. Instead of popping a pill we saw advertised on TV or blindly following the advice of a doctor who has known us for five minutes, we should work first and foremost to educate ourselves about our bodies and how they function. All bodies are different; charting your cycle will show you what is “normal” for you, so that you can better communicate with your health care provider when you feel you need to seek outside advice.

Much of Taking Charge of Your Fertility is concerned with explaining the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), a practice involving the charting of fertility signs that, when analyzed collectively, allow a person to make informed decisions regarding birth control or pregnancy achievement. FAM is a great way to involve your partner in your reproductive health and birth control method. How much involvement does your partner have when you just swallow a pill once a day, or go to the doctor for an injection every now and then? Your partner can help you check and record your fertility signs and you can analyze the chart together to determine when you are fertile.

Even if pregnancy is not a concern for you, charting your cycle is a good idea. Your chart can show you the relationship between levels of various hormones and your mood throughout your cycle, how stress and diet might be affecting your cycle length, and how to tell when something is so out of the ordinary that you should seek help from your health care provider. Taking Charge of Your Fertility explains these biological processes in great depth, but is extremely user-friendly and engaging. Every time I open it to look for a specific piece of information, I have a hard time pulling myself away.

This website offers more information about FAM and opportunities to buy the book or download fertility-charting software. -Adrienne