An ode to charting

I love to chart.

I love to talk about charting.

I love to teach people how to chart.

Charting? What is this charting? It's also known as Natural Family Planning (NFP) or Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). It is a way to control the size of your family without the use of artificial contraception such as hormones or barrier methods.

I didn't realize how much havoc the artificial hormones were wrecking in my body until after I stopped taking them. Now that I have learned more about them, I can't think of a single good reason why any woman should take them. Seriously. If you want to take them for birth control, charting works great. If you have some sort of medical condition such as painful periods, excessive bleeding or irregular periods, then the reason for those things should be figured out and not just treated with hormones to make them "disappear".

If you are interesting in learning more about charting, I suggest reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. This is where I started and it's sort of the bible for the charting community. To give you an example of the efficacy of charting, I am on my 26th cycle of charting to avoid (CTA) and in that time, there have only been two "incidents". Now those "incidents" came about for a reason and went away for reason but that's for another post on another day. Needless to say, they were due to user failure and not method failure.

To give you an example of what a chart looks like, and also to introduce you to a great online charting tool, I present: MY CHART. Enjoy!