“Taking Charge of Your Fertility” and How I Got Started with NFP

When the world shut down in 2020 and gyms were closed, I turned to YouTube to keep up with working out. Thanks to my sister’s recommendation, every day I followed along to a dance workout by MadFit. My favorite was Say So by Doja Cat.

I was scrolling through her videos and stopped when one caught my eye. I can no longer find the video on YouTube, but it was titled something like “What I do for birth control.”

Maddie, who produces MadFit videos, explained that she avoided pregnancy by tracking her temperature. She showed the camera her charts, and I was so intrigued. I had never heard of this before. At the time, I didn’t realize that this was a form of NFP. Growing up Catholic, I’ve always heard of NFP, but I really didn’t know what it was. I just assumed it was something like tracking your cycles with a calendar.

In the video, Maddie recommended the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility (“TCOYF”) by Toni Weschler. Some may consider this the “Bible” of fertility awareness.

I stopped at Barnes and Noble and purchased the book for $20. While reading the book, it dawned on me that I really had no idea how my body worked or what it was capable of. The lack of education around women’s health still astounds me.

TCOYF is a great book to learn more about how menstrual cycles work. It has instructions on how to track cycles using the sympto-thermal method. However, I would not recommend learning how to chart by reading this book (or any book, for that matter).

I charted for about one year, just from knowledge I gained from TCOYF, before I decided to seek out instruction from SymptoPro. The main reason I would not recommend learning NFP from a book is that all women’s bodies are different. You think you understand the charting guidelines… until you don’t. I believe every woman will experience at least one confusing cycle, even if they are “typically” cycling. Then when you are postpartum or in perimenopause, cycles can get even more confusing. This is why it is important to learn from a certified instructor—someone you can go to with specific questions on your cycle.

What I love about SymptoPro is that there are CLEAR observation techniques and rules to follow. I found that the rules in TCOYF were extremely vague. My charts were very messy and had a lot of question marks when following the TCOYF guidelines. When I started the SymptoPro course, I had to “unlearn” the TCOYF information.

Now, I feel extremely confident in my charting because of SymptoPro’s clear, research-based methods, and I wish I had taken the course sooner! It’s amazing to have the ability to read your body through observing biomarkers. Learning how to chart my cycles has given me a much deeper appreciation of how women’s bodies are made.