Hormone Free Birth Control...That Actually Works!

Something I feel very strongly about... considering that I am a women... is women's health. Makes sense, right? Well our health is something most women in America are actually very uneducated about. Despite all of the health/ sex ed courses given in school, nothing is designed to teach women how are bodies actually work. Being one of the many uneducated women, I thought the only way to make sure I didn't get pregnant was through hormonal birth control. It's very common. Every visit to the OBGYN includes a question about birth control. What isn't as commonly talked about though are the side effects that come along with the most common birth control options. My doctor never asked, "would you like to try the pill that is going to cause your hormones to be extremely heightened, resulting in you being very emotional on a regular basis?" or "How about the birth control shot that will make you gain 20 pounds in as little as 3 months?" or "Would you be interested in the IUD that is going to make you have a 6 month long period, causing you extreme pain the entire time that is so bad you'll black out multiple times?" My doctor never said any of that to me, but those were my experiences when I tried each of those 3 most popular birth control options. I was on the pill when I got pregnant the first time, so after my daughter was born I tried the shot. I was so depressed that I kept gaining weight and eventually started trying to starve myself to lose the weight until I found out it was actually a side effect of the shot. As soon as I discontinued use, I started to lose all of that weight that had been piling on. So back on the pill I went because what other option did I have? I soon noticed that I was super emotional ALL the time. It was rough, but it was better than being unexpectedly pregnant, right? Wrong. I felt like a crying, angry monster, so I tried the IUD- something that terrified me because I didn't want a foreign object in my body. But... I was desperate. I lasted 6 months because I was trying to be tough, but I bled almost every day that whole time, and had such bad pain that I blacked out multiple times. I thought I was being a wimp, so I kept shaking it off, trying not to complain. It turned out that my IUD had shifted right after I got it, and it was causing lacerations to my cervix. The pain was real, and I was lucky to not have lasting scaring from it. So again, back to the pill I crawled getting pregnant for a second time on this most popular and most common, 93% effective option. In my last trimester of pregnancy my doctor brought up birth control, so I could plan for after baby was born. Reluctantly, I told him I'd go back on the pill and he seemed happy with my option... at least one of us was, right? By some miracle of the universe, I happened across my current birth control option on Tiktok of all places! It's hormone free and it is JUST AS EFFECTIVE AS THE PILL! A whole whopping 93% and it won't give me a single side effect. So what is this miraculous, magical sorcery that I discovered? It's called FAM- the fertility awareness method, and I found a way to track it that takes basically ZERO EFFORT on my part (making it pretty much idiot proof).

So anybody can use FAM without any fancy devices or apps. It was one of the first forms of birth control before all the medicines and hormones and inserts. It basically works by knowing how the female body operates. Women are actually only fertile SIX DAYS out of the month- the 1 day we ovulate and the 5 days prior? Why 5 days prior? Well that's just because sperm can stay alive and active for up to 5 days. That means women have around 24 days per month with zero chance of conception...so why are we putting literal poison into our bodies every single 365 days of the year when there are only 72 days that can actually get us pregnant? It's because most women just don't know how to figure out when those 6 "danger days" are each month. It's actually pretty easy to figure out though. All you have to do is monitor your body temperature. So when a woman ovulates, her body temperature rises. After ovulation, it goes back down. Birth control is literally as simple as taking your temperature every day. Now if someone would have just told me that, I would have been like "Nope. I'm sticking to the pill because there is way too much room for error there." Well luckily we live in the 21st century and technology cuts out human error. There are multiple apps that track this data for you!

Natural Cycles Fertility Tracking App

This is probably the most popular or well known app for fertility tracking. I use it myself. When you sign up, they send a thermometer in the mail that has blue tooth capability. Each morning when you wake up- before you even get out of bed-you just stick the thermometer in your mouth, take your temp, and the data syncs to the app on your phone. Using an algorithm and all of its techy smarts, the app then fills out a calendar with all of your "red days" which are days you could get pregnant and your "green days" which are the days you are definitely not fertile. It's great. It's easy. It's affordable. And most importantly, it's EFFECTIVE!

https://www.natural-cycles.sjv.io/everythingmom

Making Your Life Even Easier with the Oura Ring

So the Natural Cycles app recently partnered with an awesome device called the Oura Ring. The Oura Ring can do a lot of things like track your sleep, activity, and heartrate, but most importantly for women- it tracks your body temperature. The reason I invested in this ring is because I knew without a doubt in my mind, body, and soul that I couldn't trust myself to remember to take my temperature every single morning before getting out of bed- especially with a newborn. I would definitely screw that up. I know there are people that are great at having routines that would be able to perfectly operate solely with the Natural Cycles app and their thermometer... I'm not that person. So I bit the bullet and bought the Oura Ring...I'm not going to lie, it's a little pricy. But for me, personally, it was worth the cost to me so I could avoid going back to hormonal birth control and the ring is how I could ensure that it's actually 93% effective like Natural Cycles advertises. It comes with a charger and the ring. You can choose from 2 designs and multiple colors. It's actually pretty cute in my opinion. I only have to charge my ring once every 4 or 5 days and it only takes about an hour to be fully charged. All in all, I'd say it's probably the best purchase I've ever made, and I'm so happy that I found a fool proof way to avoid hormonal birth control AND an unplanned pregnancy.

https://ouraring.com/

Family Planning Beyond Birth Control

I wanted to spend just one last little second talking about the other side of family planning- trying to conceive. My entire article has been about preventing pregnancy because that is what I personally wanted from my own use of the Oura Ring and Natural Cycles App. I was tired of being pumped full of hormones, and I wanted to tell other women how they can be both hormone AND baby free. At some point though, a woman may not want to be baby free and that's great too! Natural Cycles can be used when trying to conceive as well. When signing up, it asks if you are using the app to prevent pregnancy or to help get pregnant. At any point, you can change the settings in your app so the algorithm will adjust to what YOU need and want as far as pregnancy goes. Whether getting pregnant or avoiding pregnancy, tracking your cycle can be very helpful. I hope this article was a useful first step in learning about your body and the birth control options available to women.

The link below offers a discount to the yearly subscription for Natural Cycles and provides their thermometer for free!

https://signup.naturalcycles.com/en-US/secret?code=BEAN20&utm_campaign=affiliate&utm_medium=partner&utm_content=bean&utm_term=bean&utm_source=code