Taking Charge of Your Fertility, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health

I have spent 5 years of marriage using this method to AVOID pregnancy. My mom used this method for 25 years of marriage, both to conceive (5 kids) and avoid conceiving. Three of her five pregnancies were planned. The other two - one was conceived less than 2 mths after another was born, and my mom didn't know you could conceive so early while still breastfeeding. The other unexpected was conceived while my mom was fasting (juice only) for a week, because fasting throws off your body temp! This book is an enclopedia of the female reproductive system, but it's easy reading. With this method, it doesn't matter how unusual your cycles are - mine range from 30 to 120 days. Other methods of natural planning are very narrow-minded: The "rhythm" method relies on counting days only. The Billings method relies only on cervical fluid. Typical NFP relies only on waking "basal" body temperatures. This book teaches you about all three, and how they work together to help you predict ovulation and understand your unique body and cycles. If you don't think you're organized enough for natural family planning, because of the temperature and charting, DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU! (You still have to be organized enough to know where your pills are and take them every day!). The benefits are SO worth it. The book does not set out to slam any un-natural type of birth control, it just helps you understand your body. However, the potential side effects of un-natural birth control are SO much more than the medical field will tell you (birth-defects, miscarriages, irritability, depression, emotional instability, and even unplanned pregnancies!) - I have sisters and friends that can attest to EACH of the above. Also, the hormones that stimulate ovulation also create HAPPY moods (including being amorous), like the opposite of PMS! If you are on the pill, you will never get this happy time of the month, because it is cutting off those hormones - but you do get to keep PMS! ALSO HIGHLY RECOMMEND Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition by Marilyn Shannon. Addresses ways to manage fertility and balance feminine issues using nutrition, vitamin, herbal supplements, weight management, and more. Totally different subject than Taking Charge... but highly necessary. Get them both together. UPDATE 2010: My husband and I have effectively used the NFP methods described in this book to avoid pregnancy for eight years. NFP is effective as long as you actually USE it. People you have heard of who accidentally got pregnant on NFP weren't using it properly, I can pretty much guarantee you. Now that we are using it to try to start a family, I feel really confident knowing my body so well, and understanding ovulation and fertility. UPDATE 2014: Our son was born in 2012, thanks to understanding my cycles. I was ovulating, but not getting pregnant despite an effective timing of ovulation and intercourse. As a result, I was able to see a doctor and have some thyroid and hormonal issues addressed. They didn't try giving me ovulation-inducing drugs, because we could see from my charts that ovulation was not the problem; something else was. I conceived a few months after treatment for those issues. We have now used the FAM method after my son's birth, to help plan our second child.

I feel compelled to write a review of "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" because this book has really helped me. It was recommended by a friend who had some problems conceiving. First, I have to say that I bought this book on November 16, I immediately started reading it and charting my fertiliy signs using the charts provided in the book (which is incredibly easy and quick to do, and kind of fun, too), and by DECEMBER 13 I had a positive pregnancy test and now am about 8 weeks along! Not kidding!! I can't really give this book full credit for getting me pregnant, because it really was due to me and my husband taking the information we learned and applying it. But what this awesome book did was give me a wealth of information about how to interpret what was going on with my cycle and my body and gave me more confidence in my ability to conceive. The other thing I love about it is that it gave me a sense of control over something that most women often feel very little control over, especially those having trouble conceiving. This book made me realize that I know more about my own body than any doctor ever will, and it was very powerful for me to realize that I already have the tools for understanding what is going on with my cycle already naturally built in. I honestly thought that it would take much longer to conceive based on several factors, one of which was my irregular cycle (I had been charting just my periods and ovulation predictor sticks for 6 months prior to reading the book), but by applying what I learned from the book, I discovered that I ovulate almost a week AFTER the "traditional" Day 14 that most literature (and even my doctor) tells you. The information I learned about charting basal body temperature is what led me to take a pregnancy test when my temperature stayed elevated when it should have gone down, and I found out about my pregnancy at just 4 weeks along. I was also able to know exactly when I conceived and that my due date is actually one week earlier than the due date determined by the standard 40-week pregnancy wheel that my doctor used (this was confirmed when I had a dating ultrasound!). I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is also not just for trying to get pregnant, it can also be used for avoiding pregnancy naturally, and also covers womens health topics for all ages, including menopause. I am 34 years old and am amazed at what little I really knew about my fertility and monthly cycle prior to this. Before I bought the book, I had friends recommending that I buy things like a $200 fertility monitor, but I am so glad that I waited and decided to really educate myself first. That made all the difference and I believe it saved me a LOT of time and money. If you are having trouble conceiving or understanding your cycle, or even if you are starting out with trying to have a baby, I would highly recommend this book.

This book does a great job at explaining in detail how fertility works for women, and how natural birth control can be beneficial and just as effective, if not more, than other methods of birth control. The information in this book is very valuable and explains a lot of things most women ask themselves at some points in their life. It also explains the natural birth control method very well, so that the reader can start using it while reading the book. The charting method is very simple. By now there is already a free app available that makes charting even easier and faster (Kindara App). It's a very simple method that is effective if done correctly and responsibly. It takes time to make it a habit, but it is definitely worth it. The book also explains why some women can't get pregnant, some appropriate solutions, and it also shows women how to determine when they are fertile to maximize success for achieving pregnancy. Overall the information in the book is absolutely incredible. I can't believe that this has not been taught in school, therefore I think every girl and woman should read this book, just so they are given all the necessary and correct information about woman's fertility. It is very easy to read and easy to understand. There are many illustrations that help understand the concept of the natural birth control method, as well as when trying to achieve pregnancy. Different kind of conditions are explained, as well as their symptoms, and how some of them can be treated with a physician with the help of charting your cycles. Great book and a must-read for all women!

Me ayudó a dejar de tomar la píldora y a conocer mejor a mi propio cuerpo. Ya me preocupo menos cuando noto cosas que anteriormente no entendía. Creo que es un libro que deben leer todas las mujeres. La autora basa todo en investigaciones y en sus experiencias y las de otras mujeres. Utiliza un lenguaje que es fácil seguir y muchas veces es divertido. (Esta versión está en inglés)

Es un libro que toda mujer debe de leer, me tarde mucho es descubrirlo. Da excelente explicación de cómo funciona nuestro cuerpo y entender todo lo relacionado con nuestra fertilidad. Me gusta tenerlo en físico para poder consultarlo cuando tenga dudas cosa que en el kindle no sería tan sencillo.

This book is an eyeopener for everyone. It made me figure out that the female cycle is quite different to what they teach you at school. It talks mainly about the temperature method but ever since reading the book and using the methods my life has completely changed. I absolutely love this book and reccomend it to anyone, if struggling with fertility, wanting to learn more about it or when looking for natural prevention methods. The method works great on me after I had been diagnosed with PCOS and was told I will always have issues with my fertility. It's an absolutely great read and you learn more about your body than you thought you knew.

Nel manuale viene dettagliatamente spiegato il "Fertility Awareness Method", ovvero metodo per la fertilità consapevole. Vengono analizzate e spiegate le fasi del ciclo mestruale femminile, al fine di utilizzare alcuni strumenti (come la misurazione della temperatura basale e l'osservazione del fluido cervicale) per poter monitorare il proprio ciclo e sapere giorno per giorno se si è fertili o meno. Ottimo sistema per la contraccezione naturale, con efficacia molto elevata, paragonabile a quella della pillola estroprogestinica, ma senza tutti gli effetti collaterali, è indicato per tutte le donne in età fertile, indipendentemente dalla regolarità dei propri cicli. Il metodo può essere usato anche nel modo inverso per mirare i rapporti in caso di ricerca di gravidanza. Io lo consiglio a tutte, conoscere se stesse e diventare protagoniste della propria femminilità è un'esperienza unica, ma soprattutto molto utile, sia su un piano di salute che contraccettivo. Ora che ho scoperto il FAM non potrei mai più farne a meno!

I am a German native speaker, however, I found the book very easy to read and very entertaining. Despite its thickness, I read it in 2 days. The author shows many case examples, what makes the book vivid, fun to read and easy to understand. However, if I had not read other books on the symptothermal method before, I would not have believed a single word. The book is completely unscientific and sometimes smacks of abstruse esoteric theories. I would certainly not recommend it to people with a scientific background unless they already know the symptothermal methods and its high reliability. Then, the book is wonderful, with lots of details that are not contained in other books. To German readers, I recommend Natürlich & sicher: Das Praxisbuch. , because I find this method and its rules much easier to learn and the rules have proven a pearl index of 0.5 in a really high ranked scientific study. In TCOYF, the rules are a bit lost between all the case examples and anectodes (even though there is an extra chapter for the rules) I loved reading the book and did learn a lot (I did not find better information about self diagnosis based on your cycle charting and what hormones should be tested when in any other book on fertility awareness). Therefore 5 stars.