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!

When my husband and I decided to try for our second child, a friend recommended that we read this book. I am an avid reader and finished the book in one night, but have often gone back to several parts of it as it is much more than just a book, but more of a reference guide. TCOYF is a comprehensive plan to naturally understand and use the signals a woman's body is giving in order to naturally avoid or achieve pregnancy. The information in this book should be taught to all women during puberty since it is much more than a family planning method, but a comprehensive guide to help in understanding the biology and physiology of the female reproductive system and all that this entails. There are no religious undertones to the book, and it stands firmly on scientific knowledge to get the information across. With that said, it isn't written in a text book manner, but is easy to read, understand and put to use. I'm grateful for this book since it not only has helped my husband and me identify problems we were having in trying to conceive, it is also useful in helping me keep tabs on my thyroid problem. Using the method described in this book has saved me months of time and likely hundreds of dollars with doctors since I could pinpoint when I ovulate, what signals my body was giving (low temps, length of luteal phase, when I have an LH surge, cervical mucus changes, cervical position changes). I am an informed patient who isn't a bystander in her health care but rather an active participant. My doctors are grateful for my use of this method and praise me for taking the initiative and being so proactive in my own health care. After reading this book, I am never going back to using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. I will be using this, combined with a barrier method, if need be, in order to prevent pregnancy in the future. I have recommended this book to all of my girlfriends and will continue to do so in the future. While I have been trying to get pregnant for 6 months now using this method, I am confident that I am much better off and will be more successful than if I hadn't. This is a must read for all women!

I can't say that I've used the principles in this book to avoid or achieve pregnancy, since I'm not sexually active at this point. However, I learned a lot from it about my reproductive system and it's helped me understand my often irregular menstrual cycles better. I think being able to recognize fertility signs can be useful even to us virgins, and it's kinda fun to know what's going on in your body, even if you don't need to consider the possibility of pregnancy. I also really enjoyed reading it; Weschler's straightforward and often humorous style of writing makes reading about cervical fluid and luteal phrases surprisingly enjoyable. ETA: I have now been married for three years and have been using the method taught in this book to avoid pregnancy (successfully.) My husband and I don't completely abstain through my fertile phase, but use a diaphragm or condom when we want to have sex during that time. This method, however, tells us when we need to be extra careful, and also when we can forget about barriers without any concern. When I got engaged and started charting more seriously, I downloaded an app called Sympto Plus developed by the non-profit SymptoTherm which is based in Switzerland. The app gives additional guidance in charting and applies the rules of the Symptothermal Method of Fertility Awareness to indicate when you are fertile and infertile. (SymptoTherm use a double-check set of rules to open AND close the fertile window, which I recommend if you have strong reasons for avoiding pregnancy. They are a little stricter than TCOYF rules. The rules used by Sympto Plus are very similar to the ones used by Sensiplan--the method tested by the German study often cited that found a 0.4% perfect-use failure rate.) SymptoTherm also produces a PDF manual for the app, which gives a lot of the same information as TCOYF. I think it might be more up-to-date than this version, though I don't have a copy of the recently published 20th Anniversary edition of TCOYF. They also have counselors who can help you with questions about charting-for a monthly fee. I just want to let anyone reading this know that it's entirely possible to avoid pregnancy without pumping your body with endocrine-disrupting steroids, and there are lots of resources available to help you get started. This book is a great place to start, but if you're confused or want more information, keep searching.

When I got married in my mid 30's, one of my co-workers recommended this book in case we decided to have kids. She told me, "I hope this isn't TMI, but this book helped me get pregnant on the first try when I was your age." So, a year later, when we were planning to try, I bought this book and read it like it was biology homework. I found it really interesting and started charting my cycles. I was surprised to discover that I had normal symptoms of ovulation, despite my cycles being extra-long since I was a teenager. That alone was encouraging. Well, we tried, and I was pregnant on the first cycle of trying. I realize that this is not the case for everyone, but I really feel that the information in this book helped me. I'm also glad to know more about my personal reproductive cycle beyond just knowing when my last period was. There is so much good information for women to know about their bodies, whether we're trying to get pregnant or not. For example, the information about traditional due date tables vs. calculating due date by last ovulation was empowering. My ultrasounds have confirmed the date I conceived, which was 20 days into my cycle (this matched my chart), not the traditional 14 they normally go by. Due to this edition having come out in 2006, some of the information is outdated. There was a recent study that the methods described for determining the sex of your baby (which the author points out herself only improve your chances for conceiving a child of the sex you want by a very small percentage) don't bear out statistically at all. Also, the charting software (disc) included with the book is outdated and likely won't run on your computer. I also think the author could have gone farther in emphasizing the importance of starting pre-natal vitamins before trying to to conceive. She does mention it, but this is a pretty important step to take and it's mentioned on only briefly in passing. Anyway, this book is well worth a read, and overall I found it very encouraging. I plan on recommending it to any of my friends who are thinking of having babies.

I wish someone had handed me this book 10 years ago! After 10 years on the pill I started having an increasing number of side effects and just couldn't take it anymore. When I started researching other options, this book kept popping up. I was a bit skeptical at first but I talked to my doctor about if FAM is really a "legit thing" and she said absolutely and encouraged me to educate myself about it and read the book. I bought the book and figured I would just give it a read and see how I felt about it. After reading the first chapter I was completely hooked! This book is unbelievably informative and I can't believe I have gone so many years not understanding my body. This is by far the most empowering book I have ever read. They say knowledge is power and this book could be the poster child for that. It is a very detailed book, it does not hold back on graphically explaining things but how I wish someone had explained my body in this much detail to me years ago. I almost wanted to cry reading it because of all the years I lived just thinking I had to "deal with" my period and whenever it showed up. I have also always been so scared about fertility and the mystery surrounding it, this book has made me feel so much more confident about making the choice to have children when I am ready. This book has showed me that everything I experienced in my early teens before the pill was totally normal and was my body telling me things. I have already recommended this book to multiple co-workers who have it on order. When I do decide to have children, if I have girls, they will be getting this book in their early teens. Every women should read this and have the understanding of her own body so she can make empowered choices. A must read!!

I never write book reviews, but I am doing so in this case because I am so grateful to the author for writing this book. A trusted friend recommended TCOYF to me. She said that whether I was planning to get pregnant or not (because I had started talking about it), this book is a must-read for any woman. I cannot agree more. I have never raved about a book like I have over this one. It teaches you about your body and how all of the little signs and changes throughout the month relate to your fertility cycle (and not to other things you might have thought they were the cause of). Now I fully understand all of the little changes that happen each month. And, yes, I did read this book for conception purposes. I am now 1 month pregnant, after only trying to get pregnant last month for the first time. And I am in my mid 30s, not a young'un. I followed the teachings from this book and learned to read my body. I was excited to chart and to take my temperature each morning, to see how my body was changing and to know for sure what was happening and exactly when it was time to try. I constantly refer back to this book and its chapters. I'm not preaching this book as a miracle baby-maker, and I know that conception is as much about luck as it is about timing and a million other things. But being someone who was for the most part disinterested in pregnancy, even though most of my friends have had babies, and being someone who didn't even know much about ovulation or when it happens during my cycle(I hate biology), I felt empowered by this book. Pregnancy and trying to get pregnant no longer seemed like a fleeting chance or a mystery but instead became something reachable and achievable. It gave me confidence in my own body. And for that, I can never thank the author enough. This book should be given to every girl from a young age. I will certainly give it to my daughter. Or son?

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.