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Every single person choosing birth control is doing a calculus of tradeoffs.

Unfortunately there is no perfect option.

We all choose our method based on what’s tolerable and what’s right for our lives at that moment.

Someone might use:

the pill for five years, switch to FAM, go back to hormones, use condoms all cycle long, and change it all after a planned pregnancy.

People think fertility awareness advocates want to eliminate hormonal birth control (we don't)

Not enough people talk about how it doesn't need to be all-or-nothing with birth control.

We've all got our own calculation of what's bearable vs unbearable.

The Birth Control Acceptability Scale is where you ask yourself what's the most acceptable option for me right now.

We choose whatever feels tolerable given our current life, libido, relationship, side effects, insurance, mental health, fear level, and how much bandwidth we have.

I hear over and over again in the wellness world - someone sharing their period or cycle side effects, with a wellness coach piping in well the root cause is your thyroid, or your gut, or your unprocessed feminine trauma.

We don't talk enough about how yes, women's health is criminally underfunded, and yes, it sucks that birth control is the first line treatment to hormonal issues, but sometimes hormonal birth control takes the pain and symptoms away and that's just what we need in a given season of life.

So that's my hot take.

My own reasoning behind using fertility awareness has shifted over the last decade. When I first found FAM, I didn't want to be on hormones for the principle of it.

Now, my views have become much more nuanced and my reasoning for using fertility awareness have shifted.

So your acceptable answer changes in different seasons of your life. We hang on way too tightly to our birth control choices being our identity.

Birth control isn’t your religion. It doesn’t have commandments. You’re allowed to experiment. You’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to come off and then go back on without it meaning anything dramatic about your identity or your body literacy or your feminist alignment.

It’s not that serious.

But I think what is serious (or meaningful, okay fine, important) is knowing your fertile window.

Because even if you switch methods, or change your mind, or do a combination of things, knowing when you’re fertile is the one skill that goes with you whatever you choose.

It’s like body literacy insurance. Once you know it, it’s yours forever.

Which is why I'm offering a 40-minute workshop called Sex Ed for Witches: yours for free when you join the Cycle Love waitlist.

If you want the most practical mini-class on how to actually understand your fertile window—and make fearless birth control decisions, come through.

Learn your fertile window and feel good about your birth control decisions in just 40 minutes.

join here

Warmly, Nat

P.S. Have you listened to the latest episode of The Habit Cycle? Listen to episode 4 for more unhinged yapping from myself and Lucia - plus the things we're cooking for pleasure this month, and how to remember to take your BBT even if you don't wake up at the same time each day!