BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Birth Control ... has anyone tried FAM?

After many years of using hormonal birth control without consequence, I have started to have problems in the last few years. The pills quit influencing my cycles and I found my moods becoming erratic, so I switched to the ring. It's better, but causes some irritation and doesn't always control my cycling. In addition, I was diagnosed with fibroids a couple of years ago and know that they feed off estrogen.

I have been researching FAM lately, which is where body temperature and cervical fluid and position can be interpreted to determine when one is fertile. Has anyone here ever tried this? I have no ambivalence regarding pregnancy, so I don't want to take stupid chances. At the same time, I really want to clear my body of the artificial hormones that are either causing or aggravating the fibroids.

Well, that has a very high failure rate! I never ever took hormonal birth control because of how it messes with hormones. we always used condoms and spermicide together and always pulling out (sorry if that's TMI) until my husband got a vasectomy. I wouldn't trust the fam method.

FAM is different from the Rhythm Method, the latter of which doesn't work. The method failure rate of FAM using both temperature measurements and fluid check is rated at 2%. The pill method failure rate is .5%. It sounds like a good plan, but I was hoping to hear from childfree women who used it, as I figure they'd take it more seriously than someone who didn't really care whether or not they became pregnant.

My x got a vasectomy, but my current isn't interested and I don't believe it's fair to force the issue. It's a money thing on my end.

I'm a Biologist by trade, and I'd never trust such a thing. We all like to think that women's bodies are perfectly running little factories, but they just aren't. You can have all the signs of ovulation and perfect 28 day periods, and still never ovulate. Conversely, you can ovulate and have none of the signs. I speak from experience as a woman who had PCOS, which supposed makes you infertile, and I got pregnant TWICE, both times using some form of BC. There is this great book called "Sperm Wars" by Robin Baker that I think does a pretty good job explaining to the lay person how, in my opinion, evolution has made any attempts at avoiding pregnancy without a physical or chemical barrier a ticking time-bomb of failure. Remember, 50% of all pregnancies in the U.S. are "unplanned."

So, that's my opinion as a childfree woman and a biologist. I trust my tubal ligation, but even that has a 0.25% failure rate. ::sigh:: Good luck.

-D.

Thank you Dolyn! As a former Planned Parenthood counselor, I encountered a fair number of women who were told they were sterile by medical professionals. Obviously not, as I did pre-abortion counseling.

The FAM method *sounds* good, but there were some details that made me nervous, such as perimenopausal women having less clear signs to go by due to wildly fluctuating hormones. That happens to be my age category and I also recall that being an age who tend to experience unwanted pregnancies.

Bummer.

Shoot! I was all exctied to read this because I refuse to go on hormonal bc methods ever again (after almost 20 yrs of it, I'm done!). But condoms are just not cutting it either. Bf is considering a vasectomy and his insurance even covers it. With all the bc possibilities, I guess I'm just picky. I don't want hormones but also don't want to inject a foreign object in me either (IUD). Even tried the vaginal film w/spermicide + pulling out but the spermicide makes us both hurt. :( Ugh.

I did find a CF FAM user on the FAM site (TCOYF) who's been successful for over 4 years. Unfortunately, most of the posters there have baby rabies and are using it for quicker conception. You have to weed through to find women who are truly interested in preventing pregnancy.

Nothing is more of a stark reminder of how CF one is than reading those kinds of posts!

Have you tried the diaphragm? They're cumbersome, but latex and hormone free. That will probably be our backup if we try FAM, as both of us are allergic to latex. I looked long and hard at the copper IUD as well, but the fibroid makes it a bad choice.

Haha, baby rabies. Does the diaphragm require spermicide? I'll have to read up on that. And there's the sponge. I'm curious about that but I know that requires spermicide. Ouch! Wish it didn't sting (sorry if tmi). Thanks!

It does, but it may be a different formula than the film. I wouldn't trust the film, as I remember many abortion patients were using it as their primary bc.

One thing I remember from working at PPH is it seems the less interested in children you are, the more fertile your body is and vice versa. Such bs...