128: The Fertility App That Actually Works With Your Body

In this episode, I’m joined by Sabrina Weschler, co-founder of Cyclisity and niece of Toni Weschler, author of the groundbreaking book Taking Charge of Your Fertility. We’re diving into why understanding our bodies matters more than ever and how the knowledge in Toni's book (now celebrating its 30th anniversary!) inspired not only Sabrina's own fertility journey but also the creation of an app that puts the power of body literacy in your hands.

Sabrina shares how a dinner conversation with her aunt turned into a mission: to create a digital companion to the book that women could trust. And unlike other fertility apps, Cyclisity doesn’t predict ovulation—because that’s not how our bodies work. Instead, it uses the rules outlined in Toni’s symptothermal method to help women tune in to their own unique patterns, day by day.

We talk about the importance of understanding your cycle after loss, how grief and trauma impact hormones, and why this kind of body literacy is essential for anyone trying to conceive, avoid pregnancy, or simply understand their reproductive health.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How Taking Charge of Your Fertility changed both of our lives
• What makes Cyclicsty different from other fertility apps
• Why predictive ovulation tracking can be dangerous—especially after loss
• How your cervical fluid and basal body temperature hold the keys to understanding your cycle
• How the symptothermal method works (and what the 4 FAM rules are)
• Why self-funded apps matter when it comes to protecting women’s data
• How trauma, stress, and grief can affect your cycle and ovulation
• What you can learn about your health from your charts—even if you’re not trying to get pregnant

Resources Mentioned:

• Cyclisity App: Download Here
• Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler
• Tempdrop wearable thermometer: https://www.tempdrop.com

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Transcript

 Sabrina, I'm so happy that you join me here today. Is Tony your aunt? Yes. Tony is my aunt. Tony Weschler wrote this incredible book many years ago.

It's gonna be the 30th anniversary edition. I think it first came out in 95. When I read the book, it was before I was trying to get pregnant with my second sons, and he was born in 1997, so it was fairly new at the time. My fertility specialist recommended it to me, to really get in touch with your body.

The book is called Taking Charge of your fertility and it's a fantastic book. Tony wrote it and I, commend it to everyone. I've given a copy to my daughter my daughters in-laws my niece, because it's such a missing piece of.

Who we are as women today, this is something so important that we're never taught about our own body. I 100% credit it to being able to break the fertility cycle with my second child. Having that knowledge allowed me to. Not have to go through a lot of fertility testing and treatment.

I was scheduled to have a big fertility treatment and had the blood work done, and my doctor called and said, you don't need to come in because you're pregnant. It was so miraculous and I'm so grateful for the book and the knowledge and what it has.

Taught me throughout my life. So I will pass it to Sabrina to pick up the rest of the story and, explain to us the, the significance of the book and with you growing up with you, with the author, what that was like as a young teenage girl and how, how it affected your life and your knowledge of fertility.

Yeah, I would love to and thank you so much for saying such kind words. The book really is, life changing for a lot of women because like you said, we're just not taught this when it should be taught in health classes as the basics of learning about your own body I'm actually very, very close with my aunt and what's funny is.

You know, instead of celebrating birthdays, she celebrated with me the first day I got my period, every year since then, I, we've been going, she's been taking him out to either lunch or dinner to celebrate the day I got my period. I love it so much

we try to forget that day. I have no idea when. What season it was even. And instead of celebrating birthdays, don't celebrate. This is what I'm celebrating. We grew up really close and we live in the same city now one year, so this is like, you know, we've been going year after year and one year probably.

I don't wanna say like maybe 10 years, no, maybe even like 18 years after my first period, she started talking about womanhood and what it means, to be in touch with our bodies and things like that. One day we were talking about her book.

The reason I'm here representing both of us is because she is heads down deep in her writing. Like as I mentioned, her 35th edition of the new book. It's gonna be packed with new information. We were at one of our dinners and she was like, you know, I really wish I had an app that was just like a perfect companion to the book.

And you know, she's, she knows that there's a lot of apps out there and you know, I've looked at many of them and the. There's some out out there that are really great, some that are, you know, not so great and that we are worried about women relying on and, but the problem was none was like.

Taylor specific to Tony's method and Tony's book. And so, you know, we were talking and she was like talking about her vision and you know, she loves actually paper charting, but she was also just saying, you know, she knows that we're in like a new world where people have a phone in their pocket and not everyone is comfortable with paper charting or wants to carry a notebook with them wherever they go.

And so she had this vision for her book to have this perfect companion. And as we were sitting there, I was like. Wait a minute, I have a software engineering background and a product design background. I was like, wait, maybe I could build this app. And actually my husband, who's also our co-founder, so I went home that night and I was telling my husband about it, and he has a medical degree and has worked in biotech venture capital.

And so he has both the medical and the business side of things, I was like, I feel like we actually have the perfect team to bring Tony's vision to life. And that's kind of how Cyclicity was born through this passion for fertility awareness and this strong belief that this really can change a lot of women's lives.

Not only is the fertility awareness really for getting pregnant or avoiding pregnant, it's really, like you said, to be in touch with your body. So there's so many things that you can learn about your body and you know, things that could honestly be like. Something might be wrong and you could go and get it fixed.

You could learn that through charting. We have a strong belief in the fertility awareness method, and so we're like, wow, we have this team, you know, to be able to build this. And so honestly, it's been a long journey. I probably started sketching out ideas on paper three years ago or more.

We launched on the Apple App Store about a month ago and we're excited to get our app out there and we're working on the Android up right now. One thing to note is like. One decision we made as a team is to self-fund the app.

And the reason we decided to self-fund the app is because, women's data is very sacred and very sensitive. We wanted to have full control of being able to advocate for our customers and our users. And so that meant that like we didn't wanna have any investors and external pressure to move things certain way, or we always wanted to think about the long term have our customers in mind and be able to protect the data as much.

Like to the fullest extent. And we thought the only way we could really do that is to be in full control of the company. And be self-funded. So, you know, we wish we could launch the Android app at the same time, but that's just a limitation we have being self-funded is that things take a little longer 'cause we have to like, you know, be able to create the money to fund the app.

But yeah, we're really excited to have the app out there and you know, we know that there are a lot of apps. It's a crowded market space, but again, one thing that's really unique about our app is it's tied to Tony's book. So it's like a perfect companion.

We use the exact same terminology and it actually runs the Four FAM Rules, which is the four Fertility Awareness Method rules in the background every single day. One thing to be. Really clear on, and this is not a predictive app, so a lot of apps out there that, you know, Tony for a good reason is really concerned about is that it predicts ovulation in the future.

And that's really dangerous because every woman not only is like my cycles different from yours or different from my neighbors or my best friends, they're also like my is different within myself. So like one cycle could be longer, other one could be shorter because like different things such as stress, drinking, alcohol, you know, traveling to different time zones, those can all delay ovulation.

And so it's really important to look at your day, day by day. And that's what the fertility awareness method teaches you, is to make sure you're checking day by day to figure out whether you are and are not fertile the app is there to support you in doing that. We're not trying to replace the knowledge base that a woman needs to have

we're really there to be a double check on, did I do the charting correctly? It's a charting tool to help you if you put in your basal body temperature and your cervical fluid, it'll run the four femorals and tell you whether you are and are not fertile.

But you have to make sure that you know the rules yourself to double check that this is doing it correctly. So it's really just there to support you in that journey. Another thing we're doing is, focusing on education. It hasn't launched yet, but we're gonna show like a.

How, you know, how was this day classified and tell you exactly what rule was applied. And that's something no other apps has. And the reason we wanna do that is, you know, the four FM rules, it sounds simple 'cause there's only four, but there's actually a lot of sub rules like what happens when you have like a slow rise temperature?

What happens when you have cervical fluid that's like egg white one day and then. Creamy, creamy the next day. Like those classifications, there's different rules that are the sub rules based on that, and the app helps you detect those, it will tell you why it was detected the way it was, and it's all mapped to the book so you can double.

Check your work and be like, okay, why is the app telling me this? I wanna double check something. I could go to the book and be like, oh, this is the rule. It's applying. Okay, this makes sense. And so it's really, we are trying to make Cyclicity a place where women feel empowered to be connected to their body and really learn about what is going on.

And that's something that I think differentiates us from other apps out there. I wanna commend you on being a self-funded app because that integrity

is not happening thank you. I see it all the time with the moms that I work with, with predictive testing. It's very scary. And when you've experienced a loss very often afterwards, your cycle. Are v unpredictable. Even if you were like clockwork before, you now have this loss or even after a baby,

yeah. Any kind of birth you will experience a change in your predictability. I love that you are. Keeping it pure and, and keeping it, what the book was meant to be and what the book was, the Book's Foundation is because you know that that works.

You know that that is really healthy and what teaching women so much that I, I love that you're not willing to let anybody tamper with that thank you. The one thing you mentioned about, someone going through miscarriage and things like that.

Miscarrying, things like that. The amount of stress your body goes through, from that experience. Can affect how your cycles are in the future, that can make your cycles be delayed and much longer. A predictive app would never be able to know.

That you were extremely stressed one day, it can't know that you drank more alcohol than usual. It can't know that, you know, you went to bed at weird hours and like these are things that you only know and you could only it, you could only tell on a day-to-day basis. How your body is reacting to it.

And that's what's so wonderful about the fertility awareness method is your body is telling you signs every single day on whether you are and are not fertile. And that's something that no apps should be able to tell you and won't be able to tell you. To be able to be in touch with your body like that is something very special.

Even back in the day when I did the paper charting, I remember that because you do, you get so. Worked up about it. And people just say, you just need to relax. If you would just relax, it would happen. You're like, that's not helpful. Thank you so much.

You get all this noise in your head about it, what is happening. But that almost gives you a sense of control in a time when you are not feeling very in control. Yeah. Because you can logically reason back like, well, you know what, yesterday I got to bed really late or we had a few drinks.

Yes. And so that makes sense that my temperature was this or that, or, you know, this and that, or happening without having that knowledge and being so in tune with your body and how your body signals react to that that's just something that a traditional app can't replace.

Exactly. And there's also this like new. Maybe it's is the wrong word, but like in recent years there's been like a uptick on people. You know, there's a lot of apps that are like, oh, do these different kinds of workouts based on your cycle. Do these d eat different kinds of food based on the cycle?

Which I think is great, if that works for you. But the problem is, I think a lot of times these apps are telling you you're in your follicular phase or you're in your lure phase when you're not, like, there's no way an app can know that unless you're charting correctly.

And so you could be like, if you're using the fertility awareness method and supplementing with those apps that are telling you what to eat and when to work out, I think that's great. But if you're just relying on those apps that are like, okay, now you're in your follicular phase without accounting for, your temperature or cervical fluid.

And we can talk about the fertility awareness method in a bit, if you'd like. Then you might be working, like you might be doing a HIIT workout that it tolds you to do in your follicular phase, but you're actually already in your luteal phase or vice versa. Unless you are actually in tune with your body, you could be doing things that are completely out of whack from the recommended, cycle state.

Yeah, that's a great point because the moms that I work with who are. Doing apps, doing the testing, doing, you know, they, it causes more anxiety. Totally. It was said I was supposed to be here and, then I wasn't, then I got my period out of the blue.

Then, you know, just some crazy Right, and it's really, causes more stress. It causes more anxiety they're. More, out of touch with their body, which is not what we want because they already are, scared to trust their body. So I can see where this is going to help them rebuild that trust and rebuild that confidence again, not because their cycle's perfect and it's happening just as it's supposed to happen in this certain order, but because you get to know like, you know what?

Maybe it's just going to be up and down and that's okay because I will get to know these signs. Yeah, exactly. Even with my personal experience. So going back to talking about my aunt a little bit is. You'd think that I would've known disinformation as a teenager knowing my aunt and like started practicing much earlier.

But when I was around 15 years old, I was struggling with teen acne as most teens do. I went to the doctor with my mom we had just moved from Japan to the states, four years prior. So, you know, we're all just learning English. And my mom's English wasn't that great at the time.

It's really much better now, but you know, it's. She was in her forties learning or like fourth language, so it took a little longer. She took me to the doctor 'cause I was concerned about my acne my mom's actually Chinese and believes in eastern medicine practices. So she's very much against, hormonal birth control.

As Cyclicity as a company, we are not against hormonal birth control. It's great that birth control gave so much freedom to women and gave them the option. We're just here as another option for women who can't, you know, maybe handle hormonal birth control, who might have very bad side effects from it.

And so this is just another option for them to leverage. But going back to my story. Is. So when I was 15, I went to the doctors and you know, they, the doctor was like, oh yeah, just take this pill every day and your acne will clear up. My mom thought I was being prescribed acne medication 'cause that's what we went in for.

Little does she know it was actually birth control that the doctor prescribed me. I wasn't even sexually active. There was no reason for me to be on birth control for another several years. You know? Right. And so, but I was like, so like a 15-year-old girl, I was just like, this doctor is telling me this is going to clear my acne.

I am gonna take it. And so I started taking it for years and it did clear my acne actually. It's not always the case that happens. But in my case it did really clear my acne. So I was like, this worked great. I'm staying on it. And my mom, after a few years figured out what I was on and was horrified 'cause she had no idea.

I was on hormonal birth control for 15 years. I went off of it about six months ago, once I was on it, I've tried to come off a few times and my acne would flare up like crazy. I wasn't in the best mental state when I was younger to go on and off like that.

And so recently, you know, I was like, okay, I really just, you know. Want to be a, we have to practice fertility awareness method. I want to be, you know, have a break from hormone to birth control and eventually we want kids. So I just wanted, to figure out what's going on with my body before we do that.

So I went off birth control, maybe it was like seven months ago now, and then what I've been noticing from practicing the fertility awareness method through charting is like it's a mess right now. My cycles were crazy. One thing I've noticed is I've been having really short luteal phases short luteal phases.

Could be one of the reasons for causing a miscarriage. And so, you know, if I, A lot, I feel like doctors tell you that you just go off of it. When you're ready to get pregnant, you know, go off a bit the month before and you'll be fine. Which, I think for a lot of women that is true, but it's not the case for every woman.

And what I've noticed charting my cycle is like my luteal face is, it's not supposed to fluctuate. Like your luteal face is supposed to be very, like it's, it can fluctuate from like my luteal face to my friends, but within myself. It shouldn't be fluctuating like this. It's going from six day luteal phases to like two cycles ago, I got to 12 days, which I was very happy about because 10 to 16 days is a healthy luteal phase, but then my last cycle dropped back down to eight.

And so, if I didn't know this about myself and if I just was like, okay, I'm going off birth control. I'm just gonna try to get pregnant, that could have led to potential miscarriage, which is, you know, something that's obviously heartbreaking. And so it's something that I just feel really grateful to have been able to chart and learn about my body before even starting to try so that, I can put my body in the most optimal state before I'm ready

bring another human into this world. Such a great point. Because when you leave the hospital after any birth even a loss, their question is, okay, what are you gonna do about birth control? Which when you have a loss is a horrible question. Because you're like, what do you mean birth control?

Like, I, I, I wanted to be bringing a baby hospital, not coming home with a birth control plan. Mm-hmm. But how amazing would it be to, and, and then I wanna, I want you to. Talk about the fertility awareness method, of course. But how amazing would it be to have this knowledge of the fertility awareness method

in your back pocket and just know like, that's what I'm doing. It's so confusing too, like, well, do I go on chemical? Birth control. Yeah. And then, right. I, until I decide I wanna have another baby, right. But right now, I'm too scared to even think about that. But I know it's what I want.

It's a very, very confusing time. To be put in that position where you're making that decision of what you're going home with, to. Possibly prevent another pregnancy is really just, so hard, but I would love for everyone to have this knowledge in them before they even have to face that.

So why don't you absolutely explain what is the fertility awareness method and how do we learn it? Yes, I would love to. The fertility awareness method. Basically means you're checking every single day on your primary fertility signs, which are, there's three primarily fertility, fertility signs.

The first one is basal body temperature, or waking temperature. The second one is cervical fluid, and the third one is optional. It's called cervical position. Some women love it because it helps them corroborate between the first two and do a. Double, triple check to be like, okay, am I practicing the method correctly?

But some woman just is like, doing the cervix is just too much. I just can't handle it. And then, so, and that's totally fine too. Maybe explain what that means, and so the cervical position, you stick your finger up to check where your cervix is, whether it's low firm or high and open.

By checking that. It aligns with your other fertility signs to tell whether you are fertile or not. It's another way to see, but it's not necessary for the method. So some women love it because they get to feel it themselves with their hands being like, oh wow.

I'm high and soft and open, and that means I'm really fertile. If you're like me, I was like, no way. Then you're like, but wait a minute. I'm so curious. It's really cool to experience. It's amazing. It's really cool.

But it is more, involved and you need to spend a little more time in the bathroom. So again, it's optional. That one is not actually calculated within the fertility, awareness rules, but it can be used to corroborate the first two.

And so the ones that are really, important and you have to make sure you're getting right and again. One thing I should make clear actually, is that there's actually many, many different methods of the fertility awareness method. The one that Tony teaches is a symptothermal method, which is one of the, you know, it's just like a very, it's a scientifically based one that it, it's very accurate because of having to track multiple fertility signs.

Some only track one this one is the most comprehensive because it's tracking more than one sign. I love that.

Yeah. Then, because I do think. They aren't always the same on any, yeah, right. The efficacy aren't always the same for all of them. So this one, you know, the efficacy is very high because you're tracking all three or two signs. The other one, the cervical fluid is basically what comes, out of your vagina.

And what's really cool is it changes as you go through your menstrual cycle. You start your period and after a period, you're dry for a while, then you'll see the cervical fluid quality increase. Day by day. It goes from dry to, sticky, to creamy, then to egg white, which is your most fertile quality cervical fluid.

When I say sticky, creamy, egg white, these are terms that Tony uses in her book, she's also very clear that it doesn't actually like. It can mean look a little bit differently from woman to woman, so you just have to learn what your body sticky looks like. Like that sticky could look more like crumbly to you.

Maybe creamy could look. Some women might look like lotiony. It might for other women it might. Be a little bit different than that. And an egg white is where it actually looks like egg white, like very stretchy and clear. You can actually take it with your finger and stretch it. It looks like egg white, but that's your most fertile quality cervical fluid.

So. The words are there to help you determine what each type looks like, but from woman to woman, it might look a little different. As you approach ovulation, your cervical quality becomes more and more fertile, which is so cool. A lot of women, I think. If you're not taught this, like Tony talks about how before she knew this, she thought she was having like a infection every month.

I never, I didn't know this until I was, yeah, I, I'd had a whole baby already and I never knew this. There's also what we call a vaginal sensation, and that's sometimes when you're really fertile, you might feel like you, peed yourself. I don't know, you know, if you've ever felt that.

But it's because. Egg white is so slippery and such a fertile quality, it just falls out of you. And that could be a sensation that you have. And we call that the lubricate of sensation. And that's something you feel, that's basically like egg white falling out of you.

So that is what cervical fluid is. You go from dry. Sticky creamy egg white. After you ovulate it actually drops down to dry again. Your cervical fluid, dries up and that's a sign that you have. Probably ovulated, but to confirm you've ovulated, you need your basal body temperature or what Tony calls waking temperature.

And so that's why you need both cervical fluid and basal body temperature they work together to figure out when you're coming close to ovulation, and figure out once the dead is egging. Fed and gone, and you've ovulated. And so what happens with your temperature is in your pre ovulatory phase, your temperature is actually low, and then you have a temp shift, in your post ovulatory phase, your temperature is high.

The reason your temperature is high is because once you ovulate, your progesterone spikes up and progesterone elevates your body temperature. Once you start charting, it's like such a cool. Map to look at, because you're charting your cervical fluid, going from dry, sticky, creamy to egg white one thing I should be clear is some women don't reach egg white, and that doesn't mean you're not gonna.

Get pregnant or anything like that, some woman will reach creamy and that will be their most fertile quality cervical fluid. And then, and that's fine. And then so you'll see it increase in, fertile quality, and then you'll see your temperature shift and your temperature then stays high.

And that's, you know, showing that progesterones being increasing and your egg has been released. And so. Temperature helps confirm that you've ovulated. By charting both of them and then applying the four FAM rules the first five days rule, the dry day rule, the temp shift rule, and the peak day rule.

They work together to create this chart and guidelines to figure out your fertile phase. And the reason why the Fertility Awareness Method works is because the guidelines are very conservative. It's written in a way. For, I should, I should clarify, this is for pregnancy avoidance.

It's written in a clear and in a very conservative way, so that you have buffer on both ends of your ovulation, and that's why you can rely on it. But you know, it's really important that. There's apps out there that only take in temperature. And that's very dangerous because temperature just confirms ovulation.

You don't know when the temp shift is gonna happen. So in your pre ovulatory phase, like you have no, like basically these one apps that are basing their apps based solely on temperature. Mm-hmm. Or predictive apps because they're taking temperatures from past cycles and trying to figure out your fertile phase in the future.

And again, the fertility awareness method is that you check. Day by day to figure out whether you are fertile or not fertile. Within Cyclicity, if you put in just your temperature, we will tell you we don't have enough information for that day you need to have your temperature and your cervical fluid to make sure the rules can run in the background to help you chart.

There's nothing predictive about the app. It's really focusing on the rules and making sure it's running one day at a time. What's so cool about the fertility awareness method is it's signs that your body is giving you every day to tell you whether you are an or offerer at all.

And again, the reason it works is because it's very conservative in the way it runs its rules. I love it. So taking your temperature under your tongue. Oh, great question. Yes. There's actually a lot of new technology now, but the cheapest way is definitely to buy just like a basal body thermometer.

I think you could buy them for like $10 and or about, and then you, yeah, take it under your tongue. The difficult part is you have to take it at the same time every morning, and you have to take it before you get out of bed because the whole point is that you're waking temperature.

So it wants the lowest temperature, resting temperature, and the moment you like get up to grab water. Do anything it could RA raise your temperature. So it's really important that it's the first thing you do in the morning. And that means you have to wake up on the weekends at the same time.

What some women do is hold state. You could take it and go back to bed once you wake up, write it down. Or some women have like a notepad next to them that they write it down or put it in their app right away. But maybe you don't want screen time if you're going back to bed

but what the tool that I actually use is called Temp Drop, and it's a wearable device that I wear on my upper arm the reason I do that is because I have a very hard time waking up at the same time every day. My schedule is so chaotic that it just doesn't work that well for me. This has helped me a lot because it takes, you know, they don't actually tell you how their algorithm works, but it basically, I'm assuming, takes the lowest average,

random spurts of high temperatures. You don't have to wake up. You could wake up whenever and then you just, I just connect it, get the temperature out and put it in the Cyclicity app. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. But that's device updated ways. Yes, they're updated ways so you don't have to wake up at the same time every day, which has been a big game changer for me at least.

Nice. So you'll do your temperature however you do it. I put it into the app. Yes. I assume at some point that morning track your. Cervical fluid. Tony, and it says in the app as well, but Tony in the book teaches you that you should be checking like three times a day.

Okay. But you know that a lot of, it's dependent on what you're comfortable with. A lot of times when you're checking your cervical fluid, you don't have just from personal experience when I first started. Doing fertility awareness, I was checking internally, like actually sticking my finger up

because I didn't want it to better understand my body. But now that I'm more comfortable, I just use like. What you just know. What I do is I just take a toilet paper and then, before I go pee, I just wipe and see what is on the toilet paper and you can touch it and feel whether it's sticky, creamy or like egg white,

it's like a sensation I feel a lot of times, or, you know, when it, when you're wiping just like is a lot more like smooth and like, you know, you can tell when you're like dry and wet and a lot of times you could even tell in your underwear if you're, it's hard if you're wearing like. Line, like pad liners.

But if you're just wearing underwear, like cotton underwear, you can't tell in your underwear the changes you're seeing with your cervical fluid. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so basically whenever I go to the bathroom is what I check that, which makes sense, right? Like yeah, it's not, it's not like it's extra effort

yeah. It's definitely more involved than popping a pill. But it's kind of like learning how to tie your shoes or riding a bicycle, like it's really, really hard at first, but once you know it, it's just like second nature.

Once you learn it, you're like, oh, this is just like. Part of my day to day and you don't even think about it 'cause it's so normal and easy. There's definitely a learning curve and that's why, you know, Tony's book is very big and you know, there's like a lot of instructors out there.

So I do encourage if, if reading's not your method of learning. Like there's great instructors that teach you this, whether online or in person. That's another way that you could learn it. But. The basics is that, you know, once you learn it, it does really become second nature and it's really easy.

But there is a learning curve but again, I think it's worth the learning curve. It's just, it's so empowering to know what's going on with your body. Even what I just mentioned about, you know, knowing that my luteal phase is really short, like now I can. I'm not ready to have kids right now, but like at least I'm preparing for that and I can work in the next few months to figure out what's going on there.

Yeah, 100%. And, and I, I can attest too that it just, that education because . I needed fertility intervention for my first two, but then I didn't after that. It was such a relief to know this about your body and. Totally. Yeah. I think sometimes just have that sense of control.

Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes a fertility awareness method gets a bad rep because people confuse it with the rhythm method or the 28 day cycle, which is simply not true. You know, maybe talk about that. Like this is not your grandma. Yeah. Like I think we, yeah, you need to do some marketing. Like this is not your grandma's fertility method.

Even though the basics are, still right. They still work. The. Reason, it's sometimes, I mean, I think it's gotten a lot better. When Tony first wrote her book in 95, this was a big problem where people were like, oh, that's just the rhythm method.

And the rhythm method is predictive. It takes your average, like, mathematical calculations of your past cycles to predict your future ones. And as we mentioned, that goes against. The definition of the fertility awareness method. Where you're checking things day by day, knowing that your body can have a delayed ovulation based on numerous factors.

You know, traveling, drinking, alcohol, things like that. Stress the rhythm method simply does not work. To mix that up with the fertility awareness method is really just unfortunate. But I think as people become more educated, that will change.

The myth of the 28 day cycle is that every woman, we're like robots. We, have a 28 day cycle, and we ovulate on day 14. For anyone who thinks that is true, of course they're like, well, why do I need to learn the fertility where I mess with it?

It sounds like there's so many rules and like if I know that I have a 28 day cycle and I ovulate day of 14, like I'll just, it's like basically just using a calendar, the reason again, that doesn't, we just, I just want women to know that that just is not true, is because actually a healthy typical cycle can range from 21 to 35 days, not only that.

It can change within each woman. Like I said, one cycle could be 21 days because of certain reasonings. Another could be 28, you had a delayed ovulation, maybe because you were really stressed. Things like that, you know? And so it's just a complete myth to say that like every woman. Cycle is 28 days and you ovulate on day 14.

And which is why you need the fertility awareness method to check things day by day. We're just not the same. We're not robots. It doesn't matter. And if that's one thing we know for sure at this point. Right. , I know we talked some about, you know, like getting pregnant. Preventing pregnancy. Who is this recommended for specifically? Honestly, it's like. Again, like you mentioned, it's great for people who wanna try to get pregnant to learn about their body to time intercourse.

So one thing I should clarify is there's two tracks in the app. The first track is, ovulation and period tracking. The second track is. Pregnancy achievement, and it's important to choose the track that you want because they apply to rules differently. The pregnancy achievement track is a little bit different than what we talked about.

This whole podcast is pregnancy achievement is really about pinpointing ovulation. So your fertile phase is gonna be much tighter. And so you sh you know, you, it's not like it, it's opposite of trying to. Avoid pregnancy because it's based on the same, primary fertility signs. When you're trying to get pregnant, you want to increase the chances of getting pregnant, so you wanna target ovulation and you, there's actually no way for you to know the exact moment ovulated unless you're at the doctors and you're getting like ultrasound and things like that.

The fertility awareness method allows you to get a general sense of when ovulation is happening, the fertile phase for pregnancy achievement is much tighter and smaller so that you can pinpoint as close as possible versus ovulation and period tracking. It's much larger because it's applying that four femorals and those four femorals is and.

To be able to find your fertile phase conservatively. One thing to note is, we're not an FDA approved app. We're a charting tool to help you practice the fertility awareness method. So you again, have to be really knowledgeable about the fertility awareness method to use the app.

So we don't recommend the app to anyone who's like, oh, I've never even heard of the fertility awareness method. You have to know. The symptom thermal method, and you have to be able to understand how to track your basal body temperature correctly and track your cervical fluid correctly.

By putting in those two inputs, the app can help you in determining those days. But it's just a way to double check. A way to help you chart, not a way to replace any kind of knowledge base that you need to have yourself. But. So it's great for people, you know, for those tracks, but it's also great for people who just really wanna learn about their body.

You don't have to be sexually active to want to, you know, it's, it's really helps you be in touch with your body. And another thing it teaches you is you might have some underlying condition that you didn't know about. It actually will help you see if you might have PCOS. It might, you know, that you might have endometriosis and that can, you know.

Potentially cause issues with pregnancy, but if you can know now, then you can work with your doctors or naturopaths and figure out, okay, what is it that I can, you know, change about my diet or change about my lifestyle that can support me in having a healthy pregnancy? And so it's really a way for you to, I like to say that it's just a way for you to like connect through to body and Cyclicity is there to help you, support you in that journey.

I love that. It's so amazing. You're right, because it is such needed information. So do you recommend in conjunction with the book then? Yes, absolutely. Because that's where you're gonna need to go to get this information yes, exactly. I will say, so either in conjunction with the book, I think the.

The app is tailored to the book, like it's a perfect companion to the book, so it's using the same terminology. It is running the rules based on what the book is taught. But if you're just not a learner, from reading there are instructors that teach Tony's method and you could learn it from them and then apply it in the app as well, the one thing that's unique about our app is that because it has such a strong knowledge base behind it, we have points within the app that.

Like references back to the book. So like where there's a card about cervical, fluid like we talked about. It'll be like, okay in chapter six check the chapters. But it will tell you how to measure your cervical fluid or like the basal body type it references back to the book.

So you could be like, okay, wait a minute. How do I measure cervical fluid? You can go read about that or, okay. I, haven't been practicing cervical position because it's an optional sign, but you're like, now today's the day I feel like I wanna try it. I'm doing it.

And then you're like, wait, how do I do this again? The app will tell you which page to go to so that you can learn about it, and you're like, okay. Now I know how to do this well, and there's pictures. Of all of these things in the book. Which is helpful. Tony has colored in her book's pretty big, but one thing about her book.

I feel like readers should understand it's a little intimidating when you first see it 'cause it is thick, but it's very comprehensive. You don't have to read the whole book. You could read the chapters that apply to you. So there's like whole chapters on like, you know, PCOS or endometriosis and if those don't apply to you you could just read about how to get pregnant and like that's much more, I think.

Consumable and doable because it's wherever you are in. Exactly. It's like a reference. You can refer, it's a reference book when you're trying to get pregnant, you could read a book and after you're done getting pregnant and you wanna try avoiding pregnancy, then you could read that chapter.

You don't have to read. Cover to cover. I think most women, once they start reading, they end up reading cover to cover. 'cause they're like, what is this? I've never even heard about that. Curiosity. But I don't want people to be intimidated by the size, because it's a great reference book where you can get the information you need based on your needs and life stage

oh, so good. Well, this has been so amazing, Sabrina. I appreciate everything you're doing for Women's health and will link the book and your app in the show notes. Is there anything else you want them to know that we haven't touched on. I think you've done an amazing job.

I love, thank you so much for being so vulnerable and you've done such an amazing job of explaining things that we don't talk about normally in regular conversation I have to say too, I met her husband and he is just the sweetest angel, but he did not wanna be here. It's probably for this conversation right here, but that's okay.

Yeah. He's been like the best partner in crime Oh my gosh. It's been a blessing to be able to work with him. It's been really wonderful being able to work with family. What a great family legacy you're building and thank you. It's just only gonna get better and better, and I wish you.

So much luck and I'm gonna do everything I can to point women your way because I know that this. Knowledge completely changed my life and my fertility and how I, was able to reconnect with my body even after a hard loss. I think it's such important work that you're doing.

So thank you so much for being here and for everything you're doing. One thing on that note I wanted to say is, again, Tony's working really hard on her 30th edition. One thing that this. Podcast listeners might find useful is in her new book, she's gonna have a lot more information about, miscarriages and things like that.

One of the things there's new research coming out of, Yale saying that, to prevent stillbirth or potential prevention of stillbirth could be measuring the size of the baby's placenta because the size actually affects, you know, the. Health of the baby if it's too small or too big.

And so things like that are gonna be in the new book. And so I think it's gonna be packed with so much more new research and new information that the listeners might find valuable. So we're hoping that it's gonna come out in this next year. And so that's something to look forward to. Well, I look forward to it and one day, we'll get her on here when she's not so busy.

Well, thank you so much, Sabrina. I so appreciate you. Thank you so much, Jennifer, and it's been so great to meet you, and you're such a lovely host.