Customer Reviews

Taking Charge Of Your Fertility (Revised Edition): The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health

5 star:		(201)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I highly recommend this book and method for getting pregnant. I am 39 and had been trying to get pregnant for six months using an ovulation predictor kit. We already have a 2 year old daughter that was conceived the first month we tried, so I was very discouraged that we were not pregnant yet. A friend of mine recommended this book, and I thought it was worth a shot! I found the book a very easy read. I read the sections relevant to getting pregnant in one night (there are also sections on birth control, menopause, etc). I began charting immediately. I did not go crazy with charting-I just recorded my temp each day and checked the other 2 signs (cervical mucus and cervical position) starting about a week before I knew I was going to ovulate. I got pregnant the second month!! The book is super informative about all aspects of a woman's reproductive body. A great read even if you just want to get to know what's going on with your body every month. Hope this review helps!!

I got this book because I wanted to learn how to avoid a pregnancy because I felt the birth control pill were poison to my system. If you didn't know much about yout body or even if you THOUGHT (key word here) you did will after reading this book. I loaned it to my sister who wanted to conceive and she's pregnant!

It's an easy read and it has PICTURES! You'll feel more in control of your body.

I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent, college-educated woman with a pretty darn firm grasp on How Babies Are Made, so when my husband and I decided to start a family, I thought it would be as easy as tossing the birth control pills aside and Let The Fun Begin! After almost a year with NO baby, followed by a miscarriage, I was starting to question my fertility. (After all, how hard can this be?) I went to the OBGYN, who immediately recommended Clomid and sex on the 14th day of my "cycle." I wasn't comfortable with the fertility pill concept, and saw a recommendation for this book instead. So, I picked it up.

WOW! Why don't they teach THIS in Sex Ed?? I wish I'd known this stuff when I was 13! I sure knew the mechanics of sex, alright, but not the mechanics of my own body. I was amazed at what I didn't know; while I had observed the various signs that are talked about, I didn't have the slightest clue what they meant. They never worried me, but they never gave me any insight, either. I started charting, figured out what day of the cycle I REALLY ovulated, and on the third try -SURPRISE!- we were pregnant! While the OB said to try on day 14, we REALLY needed to try on day 19. Sperm only live for 5 days max, so we would have missed our window of opportunity every time. :(

I have recommended this book to complete strangers whose friends were "trying to get pregnant," and lent it to my best friend when she mentioned going off the pill. She's due in December!

Now that my cycle is back, I've reclaimed the book back again to avoid another baby until we're ready. We're still breastfeeding, and using this as a birth control method doesn't come with the risk of drying up my milk supply. (I know, Micronor (mini-pill) is breastfeeding-friendly, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet.)

I am SO pleased with this book and the knowledge I gained from it; I can't believe I didn't know all this before my mid-twenties!

I was deeply impressed and pleased with this book. I am a Ph. D in Sexuality and know a lot about fertility and conception. I absolutely agree that the information is essential especially for young women because it will put their mind at ease about several normal, physiological changes that happen within their bodies.

I also agree that the FAM method is better than the “rhythm method” and that’s why I highly recommend it to my female clients. I am happy that this great book becomes more and more popular. It is truly the “bible” when it comes to how the female body functions. I would like to strongly recommend in addition to it Alan Ritz’ “Scientifically guaranteed male multiple orgasms and ultimate sex”, which I believe is the equivalent of this book for the male body. Also if your husband has any sexual problems (premature ejaculation, low libido, (semi) impotence and even infertility he will find a lot of first class and science-based information in it. It is pleasure to highly recommend both bestsellers.
Barbara Catherwood PH.D in Sexuality

This book is amazing! It taught me so much about my own body. I wish someone had given it to me during adolescence, so much more would have made sense. I picked up this book after trying to get pregnant for 6 months. My husband and I really thought something was wrong, we had started to try to time sex for ovulation and it never worked. I started using the book about a week into my cycle and by day 35 I did a pregnancy test and found out I was pregnant! Turns out that by trying to time sex around ovulation using traditional methods we were missing my actual ovulation by more than a week, as I had a really long cycle and short luteal phase (read the book and this will all make more sense). By the end of my cycle we were usually too tired to have sex since we'd been going at it so long, but with this method we identified the fertile days correctly and that was it!

Every mother should give her teenage daughter this book to learn about her body and every couple having difficulty conceiving should read it cover to cover!

Like so many people who have reviewed this book before, I cannot believe how much I thought I knew about my body, how much I really didn't know, and how much I learned from reading this book. Although I know it's mostly read by those who want to get pregnant, I have friends who swear by the natural birth control method that's taught here, and after years on the pill, I am looking forward to using it myself. Read this book, and you'll know your own body better than ever before.

I had absolutely no idea how fertility worked. Sure, I knew what I had been taught in sex education, but it was nothing compared to understanding more about fertility and the signs a woman's body gives out. This book is amazing. It truly should be given to all women in sex education. I think we'd have a lot fewer unplanned pregnancies if women could take charge of their own fertility. If a young woman is fearful of demanding her lover wear a condom, or afraid to go on birth control for fear of parents finding out, this book could make a huge difference to a woman responsible enough to pay attention to her own body. it's wonderful for achieving pregnancy as well. I think this book is a must have in *any* woman's personal library. It will change the way you view your body and will make clear to you your fertility signs and how your body works.

With a five star rating from 630+ reviews, what more can be said? My two cents: In my opinion, it is a must read for all women (and would enlighten a few men!)

Very easy reading, written with humor and compassion. Don't let it's size scare you off. You'll blast through it in no time. Quick reading chapters with lots of diagrams! No super technical medical words.

If you are blessed with a daughter, empower her with FULL knowledge of what is going on with her body. (Parts are easy for newly menstruating girls to follow, but I would recommend the book mainly for teens 15 and up because of the more mature attention-span required! No giggly girls, please!)

If like me, you are trying desperately to have a child and are about to give in to the "high-tech" way, PLEASE read this first! Specifically giving signs a woman can easily observe herself to let her know when she is most able to concieve, this book is way beyond what your doctor tells you!

I have such mixed feelings about the book that I have difficulty writing a balanced review. On one hand, this book contains far more information about the menstrual cycle, ovulation, and BBT charting than any other source I've found. My OB/GYN suggested that I start charting after several months of trying to conceive, but his overview of how to chart and interpret those charts was so brief as to be almost useless. This detailed, thorough book helped fill in many of those gaps.
On the other hand, I was so upset with the tone of the book that I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone. The author assumes that all of her female readers are ignorant victims of the "male-dominated medical establishment," and criticizes women again and again for not knowing every minute detail of their menstrual cycle, which I found silly. After all, I don't know every detail of the inner workings of my digestive tract either--does that make me a victim too?
My more serious objection is the fear tactics that the author uses to scare women away from seeking out medical help with a fertilty problem. I approached my fertility problem this way: I want a baby, and whether it's conceived through medical means or "natural" means does not matter. I agree that charting and lifestyle modifications should be your first step on the road to treatment, but if those methods don't work (which they probably won't if you have a serious fertility problem), you shouldn't be afraid to move on to medical help. After reading this book, I came away thinking that every doctor is arrogant, close-minded, ignorant about basic biology, and out to prescribe unnecessary fertility treatments just to make money. The first OB/GYN I saw wasn't great, but when I switched to a wonderful infertility specialist, everything became easier right away. He suggested that I stop charting because timing wasn't our problem--my husband's low sperm counts were. Quitting charting was the single biggest stress-reliever of my infertilty experience--I no longer felt that it was all "up to me." I'm also happy to report that after two years of trying, I'm finally expecting a baby this summer. My overall recommendation of this book would be to heed the factual information, but ignore the biases of its author.

This book should be the bible for any woman who is trying to be a mom. Its so informative and accurate.
The accuracy in this book amazed me.
It’s easy to read.