In this episode of the podcast I’m joined by Chinese Medicine doctor and acupuncturist Joanna Macmeikan for a chat about all things women’s health, hormones and fertility with a twist of yin and yang!⁠⁠

Think back to high school for a moment…

If you were going to ask someone else to do your homework for you, or take an important exam for you, you’re going to ask someone smarter than you right?

Someone who could guarantee they would get a better result than you could.

Would you consider asking someone if they weren’t as smart as you, if there was no guarantee?

No, you wouldn’t.

So why are you asking an inanimate object to tell you when you’re fertile?

Getting pregnant is not a one step process, and implantation is the final step where the fertilised egg (now called an embryo) settles itself into the lining of the uterus for a 9 month stay-cation.

When you’re trying to get pregnant, it’s normal to be very aware of your body and notice every tiny change that happens, wondering if it’s a sign of pregnancy.

The frustrating part is that so many of the early signs of pregnancy and implantation are very similar to PMS, so in this episode I’m breaking down some of the most common signs of implantation that women experience.

But just because you don’t notice any of them, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening for you.

I’m not currently trying to get pregnant, so why do I care when I’m ovulating?

Why would I bother charting and tracking my fertile signs when I have no intention of conceiving?

Your fertility is so much more than making babies. It’s about eliminating the need for artificial hormones that have their own set of side effects, and relying on your own body to tell you everything you need to know to avoid pregnancy with a natural method of birth control that’s equally as effective as the pill!

You can use your observations and your symptoms to address underlying health issues before they show up as other more serious symptoms in your body. You can take your chart to a healthcare professional and figure out what your body needs to rebalance your hormones and regulate your periods.

And finally, you can use this knowledge at every stage of life – birth control, pregnancy, post-partum and while breastfeeding all the way through until menopause.

The best part? You only have to learn it once!

Here’s a secret – there is one single thing that I miss about being on the pill, and it’s how damn clear my skin was!

Like our teenage years aren’t angsty enough without having to experience the highs and lows of breakouts too. But once we make it to the other side of puberty, not all of us emerge with clear skin. Our hormones like to remind us who’s boss and often around ovulation or our periods, a few fresh spots will emerge.

In this episode, I’m breaking down how to manage your skin as you transition off hormonal birth control. We’ll cover how to identify the underlying cause of your acne and what to do about it.

Acne is a sign that your hormones happy, and there’s only so much that topical creams and lotions can do to help!

Truthbomb: Your phone doesn’t know when you’re fertile.

I seem to have developed quite the reputation for being anti-app. I’m not necessarily anti-app, but I am anti-crappy apps and it seems that there are a lot of them out there.

The internet is completely flooded with period and ovulation tracking apps that claim to help you to monitor your menstrual cycle and your fertile window. Here’s the bad news – most of them are nothing more than a high-tech version of the rhythm method.

I get it, you’re already trying to remember to drink enough water, exercise every day, text everyone back, be a good friend, partner, mother, sister, employee…phew, it’s a lot. The last thing you could possibly add to your plate is complicated tracking and charting system. Every. Single. Day.

Fertility awareness and charting has a reputation for being time-consuming, overwhelming and just another thing on our never-ending to-do lists, and so many women are missing out on this incredible knowledge as a result!

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through exactly how I track my menstrual cycle and my body’s natural fertile signs every day. I’m doing it as I go about my day and I don’t have to add in a single thing to my day to get all the information I need.

And I do it in under 5 minutes.

Contrary to what we’re all told, hormonal contraceptives are not the only effective option for birth control. If you’ve decided to finally ditch the hormones forever, or if you’re contemplating taking the leap, you’ll still need to know how to manage your fertile window if abstinence isn’t your thing.

Contraception can be used during the learning phase of fertility awareness and charting, when you’re still learning about your body’s unique menstrual cycle, and on wonky days when you’re just not sure (they happen to everyone!).

So forget what you were told in sex ed, I’m breaking down for you the most effective contraceptive options for managing your fertile window that are 100% hormone-free.

We spend the majority of our lives actively avoiding pregnancy, so when the time finally arrives that you actually want to make a baby, it’s important to plan ahead.

If you’re someone who finds herself saying “I’ll get healthy when I’m pregnant”, this episode is for you because you really do need to start making healthy lifestyle changes before you get pregnant – 3 months to be exact.

Why 3 months? It takes 90 days for an egg to mature inside the follicles in the ovary before it is released at ovulation. For the boys, it takes 3 months for sperm cells to fully mature. By making lifestyle changes in the 3 months before actively trying to conceive, you’re making sure that your man has a stock of healthy, high quality mature sperm and that you’re creating the healthiest possible environment that encourages a fertilised egg to implant and develop into your baby.

As soon as we ovulate, the body starts to prepare for a potential pregnancy. Month after month, our menstrual cycle creates the perfect conditions for an egg to be fertilised so that when a long-awaited pregnancy finally occurs, you can get to work straight away growing your baby – long before you even know you’re pregnant.

In this episode, you’ll learn when the best possible time is to take a pregnancy test in order to get an accurate result. I’ll share the earliest signs of pregnancy to look out for as well as how to survive the two-week wait between ovulation and your next expected period.