THE GROUNDBREAKING BESTSELLER NOW UPDATED AND REVISED

Are you unhappy with your current method of birth control? Or are you demoralized by your quest to have a baby? Do you also experience confusing signs and symptoms at various times in your cycle, but are frustrated by a lack of simple explanations?

This invaluable resource will help you find the answer to your questions while giving you amazing insights into your own body.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility has helped literally hundreds of thousands of women achieve pregnancy, avoid pregnancy naturally, or simply gain better control of their health and lives. This book thoroughly explains the empowering Fertility Awareness Method, which in only a couple of minutes a day allows you to:

• enjoy highly effective and scientifically proven birth control without chemicals or devices



• maximize your chances of conception before you see a doctor, or expedite your fertility treatment by quickly identifying impediments to pregnancy achievement



• increase the likelihood of choosing the gender of your baby



• gain control of your sexual and gynecological health

This expanded new edition includes:

• a revolutionary new, fully intuitive charting system



• numerous new master charts, including separate ones for birth control, pregnancy achievement, and menopause



• the latest on fertility conditions and high-tech treatments



• comprehensive tables that clearly summarize fertility-related drugs and procedures

After trying unsuccessfully on my own for 5 months, I started to question my fertility. I purchased ovulation test strips and they wouldn't show a peak ovulation. I found others online who were trying to conceive and recommended this book. Once I received the book, I couldn't put it down! I was amazed at what little information I actually knew about my cycle ~ my own body and what it had been telling me all along. I just didn't understand it.

I learned not everyone ovulates on "Day 14", for me it is actually "Day 23". I assumed I wasn't ovulating and got frustrated at day 20-21 and would stop testing. I now know to look for signals to show when I'm ovulating and now test in the correct window.

By reading this book I now have a clear understanding of my cycle. At my age, I want to have a baby sooner than later, so I plan on taking a more aggressive approach to my fertilization. I talked with my doctor after 6 months, rather than 1 year. With the help of this book and charting, I was able to explain my cycle and show my doctor all my charts. I was able to provide all the information needed to show I have a short luteal phase. By providing this information to the doctor, we will be able to treat the ovulation problem that much quicker. My doctor commented that I was extremely organized and it really helped things along.

This book is very easy to read and understand. You will be able to clearly read your own body signals during your cycle, and have a better understanding of your fertilization ~ whether you want to become pregnant - or not.

I will share this book with other women and would recommend it for every woman!


Excellent, excellent, excellent   October 8, 2002
 264 out of 271 found this review helpful

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!


Brilliantly enlightening!   August 18, 1999
 223 out of 228 found this review helpful

I bought this book after 4 unsuccessful months of trying, which was after 3 months of waiting after having 2 miscarriages. Since I'd gotten pregnant right away with my first child, I figured there might be something I needed to learn and I couldn't have been more right. This book is an absolute must for anyone, whether you're trying to get pregnant or not. I learned more about my body in the day and a half it took me to read the book than I ever did in any of the sex ed classes in school. After 4 months of what we thought was perfect timing and no success, we thought there might be a problem. I bought the book to learn about detecting ovulation and potential fertility problems. I got pregnant the first cycle I charted because of the knowledge I gained about ovulation and its signals. I learned through charting that I ovulated on Day 21 rather than Day 14. I was also able to determine I was pregnant without even taking a test! I'm so thrilled about the knowledge I've gained by reading this book and I feel much more in tune with my body now that I am pregnant. I urge any woman to get this book if you are at all interested in your body, pregnancy achievement, or pregnancy avoidance. This book is very well written in plain English that is easy to understand. The illustrations, color photographs, and numerous charting patterns were especially helpful to me. I can't say enough about this book!


Excellent information - but take with a grain of salt   February 22, 2005
 78 out of 83 found this review helpful

If you are anything like me, you were about 12 years old when you learned everything you know about the female body. Of course back then we were more concerned about guessing who had gotten their period so far and too busy avoiding eye contact with the boys in the room to really pay much attention.

Now, both as an adult and as a woman actively trying to achieve pregnancy, this is invaluable information that I wish I had known all along. Through Ms. Weschler's clear and easy to understand writing, you'll learn to fill in those blanks: how everything works, what exactly goes on during your cycle, how best to time sex for conception (I learned within the first month of charting that we were off by about 10 days - no wonder our first attempts didn't work!) and so much more...including how HIS parts work (700 million sperm at any given time? OH MY!).

However, I would also take Ms. Weschler's blatant distain for the medical community with a grain of salt. YES, her methods provide invaluable knowledge for women and YES this is information I believe each woman should be armed with, but I do bristle at her constant dismissal of all doctors and her negative portrayal of them. Especially alarming was her description of colonoscopy as "demoralizing." No, this procedure isn't as fun as trip to Disneyland, but it has indisputably saved thousands of lives despite the stigma many would place on it. My hope is that women read this to learn more about themselves...but not shy away from seeking medical help when and if they need it.




You've got to have this book - and recommend it to friends!!   May 4, 1999
 62 out of 64 found this review helpful

After over 4 months of trying to get pregnant, a good friend of mine recommended this book. She told me that if nothing else I would feel more knowledgeable about my body, its cycles, and what it was telling me when. So I ordered it. It is so well written that I found myself looking forward to reading it. It is incredibly informative and easy to understand. And I immediately knew from reading it what my husband and I were doing wrong (we were a little late in my cycle each month). Thanks to the charting I knew that having a mild flu with fever delayed my cycle's ovulation date *and* I knew when to keep going before ovulation. I'm happy to write that thanks to my first cycle of charting I'm now 3 weeks pregnant. I very very highly recommend this book. It helped me to relax and, literally, go with my body's flow. (I wish there were one this good for during pregnancy!!) THANKS TONI!!!!