Latest / The Cyclical Doula Podcast: Fertility Awareness, Charting Cycles, and Reproductive Health Education / The Real, Raw, Charted Life of Emmamma: Travel, Disrupted Charting & Finding My Rhythm Again
Transcript
- emmamma: Hello and welcome back to the cyclical Doula podcast. Today you are hearing about the real raw charted life of Emmamma ⁓ So it's a solo episode and I'm hoping to do these regularly. We'll see how often I get them out but just kind of like a check-in ⁓ instead of a written newsletter because that is honestly my least favorite thing. And so I'm thinking about just recording this and letting people Emmamma: Thanks so much for being here today on the cyclical doula podcast. If this episode resonated with you, the most powerful thing that you can do is to share it, send it to a friend, text it to your sister, forward it to that group chat. This is how conversations about our bodies start changing, quietly, organically, woman to woman. you are listening and thinking, ⁓ ⁓ want help applying this to my emmamma: hear about what's going on with, ⁓ psychological stuff and MMS stuff. So, I am coming off of a very busy travel month. ⁓ the month of April started off with my family and I, ⁓ having, celebrating Easter, having some family here. ⁓ and then we left pretty immediately after that to go to St. Martin for Southwest. Emmamma: I offer free cycle clarity calls. It's a relaxed conversation over Zoom we talk through your goals, your charting practices, and kind of support that would actually make sense for you. can book one at emmamma.com / free. And if you already, make sure you're following or subscribe to the Cyclical Doula - podcast so that you don't miss future episodes. emmamma: inaugural flight there, which was super duper cool, but I really kind of just like checked out ⁓ things in my personal life have been pretty stressful. ⁓ Just a lot of stuff going on. lot of extended family things that just I'm processing. And so ⁓ with that, I really checked out for that first week that we were gone. ⁓ We were there for Emmamma: And if you feel called to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more women find this work. So thank you. You deserve to understand body. You deserve to feel confident in your reproductive choices. And you ⁓ have to figure it out alone. I'll see you next week. Thanks for being here. emmamma: like two days and then we were in Orlando before and afterwards. So it just kind of helped because we drove back and forth from there. So it was a great trip. It was fun to just like be in the warmth, be at the beach. The kids played in the pool most of the time. It was great. I came back, did a bunch of work and then I left for Vermont and to head to Italy with a group of youth and their parents for a pilgrimage, which was absolutely fantastic. So we went to Rome, we did the seven churches pilgrimage that St. Philip Neary had done. And this pilgrimage, super cool. And we walked miles every single day. So we saw all the big sites. I got, we like went to the Vatican. We did the steps all the way up to the dome. We were able to go to ⁓ the Colosseum. We were able to see some catacombs. We walked probably like 10 miles plus a day, which was awesome. So we walked all over Rome. ⁓ And then we took a day trip to Assisi one day, which I absolutely love Assisi. And it was great to be there. And then we also took a day trip to Naples and went to Herculaneum, to see that site and to show people that experience. I personally do not like Naples and so ⁓ that was like the low light of the trip for me. And then that last day, my colleague and I, who happens to be a really, really good friend, we just like walked all over Rome and shopped and I got a fabulous painting that gives like Charleston vibes and Rome vibes. And I'm super excited to this thing framed and have it up in my house. I have not bought art like that ever. ⁓ And so I'm super pumped about that. ⁓ And then, ⁓ so I was gone for like 10, 11 days, something like that, I'm not even sure. And so I've spent, I think more time out of the house or out of the country even ⁓ than in the country and in my house for the month of April. And so I am finally back ⁓ and kind of in here for a little bit in a new routine, trying to find out new things that are working well for me. With that, with all of that travel, I wound up not being able to be consistent with my oral, basal, body thermometer. And I kind of knew that. My cycle started right on April 1st, which is kind of fun. Easy to keep track of which day I'm on. And so I kind of was like, I'm not gonna be able to keep up with this. So I kind of went into the cycle knowing. that because of all my travel and because of fertile window stuff and my husband's travel, I was like, I'm not this ⁓ to get actual data for ⁓ avoiding pregnancy ⁓ And so ⁓ I was using my Oura ring ⁓ data as just like general data, ⁓ not expecting it to perfect. Usually it's pretty consistent with ⁓ corresponding in like a general pattern with my oral basal body temperature. But I would say with all the international travel with a lack of sleep, I'm sick for like 48 hours within that time that I was actually home. And so I feel like it's just like off. So I'm feeling hesitant about this data as a whole. And so I'm really excited to get back into temping with my oral thermometer because I feel like it just like is so much more consistent for me. ⁓ With that though, I was listening to another podcast and they had suggested using the app Fertility Friend a way to get ⁓ Oura temperature data like for free, like the specific one because your Oura ring. which has this deviation. So if you're listening to this and you use Oura ⁓ you don't wanna use natural cycles when you just want the data, Fertility Friend could be a good option to get that ⁓ I am going to that I do not think an app should be telling you you're fertile and when you're not. You should be using your own interpretation. So take that with a grain of salt. But if you want the actual data points, that could be helpful. ⁓ I was using that and ⁓ kind of fun to see the actual data points. ⁓ see. ⁓ So with that, with all of these things that have been taking place over the last couple of months, I've also reduced a lot of my daycare hours. I used to be open five days a week, eight hours a day. And now I'm down two, three days a week, two full days, one half day. So it's just giving me so much more time for fertility, awareness, education, and I am so pumped about that. So expect to hear a little bit from me on the regular, which is super fun. And ⁓ so I am hoping to do some more of these just like raw ⁓ check-ins, kind of brain dumps about what's going on on a more often basis so you can just hear from me. I am loving having all these guests on. I did a huge amount of batch recording in the early part of the year. And so you'll continue to hear from so many different guests and so many different ⁓ information around all of them, but I'm hoping that you can just kind of enjoy hearing from me, everyone smile too. What's going on in life? because I am to just ⁓ life as much as possible, ⁓ I'm to keep things consistent and when life throws things, I'll move stuff around. But typically I'm going to be doing ⁓ hosting events that are matriarch or fertility knowledge protocol methods ⁓ stuff on Tuesday evenings. ⁓ and then anything that's like SymptoPro related on Thursday evenings. So if you don't know, I'm on the East Coast of the United States, so that's just helpful when you're thinking about timing. ⁓ But teach two different methods. So I teach ⁓ which is ⁓ method that ⁓ Catholic and Catholic morals spread throughout. ⁓ has some strong protocols. ⁓ It gives you a lot of information, a lot of practice. get physical charts, you can chart with an app. ⁓ can ⁓ all sorts of different things. You use abstinence. If you're using SymptoPro the is to use abstinence in the fertile window, because that's what's most effective, and also follows Catholic Church teaching. So all of those things are there. If you're interested in learning more about that, ⁓ I I think I have an episode out already, but I will also be releasing a new episode about like more in detail about SymptoPro And so I'll make sure that's linked once that's out. ⁓ And then the other method I teach is Fertility Knowledge Collectors Protocol. And this is kind of like a multi-symptom protocol. It's really like mainly based in the SymtoThermal method, but also like knowing that there's seasons of life where you need to throw in some other testing like LH, stuff like that. and being able to those for ⁓ and like really being really specific. I love the way Fertility Knowledge Collective ⁓ that teach this because it's so specific to the individual and it's really focused just on, it's really focused just on charting to start off. So it's really simple about like you chart or nothing and then you get like a little bit more specific, use your own words ⁓ then you figure out how to interpret it. We talk really specifically about you. It can be in a specific timeframe that feels good for you, all of those things. So ⁓ I am teaching fertility knowledge collective protocol within my matriarch program, which is my big container of just like all of my resources and all of my support. ⁓ I host weekly office hours, which will be Tuesday nights at 8.30 PM Eastern time. ⁓ And so all of that stuff's gonna take place on Tuesdays. And then again, just going back for a second, all of my SymptoPro stuff that I'm teaching is gonna be on Thursday night. So I host monthly intro sessions for that. So the monthly introduction to SymptoPro hits a marriage prep requirement if you're getting married in the Catholic church and need a marriage prep requirement course for natural family planning. And then I am gonna be teaching some more group courses. on SymptoPro throughout the year. And so ⁓ those will also be on Thursdays at 8 p.m. Eastern. And then teaching gears back to fertility knowledge collective. So matriarch office hours will be on Tuesdays and then monthly I'll host these initial sessions of like how to learn how to chart with knowledge collective and then there'll be support within that. So. That's what that's looking like right now. It's kind of how I'm going down. And then I'll also have some individual support and coaching options as well. So if you're looking for more one-on-one versus these groups, I'll have that. It's going to be a higher price point. But I am just really excited to get into this with people to feel like they are able to just know their bodies really well. ⁓ All right, so just coming up ⁓ for May, I'm just gonna throw out some dates for you. So on Thursday, May 7th, at 8 p.m. Eastern time, I'm hosting my introduction to SymptoPro. And then Tuesday, May 12th 8 p.m. I'm hosting that initial instruction for Fertility Knowledge Collective, it's Matriarch's Charting Foundations. And then my next SymptoPro cohort is to start on Thursday, ⁓ May 14th. those will be happening bi-weekly on Thursday. So it's eight weeks of information. Thursday, May 14th, ⁓ Thursday, May Thursday, June ⁓ and then June 25th, all at 8 Eastern. ⁓ All of these things I'm offering are online currently. I'm hoping to get some more in-person stuff coming up in the future, but not quite yet. And then I am starting to toy with the idea and working with some other people about teaching body literacy to kids with just like a secular ⁓ base it. So how you can learn about your body, how we can learn about cycles, how we can... ⁓ chart and tracker cycles just for health knowledge. And so keep your ears peeled for information about that. I'm probably gonna do some like beta courses testing and try that out. So yeah, I'm super excited for that. Super excited for all the things that are coming up, for all of the episodes that are coming out with the guests this month and some other things coming up. in personal life, all of those things. ⁓ And yeah, thanks for being here. Thanks for making me a part of your week. And I'll see you next time. Bye.