It’s been a long, cold winter in many parts of the U.S. and from the mail that we’ve been getting it sounds like people are putting their CB’s to good use!

For those who have not received this newsletter before, it is a regular update that we like to send out to tell our customers about what is going on with CycleBeads and share information on important activities.

Each newsletter has a particular focus and the focus of this issue is to discuss the impact that CycleBeads are having on some women’s lives. We wanted to share with all of you the personal and interesting stories that some of our users have shared with us - and told us that we could repeat.

Additionally, we want to keep our customers in the loop on our activities and the work that we are doing to make sure that this family planning option is made available more widely for anyone looking for an easy, natural way to plan or prevent pregnancy.

As always, if you have any suggestions on how we can improve this newsletter, we would love to hear from you!

Deena C., Age 31
Investment Manager/Tri-Athlete
New York, NY

“I’ve always been very active and I used the Pill for years. When my husband and I got married, I decided to stop using the Pill and switched to CycleBeads. Pretty quickly my husband and I decided that we actually wanted to have a baby so we stopped using condoms during the fertile days.

After the first two months of not getting pregnant I began to worry. My period was coming just about every four weeks and I had no reason to think that there were problems ahead. When I visited my doctor she seemed to think I was being impatient and told me to “give it a year, then come back to me.”

I couldn’t blame her. I’m very healthy and my periods seemed to be regular. There was no reason to think that something was wrong. But, I was worried that I wasn’t getting pregnant right away.

After another two months of trying with no results, I went back to my doctor. This time I showed her CycleBeads, explained that I knew my periods were regularly between 28 and 32 days since I’d been tracking them, and told her that my husband and I were having sex often during my “fertile window.”

All of this helped her appreciate that there could be a problem and she took my concerns much more seriously this time. She ran some tests and we soon found out that even though my cycles were regular, due to my extremely active lifestyle, my body wasn’t producing enough of certain hormones that are needed to carry a pregnancy. My doctor immediately prescribed drugs that would help my body produce these hormones.

Shelley F., Age 36
Accountant/Mom
Lancaster, PA

“I purchased CycleBeads for my own use initially, but when I showed them to my 14 year old daughter I was really surprised at the conversation we had. We started talking about how they worked, and it was the first time that we’ve really talked about sex and pregnancy or even about her period. Until this time, I had assumed that a lot of the basics were covered in her health class or biology.

It was clear that my daughter was confused by the conflicting information she'd been hearing. She didn't understand why some of her friends were telling her that she could "only get pregnant 14 days after her period", but she was also hearing that she could "get pregnant any day of the month."

Frankly, I was a little confused too before really looking at CycleBeads and reading the information that they come with. Having read through the instructions that came with the beads and using them to track my own cycle, I felt a lot more comfortable talking to my daughter about her cycles and giving her basic information on when pregnancy is most likely.

I'm not encouraging my daughter to have sex, but I do want her to know the facts so she can make good decisions in her life. It was just great to have something visual that I could use to get the conversation started with her. It also helped that she thought they were 'kind of cool'!"