In 1994, my roommate and I responded to a flyer that we had seen all over Manhattan. It advertised a workshop in “Natural Birth Control.” This was at the dawn of the internet, children. No Google. No Wikipedia. Taking Charge Of Your Fertility was still being written. So while we were pretty much in the dark, it sounded intriguing, and we went. And the rest, as they say, is history. The workshop was taught by Barbara Feldman, one of the first people to teach Fertility Awareness in a non-religious context in the US. Barbara became my mentor, and in 2001, when she died, I took over The Fertility Awareness Center, the teaching practice she had started in 1981. In this capacity, my main role is that of a Fertility Awareness Educator (FAE). I have provided hundreds of clients with instruction in secular, sympto-thermal Fertility Awareness. I’ve also created a full year, 30 lesson sex ed curriculum for high school students that I’ve had the pleasure of teaching in 2016/2017 and again in 2018/2019.
I am proud to have served as the director (2014-2019) of the only international membership organization for professionals in the field. Founded by Barbara and some of her colleagues around 1991, the Fertility Awareness Network (FAN) waxed and waned over the years. In 2014, we successfully re-launched as the Association of Fertility Awareness Professionals (AFAP). We are working hard to unify and strengthen the field of Fertility Awareness.
I have given many presentations on Fertility Awareness, to the general public as well as to health care professionals, at such venues as Planned Parenthood NYC, the American College of Nurse Midwives Annual Conference, The Continuum Center for Health and Healing, NY Presbyterian/Columbia Family Medicine residency program, the Family Medicine Education Consortium, and the Community Healthcare Network. In 2019/2020 I created a series of workshops designed to increase FABM capacity amongst public health care providers, and gave those trainings to staff members of an organization serving approximately 200,000 people. I have mentored people who were working toward becoming educators themselves. And I have provided proofreading, editing, and content for several excellent books, including The Garden of Fertility and Our Bodies, Ourselves.
In 2013 I attained my Masters of Social Work (MSW). My specialty is organizational development and leadership. I work as the program office at a foundation and do community organizing work in my neighborhood focused on anti-racism and animal rescue. I am passionate about human rights, social justice, reproductive justice, and combating oppression. I strive to weave this throughout my work as a Fertility Awareness Educator.
I welcome as clients anywhere on the gender spectrum with the capacity to cycle (cisgender women, transmasculine and nonbinary folks), with or without partners, monogamous or not, sexually active or not, in a manner that attempts to be competent with respect to race and ethnicity, cultural identity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, physical ability, and gender identity. I support ALL reproductive choices; my goal is to help you make the ones that are best for you.
About This Website
Funding for this website was
generously provided by the Puffin Foundation.
Website design and build by Erin Casteel.