How tracking helped Calypso advocate for herself, get diagnosed, and navigate IVF

After experiencing painful periods, it's easy to convince yourself it wasn't really that bad once the cramps pass. For years, one Clue member, Calypso, did just that. 

She’d always experienced painful periods, but because many people around her also did, she assumed it was just something she had to live with.

Six years ago, she started tracking with Clue. What began as a way to feel more prepared for her periods eventually became something bigger. Over time, tracking helped her build an “evidence file” that she could bring to medical appointments as a record of what she was experiencing.

Having this evidence ultimately helped her advocate for herself, receive diagnoses of adenomyosis and Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and later navigate a reciprocal IVF journey with her wife. In her words, tracking gave her a language to understand what her body had been trying to tell her for years.

We spoke to Calypso about the role cycle tracking played throughout this journey.

Why should you start tracking your cycle?

Tracking can help you recognize patterns and anticipate how you may feel throughout the month. Painful periods were the main reason Calypso began tracking:

"I knew I wanted to start tracking because I have painful periods, and I needed to know when that pain was coming. Tracking in the Clue app gave me a better understanding of where I was in my cycle, and it helped me know when my period was coming, so that I could be better prepared for it."

How can cycle tracking help you understand period symptoms?

Tracking helped turn seemingly unrelated symptoms into recognizable patterns for Calypso. 

"Tracking has given me a language to be able to know my body better, especially in relation to my cycle."

"I always felt like my body had this language, but tracking finally helped me understand the words. Before tracking, I would experience all these sensations like pain, bloating, or sore breasts, without making the connection to my cycle.

Now, I feel much more prepared—with what I’m eating, with how I’m moving my body, and even with how I talk to my partner about how I'm feeling.

I can look at a symptom and recognize, 'Oh, this is because I’m ovulating,' or 'My period is coming in two or three days.' "

Why are painful periods sometimes dismissed?

Many people with painful periods report feeling dismissed or being told that their symptoms are a “normal” part of menstruation. In some cases, this can delay further investigation into underlying conditions such as endometriosis or adenomyosis. 

Calypso knows this from experience. 

Reflecting on this time, she says, "I'd always had painful periods, but I grew up in a house of women who also had painful periods, and so I thought that it was ‘normal’. And there had been times in my life where I'd thought maybe something else was going on. But you don't know what other people are feeling in terms of pain, so I would trick myself into thinking maybe what I was experiencing wasn’t that bad. 

I remember when I first went to the doctor. They said, 'You have painful periods.' I was offered the contraceptive pill, paracetamol, or ibuprofen, and that was it. There wasn't any further investigation. It just seemed like something they’d heard a million times before. And it felt like their focus was on managing the pain rather than trying to understand what might be behind it."

Can tracking help you advocate for yourself with doctors?

Having a record of cycle data can make it easier to communicate with healthcare providers and advocate for further investigation if something doesn't feel right.

For Calypso, the information she tracked became the "evidence file" she brought to appointments, and it became especially valuable when she and her wife began preparing for IVF.

"Tracking absolutely helped me advocate for myself with doctors," she says. 

"I think I've probably known for a really long time that something wasn't quite right, but I almost just didn't want to face it. 

When my partner and I were preparing for IVF, I had a series of tests before an embryo transfer. 

Through a blood panel, I learned that I had Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune condition that affects the thyroid.

As I investigated that further with a specialist, she also looked more closely at my period and pain levels and suggested that I might have endometriosis, too. 

I got a scan, and that’s when they found adenomyosis, which I’d never even heard of before. I'd heard a lot about endometriosis, which I'm still in the process of potentially being diagnosed with, but adenomyosis was completely new to me."

After years of questioning whether her symptoms were "normal," finally having an explanation felt validating. 

"So, something actually was going on! I always share that with people I meet now who have really painful periods. I'm like, 'Go get that checked,' because I feel like I was soldiering on for the sake of it. Getting that diagnosis has finally given me answers."

How can cycle tracking support IVF treatment?

Having a record of cycle information can help provide a sense of structure during IVF, a process that often involves uncertainty and careful coordination of appointments, medications, and treatment timelines. For Calypso and her wife, tracking became an essential tool throughout their fertility journey.

"My wife and I have been together for nine and a half years, and we always knew we wanted kids. A couple of years ago, we started the long road to making that happen and began IVF. 

At the end of last year, we both had egg retrievals. Because we were traveling abroad for treatment, we needed to know exactly when her period was starting so she could begin medication at the right time. 

Coordinating appointments, medication, and travel felt like a military operation. I genuinely don’t know how we would have done it without all that cycle data in the app, helping us figure out when we could book flights and plan treatment around our cycles. 

At times, it was heartbreaking. We retrieved a lot of eggs, but then found out most of them weren’t viable. In the end, we had just one fertilized egg, which became the one embryo that passed all of its testing. That was amazing. 

The original plan was to transfer that embryo into me, through a process called reciprocal IVF, or shared motherhood.

But three weeks before we were due to travel, I got my Hashimoto's thyroiditis diagnosis, and was told I potentially had a cyst as well. You can absolutely get pregnant with both of these conditions, but the diagnosis was still very new. 

I felt like I needed time to understand what it meant and how it might affect pregnancy. So we decided to transfer the embryo into my wife’s body instead—and it worked! We're currently 12 weeks pregnant, which is very exciting."

"In a process that brings so much uncertainty, knowing where you are in your cycle gives you something concrete to hold on to. It brought a sense of grounding at a time when we had no idea what was going to happen."

How can cycle tracking help you understand your body better?

Looking back, Calypso says tracking has given her greater self-awareness and a clearer way to communicate what she’s experiencing each month.

"Tracking has made me more in tune with my body. I always say that I don't know why they don't teach us basic cycle health in school, because having this data means I finally have real answers. 

Now, when people ask me how I am, I don't have to guess—I can actually point to exactly what is going on in my body and better understand why I feel the way I do.

It’s been particularly helpful in my relationship. We have two periods in our house. Being able to understand not only where I am in my cycle, but also where my wife is in hers, and having the language to say, 'This is where I'm at,' has been especially helpful in my marriage and my relationship, more than anywhere else."

What is one word you would use to describe the impact Clue has had on your life?

"Empowering. Having this little evidence file helped me prove to doctors, but also to myself, that I wasn’t going crazy, making it up, or exaggerating. 

That has been incredibly empowering.”