As you probably know, my husband and I use NFP (Natural Family Planning) to facilitate the planning of our family in accordance with the teachings of the Church. Although it may seem strange to those who do not practice NFP, we find that not only is it the morally right decision for our family planning, but it is much better than the unromantic and inconvenient use of a condom and so much better than the side effects/medical risks of using the pill. I am often confronted with situations where my girlfriends (most of which happen to be Catholic) say ” We could never use NFP… It’s way too hard.” Or “I just don’t trust God that much.” It seems interesting to me… not that I want to put anyone down. I certainly can appreciate the appeal of being able to take a pill everyday and not having to worry about periods of abstinence. mucus, or taking temperatures. But it seems to me that teachings of the Church such as the Eucharist (where bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Christ) would be much harder to believe than the concept that God will take care of you and your family even in the realm of the number of children you have. Think of it this way, there will be times in your marriage when you can’t be be sexually intimate with your spouse whether you use NFP or not (6 weeks after childbirth, business trip of a spouse, spouse’s illness, etc.) It comes down to whether you want to have the peace of knowing you are following what the Church teaches to be God’s design for marriage or you want to decide for yourself which of the parts of being Catholic you want to follow.

Anyways… didn’t mean to get off on that rant. So my husband and I are currently using NFP to avoid pregnancy for a couple of reasons. Mostly we just had Anna 7 months ago, so having another right now would be a lot for us to take on. Thankfully we have always used NFP in our marriage of 5 years, so I definitely know how to recognize my body’s signs of fertility. I resumed charting during my 5th month postpartum when I started to noticed my body making fertile mucus. Since then I’ve had 2 cycles. I’ve noticed that my cycles are extended from their normal pre-pregnancy length of 28 days to 35/36 days and my luteal phase (the time from ovulation to menstruation) has decreased from around 10 or 11 days to 4-6 days. This short luteal phase makes a very short phase 3 (non-fertile period when intercourse is very unlikely to result in pregnancy.) Has anyone else noticed this? I assume it’s from breastfeeding.

These short phase 3’s have been challenging for both myself and my husband, but it has definitely given a chance to take a deep look at what God’s plan for marriage is. We have been reading and listening to lots of stuff on NFP and the Catholic Church’s teaching on chastity in marriage. It’s truly been a blessing. We are really learning some much needed virtues such as temperance, patience, purity, and perseverance. Just think without the wisdom of God to design marriage as completely self-giving in imitation of the Trinity, we would have totally missed out on that beautiful opportunity for the increase in grace and virtue in our family. Isn’t that what marriage and family is supposed to be about anyways… that we all become saints by imitating the selfless, life-giving love amongst the Three Divine Persons of the Trinity?

I thought as I returned to my charting that I might try to get my husband more involved in NFP instead of it being more of my responsibility to track when it’s a “red light” or “green light” as we joke about. I signed up for Cyclendar.com which is an online fertility tracker to see if that would be helpful as well as getting my husband more involved. (It’s been his job to enter my information into the online application.) So far I have mixed impressions of the program:

1. It cost $16/year versus the pen and paper method which is virtually free. But then again, it’s $16… hardly anything to get too concerned about.
2. The idea of a program calculating what phase you are in is very appealing. I’d love to just go to a website that tells me “Phase 1″ or “Phase 2″ instead of having to use all the rules to figure it out myself.
3. Being that I do not have much historically data in their system, it is currently using what appears to be a calendar method to calculate when I ovulate. It looks to be completely ignoring my temperatures and mucus at this point. Perhaps, this changes as you enter more data.
4. The interface is a bit confusing because there is no legend or indications of what their symbols mean. For example, I had to just assume that a day marked on the calendar with a green circle is a fertile day.
5. It’s pretty tedious to enter my temperature and mucus observations. It needs a lot of work on the usability of the interface. I wish I didn’t have hit submit to save the data, and I wish it were more obvious when you’re entering info for which day you are entering.
6. It does generate the traditional chart that you can print out and use.

Ultimately right now, if it continues a calendar method instead of using my body signs to determine fertile days, it’s not going to work for me. For instance, right now I have an extended phase two with a short luteal phase. If I was using their interface to determine fertility, it would say I’m not fertile when I am. I’m thinking (being that I own a programming company and that comes in handy at times) that I might have ask if we can develop a better online NFP system ourselves at no cost to users and take donations for the cost of doing so.

Well that’s all for now…Feel free to post your comments and thoughts regarding NFP or anything else! Or use my contact form, if you wish to address me privately. God love you!

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