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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I recently started reading a book I found searching on Amazon called, “Natural Family Planning Blessed Our Marriage.” You can find it at being clicking here. So far it seems to be a very edifying and easy read. If you are thinking about using NFP for your marriage or like me just need a little encouragement, read it with me. I’m going to be blogging more about it soon.

It’s the short testimonies of couples using Natural Famliy Planning and the grace and tremendous blessing it has been to their famliy and married life. I know that I struggle with NFP at times and often think it would be so much easier to be on the Pill, but I’m proud to say that we have never used contraception. God has blessed us in so many ways in NFP. I think the struggles are just God’s way to letting us the victory we have in Him. If it weren’t a challenge how would we know how good God’s grace is!

Anyways, join me in reading it, if you get a chance. We can all use the edification!

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I was reading an article in CCL’s Family Foundations magazine about a couple who learned Natural Family Planning as the wife regained after fertility during a postpartum period and struggled through that period . I think it was definitely divine providence that I read that article today! Last night I was just complaining about how difficult NFP can be. I told my husband that I was just ready to give up on it. (Not that I would actually do that; I was really just complaining and speaking from frustration.) Even though we had successfully used NFP for almost five years now to both postpone and achieve pregnancy, I still have a lot of anxiety about getting pregnant so soon after having a baby. In fact, my doctor and psychologist suggest that I not have any more children. The thought of using NFP to avoid pregnancy for the rest of my many fertile years seems daunting. Anyways, as I was saying, I was just having some serious thoughts of resorting to contraception but I lack faith in the NFP rules to avoid pregnancy even though I have no reason to doubt them. My husband and I have been abstaining quite a bit lately as we watch carefully for the return of my fertility. (Our baby is 6 months old.) Sometimes it feels like we’re back to single life, and it’s so frustrating. We are committed to living a Catholic life including the absence of contraception in our marriage, but I have to say lately it feels to me like this is an impossible task. My husband on the other hand is much holier than I and is 100% patient with the ambiguous fertility signs. My temperates are all over the place and I seem to have varying degrees of mucus all the time. I’m scared to be intimate as I don’t want (nor should I) to get pregnant. I felt good to me to have some reassurance that other couples struggle with strange fertility signs after pregnancy and others have doubts that NFP is significant for family planning. After reading the article, it occurred to me that the abstinence is only temporary, and it provides my spouse and I time to focus on our communication and relationship. God alone is enough even in my family, even in my marriage! Praise be to God. I’m sure I’ll have more to share on our journey with NFP as it continues….

God love you.

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