Natural Family Planning: Too Good and So True, Part 2

In the comments on Part 1, Stevie noted, "I love NFP conversion stories."

What a great term - "NFP conversion story" - because that's certainly what it is, I just never thought of it like that.

Anyway, after we had our first daughter, we hoped to be blessed with more. Ironically, while it took us 1.5 years to conceive our daughter, once we decided to conceive our son it happened almost immediately. This left our little ones 1.5 years apart. And while we hope to be blessed with more, we now would like to have at least 2 years between our son and future sibling (God willing).

Given we were always trying to conceive previously, we never had to worry about postponing pregnancy. Now that we are, we were led to NFP.

We've completed two of the three classes with our Couple to Couple League instructors and it's really amazing.

Going in, we were both a little "Um, is it going to be weird talking about this stuff with strangers?" But it wasn't. The couple is very real, funny and down-to-earth. The charting and interpretation are easy to learn - especially since I'm the type of person who likes to read material on my own and also be instructed in person.

Every morning, the alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. and my husband rolls over and hands me the thermometer. I give him the reading, he writes it down, then we both try to catch a few more Zzzzzs. It takes about a minute and a half.

Twice a day (afternoon and before bed) I check myself for signs of fertility. Total, that takes about a minute. My husband charts the info, and we both know where we are in my fertility cycle. We've invested 2.5 minutes out of the day and gained so much in terms of communication, closeness and more.

When I read up on NFP earlier, it was via a secular book. The approach is the same, but the book lacks the all-important theology behind NFP. At the time, I was reading the book, taking my temp, checking my signs and charting. It was all me. And given I hadn't any instruction or anyone to answer questions, I got discouraged and stopped practicing it. Plus, all the work was on me.

Now my husband and I are a team when it comes to fertility. We have our roles (he also does the charting), and every day we know where we are at with fertility, which leads us to discuss, "Are we open to life today?" This makes what was my fertility, our fertility, which is pretty amazing.

Since we started practicing just a couple months ago, we've discussed things we have never talked about before. We've learned so much about fertility and reproduction, we're both amazed. After nearly 10 years of marriage and 5 years presenting marriage prep, I thought we talked about everything. Not so! This has opened up a whole other area of openness, honesty and mutual decision making. Wow.

Our teachers told us an amazing stat at the last class. The divorce rate among all married couples today is, what, 50% at least? The divorce rate among those who practice NFP is 3%.

You can't beat that.

I'd encourage every couple to give NFP a try. I honestly think, in just my limited experience, that once you try it you'll love it. Check the CCL Web site for more information on classes in your area, or call your diocese's family life office.

Also, I think it would be a great thing for single women to practice. Granted, you have to do all the work yourself (and even that is not much, less than 5 minutes a day), but it will give you an amazing, accurate look at your cycle and body. If your cycle ever gets irregular or you think you may be having gynecological issues, you will have all the data to take to your GYN for his or her thoughts. And when you're married and ready to achieve pregnancy, you'll be an expert on your own fertility and cycle.

In fact, during my first month of charting, my body temps were very, very low. So low, in fact, my instructor advised me to have my thyroid checked. I've got an appoint to meet with my doctor in 2 weeks to do just that. When I see him I can say, "I think my thyroid may be sluggish. Here are my waking temperatures for the past 60 days, what do you think?" Pretty cool.