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Tigre
Guest
Mom can’t breastfeed for physiological reasons, so we are on formula. The choice looks to be NFP (probably sympto-thermal), abstinence, or other. Thanks for your thoughts though.
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Tigre
Guest
Great advice. Mom had a 30 min hot bath this morning and you are absolutely right. I appreciate your other posts in this thread too. Sounds like she is having a not-to-uncommon first time mom experience.
K
kozlosap
Guest
Awesome post! I totally agree with the IUD comment- My 30 year old daughter and many of her friends use Merina, and have had no complications.
K
Kelfa28
Guest
I’m sorry…you certainly have my thoughts and prayers.
Though I won’t use contraception…I get it…I know how hard this is and what she is going through.
Talk to your priest, SD or both and tell her how you feel, that you’re consulting them and tell her what they are saying.
Listen to her concerns and pray but don’t push her at all. Maybe with time she’ll change her mind.
J
Jeffgo
Guest
The IUD can act as an abortifacient.
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Kelfa28
Guest
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skippley
Guest
The most complete NFP program is available from NFP International. We are a real bargain compared to other organizations. Go to www.NFPandmore.org. The NFP manual can be downloaded for a suggested dontion of $10 and the online home study course is for a $70 donation. All the fertility signs are taught and exclusive and ecological breastfeeding as well. The manual is in an easy question-and-answer format and 156 pages. Research shows that the most effective NFP method is a cross-checking method…using at least 2 fertility signs if one has a serious reason to avoid pregnancy.
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skippley
Guest
The Pill is a Class 1 carcinogen according to the WHO. Spacing babies is best with ecological breastfeeding where American mothers average 14.5 months without menstruation if they follow the Seven Standards. The main fear is wanting some spacing between babies. God has a plan for this. Please read The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding —available at lulu.com, amazon, Barnes & Noble and also as an ebook. It is very cheap and a short read with the research.
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Kelfa28
Guest
Read my previous post.
This is complete and total propaganda and one of the most irresponsible things to throw out on a thread.
It Has No Guarantee and it’s NOT THE BEST.
IF I followed this **** advice I’d be pregnant again.
EBF does not work any better then anything else.
Nor should it be advertised as a form of contraception.
If I bought this **** at marriage prepI’d be pregnant at 5 weeks PP and would have sprinted to the OB and be sterilized and would blame it all on the spew propagated by lay people who claim to represent the church.
I can’t believe EBF is advertised as actual contraception. What nonsense.
This is the reason why people like me are desperate and so close to baling out of the Church.
“No you can’t use the pill but here is another form if contraception that we promise will totally work…mom just needs to give up here entire life so marital relations to resume immediately!”
“Hold on…she got pregnant at 5 weeks PP even though she was desperate to avoid? We’ll she must have done something wrong!”
Anyone who comes on here and reads these threads needs to know that EBF is not a reliable or wise method to space babies…especially if you have very serious reasons to avoid.
Don’t rely on it. If it works then great but it does NOT work for everyone.
It especially grates me when men post this nonsense and when other posters claim that you could get pregnant with an IUD or the pill but why not EBF instead.
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PhiloMed
Guest
Kelfa said everything else I would say about this kind of garbage that gets thrown around here on CAF.
I will add that other Class I carcinogens include
-any alcoholic beverage
-working as a furniture maker or painter
-being a chimney sweep
-salted fish
-mineral oil
-the sun
-air pollution
-chemotherapy agents
-many viruses
-any estrogen used for any purpose
-some immunosuppressive drugs
Know what one of the class II carcinogens is? Lack of sleep.
Spacing babies is NOT BEST with ecological breastfeeding. This is not going to work for all women.
You get 6 months, at best, if you’re lucky.
And what about those who cannot breastfeed until their brains are sucked out? Too bad for them? Another child every 10 months?
I am.so.sick.and.tired of this. I had a return to the church and bought the line that my life and my marriage would be so improved by NFP. Guess what? Didn’t work. I had a happier marriage and much fewer concerns and stress when I was using ABC.
It’s this kind of thing that is going to drive me right back there.
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Kelfa28
Guest
My marriage would be happier if I could use an IUD too.
Why? Because of the desperation, fear and constant abstinence we have to face only to see people who represent the Church claim how incredibly wonderful NFP and EBF are and how they work so well and how it will improve my marriage.
No, it’s just made the cross heavier and larger to know that EBF doesn’t work and will never work for me and that NFP is iffy at best while everyone else sings to the heavens about the beauty of both NFP and EBF.
It makes me want to quit but I still love the Church with all my heart and that is the only reason I keep going.
Fighting mortal sin is harder and harder every day we have to abstain and reading nonsense like that makes me so angry my blood boils.
It’s propaganda…plain and simple.
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UbiCaritas
Guest
You and Kelfa said a lot of what I wanted to say.
I did want to add that the poster you quoted is one of the biggest proponents of Catholic attachment parenting and the LAM and EBF methods of postponing future kids there is. In the Kippleys’ (husband and wife team) worldview, good moms don’t work, good moms breastfeed exclusively (according to the title of their book, natural childbirth, cosleeping, exclusive and ecological breastfeeding/et all are, and I quote, “God’s Plan For Your Motherhood,”), and it works beautifully for virtually every family.
In case you can’t tell, hearing from a LOT of well-meaning people that I somehow wasn’t following “God’s Plan” for my motherhood by having a much-needed C-section and eventually formula feeding did more to trigger postpartum depression in me than anything else. I bought the whole thing hook, line, and sinker while pregnant, and when nothing worked out as it was “supposed” to, spent the next 6 months in a hell of obsessive thoughts about what a bad person I was because my baby turned transverse and no matter what I did, my breasts wouldn’t produce enough milk and insisted on getting infection after infection after infection. I couldn’t even see just how blessed I was or bond properly with my daughter: all I could think about was what a terrible failure I was.
Frankly, when I was at my worst point PPD-wise, this stuff nearly pushed me over the edge to an IUD or sterilization because my line of thought was “since I’m a horrible Catholic mom anyway, I might as well go the whole way.” Seriously unhealthy, and not logical, but when you don’t have much support in real life and look to your Church for it, only to be told by its (to be fair, entirely self-appointed) representatives that you’re a failure anyway/if you give her formula when she’s clinically dehydrated, the pediatrician is just trying to sabotage breastfeeding/You’re Just Not Trying Hard Enough, when you’re only sleeping in 20-minute intervals to maintain a nurse/pump schedule to try to produce enough…let’s just say it doesn’t exactly engender warm, fuzzy feelings about one’s church.
As a side note, I would love to know how exactly even a stay-at-home mom of several children is supposed to sleep with the baby when the baby naps. snort Oh, wait? That doesn’t work for you? Your toddler needed help with something? Your five-year-old can’t be trusted to be alone for three hours straight? Remember, you can’t put them or the newborn onto a schedule, 'cause that’ll violate one of the seven standards; guess your toddler will just have to learn to nap anytime between 11 AM and 4 PM when you tell him to, 'cause* that* always works so well, and as for the five-year-old, just tell her she needs to entertain herself for three hours because the really important part of motherhood is breastfeeding, and you can’t be bothered with her right now.
Want to leave your kid for an hour or two break? That just selfish of you! Want to hand the baby to someone else (say, daddy?) after you’ve been clung to and screamed at all day? Only a bad mother wouldn’t want to wear her kid everywhere and at all times! Want your kid to sleep through the night, and encourage him to do so? Think that your husband should take on a night feeding once in a while? Selfish! Have you gone to confession lately?
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Maximilan_Kolbe
Guest
I do not know how I’d react, but I tend to agree with this. We’ve seen the discussions about men refusing to indulge in pornography, and many support a halt to relations if the man insist on continuing. And while I see that (and my heart breaks for the men and women this affects), it can at least be said that the porn is often an addiction. If women are within their right to withold true intimacy from a husband who refuses to abandon a willfully immoral practice, why would this situation be any different?
Would it be okay if a woman tossed a man’s porn stash in the trash, and the man decided to get a few online subscriptions that were password protected out of spite? Or if she dumped out the alchohol a man refused to give up? Come on.
To the OP, you sound like a fanastic man, and a loving husband. Your wife is lucky to have someone that cares as much about her soul as you do. You are in my prayers.
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Maximilan_Kolbe
Guest
And yet this, in itself, is advice.
I do not know how I’d react, but I tend to agree with this. We’ve seen the discussions about men refusing to indulge in pornography, and many support a halt to relations if the man insist on continuing. And while I see that (and my heart breaks for the men and women this affects), it can at least be said that the porn is often an addiction. If women are within their right to withold true intimacy from a husband who refuses to abandon a willfully immoral practice, why would this situation be any different? Could the husband simply withold sexual intimacy (not saying this as advice, merely asking)? And would a woman be justified in throwing a man’s stash of ponography in the trash? Erasing his favorites list (if men actually bookmarked them…)? I would iamgine she would.
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Kelfa28
Guest
I was recently given an official diagnosis of PPD that I now know I had with my first.
I can attribute a lot of it to the stress of trying to be one of those Catholic moms that the Kippleys and CCL claim is the ideal Catholic mom.
I did buy the CCL propaganda hook, line and sinker.
My first baby never latched and I had to pump for her…that skyrocketed my stress levels and threw me into a deep sense of inadequacy.
My second baby was an EBF baby. It just took time to practice it because breaks feeding is both a natural and a practiced skill.
I couldn’t get all of the rules down because I was a mother of two and not one.
We never did get the nap thing down every day…maybe once or twice a week.
Plus my husband could see just how stressed out I was from lack of sleep and frustration…when I snapped at him for trying to comfort a crying baby with his finger he lost his cool and proclaimed EBF to be the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard of.
It didn’t matter because despite all of the hard work I put in to try and learn EBF I still got my period at 5 weeks PP and was crushed and went back into a serious bout of depression because no one could tell me what was wrong except the way I was nursing.
This time…with my third…I both depressed and afraid. So much so that I don’t want to do this anymore.
I don’t trust NFP because I’m convinced it won’t work again.
EBF wad supposed to work…that was what I was told but it didn’t. Why should NFP be any different.
I could try to read my signs and cross check but still be wrong and still get pregnant.
I can attribute a lot of it to the stress of trying to be one of those Catholic moms that the Kippleys and CCL claim is the ideal Catholic mom.
I did buy the CCL propaganda hook, line and sinker.
My first baby never latched and I had to pump for her…that skyrocketed my stress levels and threw me into a deep sense of inadequacy.
My second baby was an EBF baby. It just took time to practice it because breaks feeding is both a natural and a practiced skill.
I couldn’t get all of the rules down because I was a mother of two and not one.
We never did get the nap thing down every day…maybe once or twice a week.
Plus my husband could see just how stressed out I was from lack of sleep and frustration…when I snapped at him for trying to comfort a crying baby with his finger he lost his cool and proclaimed EBF to be the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard of.
It didn’t matter because despite all of the hard work I put in to try and learn EBF I still got my period at 5 weeks PP and was crushed and went back into a serious bout of depression because no one could tell me what was wrong except the way I was nursing.
This time…with my third…I both depressed and afraid. So much so that I don’t want to do this anymore.
I don’t trust NFP because I’m convinced it won’t work again.
EBF wad supposed to work…that was what I was told but it didn’t. Why should NFP be any different.
I could try to read my signs and cross check but still be wrong and still get pregnant.
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UbiCaritas
Guest
To be fair, at least once you’re in regular cycles your body isn’t as crazy as it is postpartum, and ditto the signs of fertility. (Or, should you choose to go with, say Marquette-and-Phase-III-only, hormone levels ditto.) I know that means just about jack squat from a random person on the internet, but there you have it–as well as, by the by, my admiration for handling the situations you’ve been given as well as you have. I’ve followed your posts on here for a while, and have enjoyed their honesty and fidelity.
As for telling a husband not to comfort a crying baby with a finger snort. Yeah. That must be it. DD would latch onto anything near her mouth, including DH’s bicep or forearm. Clearly, my mistake was in letting him hold her at all. Bad, bad mother! Next thing you know, I’ll be admitting to, once we got the all-clear from the pediatrician, letting the baby sleep as much as she wanted to at night.
And you know, one of the more ridiculous things about the whole situation is this. I would be a lot more willing to give breastfeeding a try next time if everything about it wasn’t so blasted doctrinal. “Oh, you’re willing to give it a try, but if your baby gets dehydrated you’ll give her formula? Well, you’ll just fail anyway, then!” “Oh, you’re willing to give it a try, but you think you’d like to pump some during the day so your husband can help a little at night sometimes? You’re setting yourself up for failure! Miss even ONE feeding and your whole supply will be gone!”
Frankly, I still, nineteen months later, get shaky when I remember how absolutely awful those intrusive thoughts and PPD were. I’d spend a good portion of every. single. hour. I was awake thinking about what a horrible failure of a mother I was. I didn’t enjoy DD’s babyhood because I saw her more as a source of pain and stress, not a fun little person. Next time? Breastfeeding for the first hour or two, then formula for her and anti-depressants for me, plus abstaining til my cycles are back. It’s not worth it, and my mental health won’t be good if I let myself get into that cycle again.
I am so very sorry you’re going through this, and hope it lightens for you soon. Please know you have both my sympathy and my prayers! :hug1:
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sadpanda2
Guest
Repeatedly referring to NFP as “propaganda” just because you personally don’t like it doesn’t make it so. How sad.
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PhiloMed
Guest
You missed the point. NFP is not in and of self propaganda. The way it is touted as something oh so wonderful, will improve your marriage, perfectly space each of your cherubic children that you can easily afford, get you in touch with your body, freshen your breath, etc… That’s the propaganda.
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UbiCaritas
Guest
Kelfa didn’t say that NFP was propaganda; she described much of the, well, textbook propaganda about it as propaganda.
Propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of viewIf you spend much time reading a lot of the stuff out there about NFP, especially postpartum NFP, you’ll read the same thing over and over again. If it doesn’t work, it’s your fault. If cosleeping/breastfeeding/natural childbirth don’t work for you, it’s because you’re either stupid or selfish. If you have a hard time abstaining for, as it is for some people, 25 days out of 30, you’re selfish, even if you don’t resort to illicit means. It’s selfish to want to have sex with your spouse, but it’s selfish if you’re worried about pregnancy and therefore don’t want to have sex with your spouse.
The fact is, and a lot of NFP circles don’t admit this, different families need different and morally licit decisions. I’m not talking hormonal or barrier contraception: I’m saying that some moms have to work. Some, for some reason, can’t breastfeed, or can’t follow unreasonably high standards in order to do so in a manner that might delay their fertility. I repeat: please explain how a SAHM of a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and an infant (who per the method you must not under any circumstances so much as encourage towards even a loose schedule) is supposed to nap with the baby? Or how it’s healthy for a mom to not let anyone else hold the baby most of the time? Or how it’s healthy for a mother to not even be able to go to a doctor’s appointment for an hour lest it disrupt breastfeeding? Because that’s what the Kippleys and the CCL teach, and they claim it works all the time and is healthy. But it doesn’t, and it’s not, and responding to a mom with several small children who needs help dealing with a crisis pregnancy by saying “well, that’s your fault for not napping with your baby every day!” is sick. Just…sick.
For the record, I had PPD. I also got a breast abscess, which can be life-threatening. I never went to my OBGYN for help. Why? Because if I did, I might be separated from my daughter for an hour or two, and according to the NFP propaganda–yes, I said propaganda–doing that would ruin our breastfeeding relationship forever. So I spent the first six months of my daughter’s life thinking about killing myself. I could have succeeded when I lanced the abscess myself rather than go to the doctor and get it lanced and be given antibiotics. That. Is. Sick. And wrong. And encouraging moms to think that way leads to some seriously bad results.
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Maximilan_Kolbe
Guest
Who promotes something by advertising that its effects are not shared by 100% of couples? Do promoters of contraception or those who oppose NFP promote its virtues, in the guise of fairness? Of course they do not.
I haven’t see statistics of NFP’s opinions among those who embrace it, and that I’d be curious to see.
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