Creighton "Yellow Stickers"

[utunumsint]

So has anyone had experience with the Creighton model and yellow stickers?

Got any tips on figuring out the art of when to use a yellow sticker?

God bless,
Ut

 

[TraderTif]

Uh yes, actually, I’ve never used anything but yellow stickers…

But, shouldn’t your instructor be teaching you this??

 

[utunumsint]

She is, and she is great. I was just fishing for other people’s experience.

She called it more of an art than a science. My wife has confidence in being able to develope some kind of yellow sticker baseline.

Our trainner said that it is different from woman to woman. You really have to taylor things based on your own observations. But what freaks me out is that yellow stickers seem to trump anything that your signs are telling you, until you hit that sweet spot where suddenly, you know there is a change. But no one can define what that point of change is for you…

Do you think I am being unreasonable in asking questions here?

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

I guess I’m looking for hopeful stories that people can share. Because if you are using yellow stickers, then it probably wasn’t an easy ride getting to know your cycles and your fertile/infertile days.

I guess I need hope right now that this method can work, and we can walk away from all the fear and anxiety that constantly plagues us.

God bless,
Ut

 

[pumpkinbeast]

I use yellow stickers after ovulation because I get a great deal of borderline 10 mucous that doesn’t mean anything fertility-wise, because on further inspection, it breaks down to an 8 or even 6, but only AFTER ovulation. Hopefully they will help clarify your wife’s cycles, if she’s having trouble understanding them. My husband and I are using Creighton to avoid pregnancy right now, and the yellow stickers clarify things for us. We’ve only had 2 cycles since being married, but no pregnancy so far.

 

[agapewolf]

I had a procedure done that lessened the need for yellow stickers greatly. After it, I could definitely tell without a doubt what the difference was.

Perhaps you should ask the doc about a cryo

 

[Rach620]

As others have said, you really can only get the answers for how to use yellow stickers from your instructor. If you look on the back of your wife’s chart, you’ll see that there are different guidelines for different women’s use of yellow stickers. Your instructor should have circled the rules that apply to your wife.

The main distinction is whether your wife is supposed to be using yellow stickers during post-peak only, or if she has graduated to pre-peak as well as post-peak yellow stickers. If she is just starting out, my guess is that she is only supposed to be using them post-peak.

My instructor told me that when deciding whether to use a yellow or green stamp post-peak, these are the guidelines:
PC or 6PC = green
6C or 8C = yellow
This is only post-peak, for me at least. Pre-peak, CM is CM, and it’s all white baby stickers. This isn’t as problematic for us since we are TTC, and we probably would have officially graduated to pre-peak yellow stickers awhile ago if we hadn’t been TTC.

As far as the essential sameness/point of change question, your instructor should be able to give you more information on this and help your wife figure out the point of change. It usually will take a few cycles. There is an easily discernible difference between PC or 6/8C and peak-type mucus, and as an aid in detecting the difference at first, your wife should compare mucus-to-mucus days and ask “Is this CM essentially the same as it was yesterday?” If yes (ie, a 6C day followed by a 6C day), it’s not a point of change. If no, (ie, a 6C day followed by an 8CL day), it can be called a point of change. I note this on my chart with a small up arrow and/or an N.

Finally, it makes a huge difference in using yellow stickers if you are avoiding pregnancy or trying to achieve pregnancy. If the difficulty in using yellow stickers means long periods of abstaining, it might be a reason for you and your wife to return to prayer to discern how serious your reasons for avoiding pregnancy at this time really are. That’s what happened for us, anyway.

Oh, one more thing. Long mucus cycles are something you should discuss with a physician, preferably one certified in Naprotechnology. There are ways of shortening the mucus cycle, and extended CM can point to different fertility/women’s health issues.

 

[utunumsint]

I had a procedure done that lessened the need for yellow stickers greatly. After it, I could definitely tell without a doubt what the difference was.

Perhaps you should ask the doc about a cryo

He checked, but everythign seems normal.

My wife is still breast feeding, so that is probably causing some of the excess mucous. It may be that after we wean, the yellow stickers wont be necessary anymore.

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

As others have said, you really can only get the answers for how to use yellow stickers from your instructor. If you look on the back of your wife’s chart, you’ll see that there are different guidelines for different women’s use of yellow stickers. Your instructor should have circled the rules that apply to your wife.

The main distinction is whether your wife is supposed to be using yellow stickers during post-peak only, or if she has graduated to pre-peak as well as post-peak yellow stickers. If she is just starting out, my guess is that she is only supposed to be using them post-peak.

My instructor told me that when deciding whether to use a yellow or green stamp post-peak, these are the guidelines:
PC or 6PC = green
6C or 8C = yellow
This is only post-peak, for me at least. Pre-peak, CM is CM, and it’s all white baby stickers. This isn’t as problematic for us since we are TTC, and we probably would have officially graduated to pre-peak yellow stickers awhile ago if we hadn’t been TTC.

As far as the essential sameness/point of change question, your instructor should be able to give you more information on this and help your wife figure out the point of change. It usually will take a few cycles. There is an easily discernible difference between PC or 6/8C and peak-type mucus, and as an aid in detecting the difference at first, your wife should compare mucus-to-mucus days and ask “Is this CM essentially the same as it was yesterday?” If yes (ie, a 6C day followed by a 6C day), it’s not a point of change. If no, (ie, a 6C day followed by an 8CL day), it can be called a point of change. I note this on my chart with a small up arrow and/or an N.

Finally, it makes a huge difference in using yellow stickers if you are avoiding pregnancy or trying to achieve pregnancy. If the difficulty in using yellow stickers means long periods of abstaining, it might be a reason for you and your wife to return to prayer to discern how serious your reasons for avoiding pregnancy at this time really are. That’s what happened for us, anyway.

Oh, one more thing. Long mucus cycles are something you should discuss with a physician, preferably one certified in Naprotechnology. There are ways of shortening the mucus cycle, and extended CM can point to different fertility/women’s health issues.

Thank you so much for the detailed information. It makes me more hopefull that there are a lot of people out there who are using the method successfully.

Our instructor said there aren’t a lot of “normals” (i.e. people with normal signs and cycles) who come to her, but usually the trouble cases. It makes sense. None of the other methods are developed enough to deal with the exceptions to the rules.

God bless you all, and thank you for sharing.
Ut

 

[Rach620]

Thank you so much for the detailed information. It makes me more hopefull that there are a lot of people out there who are using the method successfully.

Our instructor said there aren’t a lot of “normals” (i.e. people with normal signs and cycles) who come to her, but usually the trouble cases. It makes sense. None of the other methods are developed enough to deal with the exceptions to the rules.

God bless you all, and thank you for sharing.
Ut

No problem, Ut. Creighton is great because it is not a one-size-fits-all method. My instructor told me when we started that there really is no “normal”…it is the distinct minority of women who have 28-day cycles and who ovulate on day 14. Creighton is around to help all those women who think that they CAN’T use NFP because they aren’t “normal”. And the observations help to diagnose underlying fertility issues.

Good luck with the yellow stamps! I’m sure you’ll figure them out. When we were avoiding, the most basic rule of thumb I observed was to wait until the end of the day, bear down, and make final observations about fertility/infertility for that day. If you do that along with keeping in mind the “stress”/double peak questions, you should be OK. In the end, yellow stamps will make more days available for you, but it takes a cycle or two to be able to figure out what the baseline is for your wife’s peak-type vs. non-peak-type CM.