Experience with different models of NFP?

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CompSciGuy

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Hello all,

First I will tell my own story.

My wife and I have been married for one year. Before marriage we went to some classes and also one-on-one sessions with an RN about how to use the Creighton model of NFP. We had originally planned to practice avoiding pregnancy for a while before becoming pregnant, but instead decided to get pregnant right away. The Creighton model helped us with getting pregnant because the charting revealed an issue with my wife’s cycle that was preventing her pregnancies from remaining viable. We were able to take corrective action and now have a baby boy. Now we are wanting to space the children out and are hoping to avoid pregnancy for two years.

The reason I am posting is this. I have heard some people say that they have had less success with their model of NFP when it comes to avoiding, either the signs were too easy to misread or it was hard to tell when the peak days actually were. I have met others who have been very successful with their model of NFP and have been able to plan their pregnancies very effectively. I am wondering if anyone is willing to share their experiences, what model are you using, have you had success with it, has anyone else used the Creighton model and have you had success with that when it comes to avoiding, etc. My wife is also thinking of using a clearblue monitor in conjunction with the Creighton model charting to determine peak days, has anyone had experience with one of these?
 
I’ve used Billings and Creighton.

Billings I learned on my own, Creighton I learned with an instructor.

Currently (since I’m older) I’ve formulated my own method :o. It’s Creighton rules Pre-peak, Billings rules post peak.

I’ve occasionally used ovulation strips to confirm ovulation. I’ve done that with weird cycles, especially when breast feeding.

If you use Creighton rules with an ClearBlue easy, then it becomes the Marquette method.

I find Creighton very user friendly, and accurate.
 
Marquette method here. I find it to be very effective, even for me, bc I don’t always have a ton of outward signs, and cycles are all over the place - anywhere from 24 days to 36 days. So, other methods have landed me with some surprise little blessings ❤️ But with 5, I am in need of some reprieve and Marquette has proved very effective, even through nursing.
 
I use Creighton. I also have severe PCOS and endometriosis. However, despite what others have said, I have no problems with Creighton. I’ve heard some people say that nfp isn’t really for people with irregular cycles, but that’s nuts. 🤷

I used nfp to avoid while I was getting fertility tests done, but my whole reason for even learning nfp was to get pregnant, not avoid.

Congrats on your baby boy!
 
Regina7 said:
I use Creighton. I also have severe PCOS and endometriosis. However, despite what others have said, I have no problems with Creighton. I’ve heard some people say that nfp isn’t really for people with irregular cycles, but that’s nuts. 🤷

I used nfp to avoid while I was getting fertility tests done, but my whole reason for even learning nfp was to get pregnant, not avoid.

Congrats on your baby boy!
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I wanted to add to your comment. I learned Creighton after 2 miscarriages and a preemie birth. Following the preemie birth, I had very short post peak phases, very long fertile periods (7-8-9 days of 10 type cm)

I was lucky to have an NFP only doctor, who just looked at the charting and determined I wasn’t ovulating, successfully, and gave me a script for prometrium. That worked very well.

Oddly as I’m older (46) my cycles are more regular in a sense. I stopped the prometrium a while ago. The dosage I was on wasn’t really helping, and the doctor didn’t want to increase it due to other issues (sleepiness at night time).

I don’t see how Creighton can be hard to interpret, one either has cm or not, I’ve switched methods now, but I’d go back to it if I needed to in a heartbeat.
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
I wanted to add to your comment. I learned Creighton after 2 miscarriages and a preemie birth. Following the preemie birth, I had very short post peak phases, very long fertile periods (7-8-9 days of 10 type cm)

I was lucky to have an NFP only doctor, who just looked at the charting and determined I wasn’t ovulating, successfully, and gave me a script for prometrium. That worked very well.

Oddly as I’m older (46) my cycles are more regular in a sense. I stopped the prometrium a while ago. The dosage I was on wasn’t really helping, and the doctor didn’t want to increase it due to other issues (sleepiness at night time).

I don’t see how Creighton can be hard to interpret, one either has cm or not, I’ve switched methods now, but I’d go back to it if I needed to in a heartbeat.
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I have the same problem- long peak cycles and very short post peak.

I agree- cm is either there or not. I honestly think some people use this as an excuse to go on the pill. 😦
 
My wife and I use the Marquette method. Very modern and easy to do (once you learn how to use the little computer).
 
I use a basic sympto-thermal method, self-taught from Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Thus far lactational amenhorrea has been sufficient to space our babies (they are 25 and 30 months apart) but I have (so far) had easy to read signals and no major gynecological problems, so if we needed more time between we could, or if amenhorrea ends sooner than it has before.

Oh, and I chart on my phone now, which I find much more convenient than paper charting. There are lots of apps, I use OvuView.
 
pensmama87 said:
I use a basic sympto-thermal method, self-taught from Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Thus far lactational amenhorrea has been sufficient to space our babies (they are 25 and 30 months apart) but I have (so far) had easy to read signals and no major gynecological problems, so if we needed more time between we could, or if amenhorrea ends sooner than it has before.

Oh, and I chart on my phone now, which I find much more convenient than paper charting. There are lots of apps, I use OvuView.
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I wish Creighton had an app. They are working on it.
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
I wanted to add to your comment. I learned Creighton after 2 miscarriages and a preemie birth. Following the preemie birth, I had very short post peak phases, very long fertile periods (7-8-9 days of 10 type cm)

I was lucky to have an NFP only doctor, who just looked at the charting and determined I wasn’t ovulating, successfully, and gave me a script for prometrium. That worked very well.

Oddly as I’m older (46) my cycles are more regular in a sense. I stopped the prometrium a while ago. The dosage I was on wasn’t really helping, and the doctor didn’t want to increase it due to other issues (sleepiness at night time).

I don’t see how Creighton can be hard to interpret, one either has cm or not, I’ve switched methods now, but I’d go back to it if I needed to in a heartbeat.
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We had a similar experience. My wife had a miscarriage very early in her first pregnancy and we saw the doctor about it; fortunately because we were charting he could tell what was wrong and prescribed progesterone supplements, which did the trick.
 
We did a Billings/Sympto-Thermal combo. 😛

Marquette’s concept is awesome, but with infertility issues and other gynecological health issues, the monitor didn’t work out well for my body. According to the monitor, I was always infertile, but we somehow got a surprise miracle in there (who died in utero. :()

We now use nothing as I had to have a hysterectomy due to poor health. 🤷
 
Regina7 said:
I have the same problem- long peak cycles and very short post peak.

I agree- cm is either there or not. I honestly think some people use this as an excuse to go on the pill. 😦
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The breastfeeding CM can be fertil-ish for long periods of time.
 
I’ve used Marquette for several years to avoid. I’d suggest getting used to the method for a few months while abstinent, and not relying on the monitor-only method.

It works well for me because temping does not work out so well for me, and I like the additional assurance the monitor provides. However, I would advise always relying on mucus observations first and using the monitor as a check, rather than the other way around. The monitor isn’t foolproof, especially since it was designed to help women become pregnant, and I wish that there was a similar monitor designed to help women avoid pregnancy. For example, once the monitor catches a “high” reading, it remains high for a certain period of time until either peak or 20 days later (something like that) regardless of what is actually happening. So if you happen to miss the peak because it happened too quickly, it will not read “low”, or if your body drops to low without a peak it will not pick that up either. Doesn’t change the rules of the method, but still frustrating sometimes if cycles aren’t perfect. It would be nice to have a reading of actual hormone levels rather than just monitor programmed settings.

Generally though I am very thankful for the method. Having the monitor as a check has been so helpful and I am grateful for the technology that allows us a little more certainty.
 
We normally do a conservative version of symptothermal most of the time with no going past Day 2 during Phase 1, as I’ve started having some short cycles and early ovulation and we once managed to conceive 7 days after marital relations. We also are sometimes fairly conservative about making sure we got a real temperature rise, as we once had a phantom ovulation that turned out to have been an illness–the actual ovulation followed shortly after. But we’ve done generally rather well with NFP–four pregnancies (three live births) in 17 years.

As you’ll see from reading the threads on the subject, breastfeeding NFP (as well as perimenopausal NFP) is a horse of a different color. It’s like the normal signposts have all been ripped out. We found it so daunting with our last baby that I think we managed maybe once a month between the 6 week postpartum checkup and 9 months, which is when things got so dicey with the cervical mucus (it was becoming obvious that my body was starting to ramp up for ovulation) that we just abstained until around 14 months, when I finally got my cycle back. These things are very individual, but I now believe that I personally get a very strong suppressive effect from breastfeeding–it took total weaning for me to get my cycle back. However, during the 6-7 months during early breastfeeding where things were clearer, it still took a long time to get a long enough dry stretch where we felt confident. I don’t know what method that was, but we did look at breastfeedings protocols, and thought seriously about a monitor method.
 
Lorelei12 said:
It works well for me because temping does not work out so well for me, and I like the additional assurance the monitor provides. However, I would advise always relying on mucus observations first and using the monitor as a check, rather than the other way around.
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That’s smart.
 
Marquette Method, especially when breastfeeding. The only bad thing I have to say about it is the test sticks are expensive.
 
Xantippe said:
The breastfeeding CM can be fertil-ish for long periods of time.
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Yeah. For us, it was far enough out that if we got pregnant, it was fine, but it can be confusing. I did have a very clear change to super-fertile CM right before.

That’s one reason I like taking my temperature because it helps me sort it out. Even with night waking I’m pretty consistent - illness is really the only thing that messes it up.
 
I use STM. Self taught from Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I chart using the OvuView app. I do my own chart interpretation but cross check with what the app says. I only get about 6 to 10 months of infertility from breastfeeding. We’ve had one unplanned pregnancy and that was complete user error.
 
jlc2k2 said:
I use STM. Self taught from Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I chart using the OvuView app. I do my own chart interpretation but cross check with what the app says. I only get about 6 to 10 months of infertility from breastfeeding. We’ve had one unplanned pregnancy and that was complete user error.
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Actually, I should clarify. We’ve had 3 unplanned pregnancies. However, the first 2 were known risks. We knew pregnancy was a possibility but went ahead anyway. The 3rd one almost fits into that category. I knew we were cutting it close but was off by 1 day.
 
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