Natural Family Planning Failure

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As my wife gets into her upper thirties, her cycle was getting more erratic. Having relations in what we thought was an easily safe time (super early) resulted in a baby.

I guess we’ll have to stick to abstinence. I wish we knew a little more about how cycles can go crazy and make NFP unreliable. Maybe reference material could emphasize this more up front.
 
Congratulations on your new baby!

Nfp can be practiced conservatively. What method were you using?
 
Congrats on your baby.

What method were you using? Were you just observing CM? Were you temp’ing and charting? Were you using ovulation strips? etc.
 
Hoosier-Daddy said:
Congratulations on your new baby!

Nfp can be practiced conservatively. What method were you using?
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We were using symptoms and thermo, but in the very, very early phase, themo doesn’t factor in, of course. My wife half-jokingly blames me for having stupidly long-lasting swimmers. We still can’t fully figure it out. It seems impossible.
 
Congrats on the baby!

It’s been my experience that at this time of life (late 30s) you may have to use Phase 3 only…that seems to be the most reliable but it certainly does take more effort…and a lot of women (myself included) aren’t super interested in marital relations then…it’s a catch 22 😦
 
Perhaps another method would be easier to understand. All forms of birth control have fail rates.
 
Look at your new baby as though it is a gift from God.
Look at other methods… clear blue have some amazing ovulation tests that will even let you know 5 fertile days as well as ovulation ( smily face flashes when fertile smily face stays static when ovulating and a round circle means not fertile or ovulating)
This can be kind of pricy however it works for alot of people who have irregular cycles.

I’ve got pregnant twice on hormone replacement therapy ( which Im not using at the moment as I do not need it for medical purposes currently apparently I’ve gone into menopause according to my gp and my blood tests)
So Ive used this method as well since I still managed to ovulate twice in a 3 month period
 
Perhaps it would be good to work with an experienced coach for a while while cycles are irregular. I have a friend who works with a Billings method coach when she is in the postpartum time.
 
DF2 said:
We were using symptoms and thermo, but in the very, very early phase, themo doesn’t factor in, of course. My wife half-jokingly blames me for having stupidly long-lasting swimmers. We still can’t fully figure it out. It seems impossible.
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One of our kids also resulted from a bizarrely long gap (7 days, as I recall).

I’m 43 now, and we do Phase 3 plus one day of Phase 1 and are prepared to cut down further as my cycle lengths shorten. At this phase of one’s life, it’s more and more important to pay attention to cycle length.

Knowing what I know today, I have started to wonder if some of the cases of people who insist that NFP doesn’t work for them aren’t the result of relations at the end of Phase 3, followed by an unusually short next cycle.
 
Yes it definitely pays to really scrutinize each new cycle. Mine are most certainly different now than when I was younger…mainly I’ve noticed that Phase 3 has started to shorten a bit and Phase two can be a bit longer as well. I do like that with STM I get the added benefit of seeing the temp drop at the end of Phase 3. But I can also see where some women would start to have shorter Phase 1…I’ve learned to not even bother with Phase 1 anymore simply b/c it’s too confusing to figure out when it ends for me.
 
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Xantippe said:
Knowing what I know today, I have started to wonder if some of the cases of people who insist that NFP doesn’t work for them aren’t the result of relations at the end of Phase 3, followed by an unusually short next cycle.
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Please, have you got some litterature to confirm that your hypothesis is possible?
Thanks you!
 
🤔 I’m not sure I think that’s possible.

When a woman is fertile, her mucus allows the sperm to stay alive. Post ovulation close to menstruation there isn’t that mucus and sperm dies quicker.

The period is basically like a reset button.
 
Yeah, I know this is a somewhat novel theory (and I am not an NFP teacher blah blah blah), but I’m just venturing a theory for why Phase 3 NFP might occasionally fail. We occasionally hear anecdotes about that on CAF–people claiming that no matter what they did, NFP didn’t work for them.

I came up with the idea by combining a) those anecdotes b) the possibility of a super short menstrual cycle (which does happen) and c) especially good sperm viability. I don’t have any studies to present, but I can see how b) and c) might combine to produce a).
 
Many people here offer their experience with an NFP method. I’d wager that is what @Xantippe is doing.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Many people here offer their experience with an NFP method. I’d wager that is what @Xantippe is doing.
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I was offering a bit of speculation, but I have personally experienced conception on Day 14 from relations on Day 7.

Also, as one gets older, there can be noticeable shrinkage in cycle length, which should affect calculations. I’ve lost at least 4 days over the last half decade or so.
 
Oye, I remember. This is one reason STM was not the method for this gal 🙂 But, those days are over.
 
I guess that sometimes spitting and bleeding might not be a true period. I could see that happening. Having breakthrough bleeding and mistaking it for AF. Bleeding could happen around ovulation as well.
 
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