Need support and/or advice for NFP post-partum

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I know…another NFP thread.

I’m really struggling with NFP right now, and I’ll take any advice, encouragement, ideas, etc anyone has…or even just an “I’ve been there, you’ll make it through”.

I’ve recently been coming back fully to my faith and so this is the first time we’ve completely used NFP post-partum (baby is 3 mo old now). We have four kids and are definitely open to more in the future…however, at this point, due to the close spacing of my last two children, a pregnancy could very possibly be life threatening to me or baby. I need to wait at least two years, preferably more, before becoming pregnant again.

The problem is that my cycles typically take anywhere from 4 to 8 months to come back…and I am extremely fertile – two of our current children were conceived on my first post-partum cycle. We’re doing a whole lot of abstaining right now, especially since I’m back at work and therefore not nursing baby often enough for that to help prevent pregnancy…but its starting to stress us out 😦 I know NFP is 99% effective at preventing pregnancy, but I have been that 1%, TWICE. I know really our only option is complete abstinence, or pretty darn close to it to prevent pregnancy since there are signs that my fertility is returning … but its looking like a LONG 4+ months ahead.

Anyone out there have any suggestions/ideas for making this trial any easier to bear?
 
Thanks for the thread.

I’m looking for the same answers. I’m almost 4 weeks pp and I’m just confused and have no idea when my cycles will come back.

I’m getting married in another 2 weeks and am excited about our wedding night but will probably have to abstain afterwards again to be safe, until my cycles come back.

We really want more kids but because of his career situation and the fact that I’m really trying to finish up my degree, we want to wait a year or two before we start trying again.
 
It is possible to get pregnant while breastfeeding (I’m told by my doctor); but I have found it to be God’s way of helping us mothers with spacing issues naturally.

#4 just reached 10 months and I have to say that I am so GLAD we went the NFP route. It didn’t work at all for us because I am an anomoly in many ways, but the kids are so good together and they all dote on the baby so much it is not remotely the problem I thought it would be.

I came close to dying with #3, but close doesn’t count. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I guess I’m trying to say, trust God. The Divine Mercy Chaplet helped me with that.

Sorry, it’s not what you asked, but I thought you might need to hear it.
 
Hi there,

You wrote my post! I can only offer you the knowledge that others are struggling along too, and it is difficult. I have a 3 month old, a 3 year old and 5 year old, all C- sections, so was also told to wait 2 years before TTC again. I am trying to abide by the Billings Method, but of course the abstinence is difficult, especially when our bodies are sending out signals at the fertile time of the month. God is a great designer, but for the likes of us with directives from doctors it is hard.

What is helping me enormously is a book by Kimberly Hahn widely available, on amazon.com for example “Life giving love - embracing God’s beautiful design for marriage”. Obviously it’s promoting as many children as God will give you, not exactly what you’re looking for I know, but what it does give you is an amazing sense of how God is in charge of your life, if you submit your will to Him, don’t worry about what happens. He will be holding you by the hand. Saying that, I am of course fearful that I will do my charting wrong and be pregnant 3 months after a 3rd section. I am trying to learn to trust God more, but this will be a journey in trust for me, I realise that.

Yes it is difficult though during the periods of abstinence. What will help also is if your hubbie is 100% in favour of NFP - then just tell him well in advance when relations are not possible. (Speaking from experience here, unfortunately my hubbie hasn’t experienced the same reconversion I have so although he’s supporting me with NFP, his heart isn’t in it to be honest).

Congrats on your new baby anyway, and let’s try and be mothers in christ!
 
I’ll share my own personal experience using the sympto-thermal method… with 4 successful postpartum experiences while BF’ing.

Postpartum is definitely challenging, so first off - accept that. 😉 It’s a LOT easier when you have normal, regular cycles to track.
After all 4 of my kids my cycles have returned (in order) at 5.5 months, 7.5 months, 10.5 months, and 4.5 months. I’m basically cookie-cutter in how I handle things: I BF exclusively, but not ecologically (night nursing, co-sleeping, pacifier use, pump for bottles during work starting at 12 weeks, etc), so even though I have the same experience for all 4, my postpartum amenorrhea varies pretty drastically.

NFP postpartum is pretty much like an eternal phase 1. You have to be CONSTANTLY checking for fertile-looking mucous and HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend becoming familiar with your cervical position check. Chart these meticulously. Use the rules of +3 days of abstaining after any and all signs of fertility have gone away before resuming sex if you need to avoid conception.

Another big point… continue to chart your temperature. Yes, I KNOW you’re awake a lot with the baby during the night and everything you have read said it’s not useful.
I disagree. (remember above, I’ve done this successfully 4 times now… I get to disagree)
Yes, your temperature will be CRAZY… totally erratic and not make any sense during this “eternal phase 1”.
But,** if** one of these “fertile patches” that you’ll randomly get on and off actually ends up being a true ovulation, you’ll have that baseline temperature data available so you can refer to that sustained and significant temperature rise (mine was PAINFULLY OBVIOUS regardless of broken sleep) as proof that ovulation indeed did occur.

So, you discover your first ovulation and after a *fairly *normal (it’ll be off from your REAL “normal” probably) luteal phase, you should have your first postpartum period. Fun times. Now, DO NOT EXPECT YOUR CYCLES TO BE NORMAL! You may have another REALLY REALLY LONG PHASE 1 (or really short!). That’s okay and normal.
These erratic cycles may last for several months. Slowly, over time, things will begin to feel more stable and normal, but it does take time.
Or, you could be one of the random lucky ones that dives right into perfectly normal cycles the first time. Lucky you. 😉 Never happened to me. But, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to use NFP.

There’s my advice/experience!
 
Em_in_FL said:
I’ll share my own personal experience using the sympto-thermal method… with 4 successful postpartum experiences while BF’ing.

Postpartum is definitely challenging, so first off - accept that. 😉 It’s a LOT easier when you have normal, regular cycles to track.
After all 4 of my kids my cycles have returned (in order) at 5.5 months, 7.5 months, 10.5 months, and 4.5 months. I’m basically cookie-cutter in how I handle things: I BF exclusively, but not ecologically (night nursing, co-sleeping, pacifier use, pump for bottles during work starting at 12 weeks, etc), so even though I have the same experience for all 4, my postpartum amenorrhea varies pretty drastically.

NFP postpartum is pretty much like an eternal phase 1. You have to be CONSTANTLY checking for fertile-looking mucous and HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend becoming familiar with your cervical position check. Chart these meticulously. Use the rules of +3 days of abstaining after any and all signs of fertility have gone away before resuming sex if you need to avoid conception.

Another big point… continue to chart your temperature. Yes, I KNOW you’re awake a lot with the baby during the night and everything you have read said it’s not useful.
I disagree. (remember above, I’ve done this successfully 4 times now… I get to disagree)
Yes, your temperature will be CRAZY… totally erratic and not make any sense during this “eternal phase 1”.
But,** if** one of these “fertile patches” that you’ll randomly get on and off actually ends up being a true ovulation, you’ll have that baseline temperature data available so you can refer to that sustained and significant temperature rise (mine was PAINFULLY OBVIOUS regardless of broken sleep) as proof that ovulation indeed did occur.

So, you discover your first ovulation and after a *fairly *normal (it’ll be off from your REAL “normal” probably) luteal phase, you should have your first postpartum period. Fun times. Now, DO NOT EXPECT YOUR CYCLES TO BE NORMAL! You may have another REALLY REALLY LONG PHASE 1 (or really short!). That’s okay and normal.
These erratic cycles may last for several months. Slowly, over time, things will begin to feel more stable and normal, but it does take time.
Or, you could be one of the random lucky ones that dives right into perfectly normal cycles the first time. Lucky you. 😉 Never happened to me. But, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to use NFP.

There’s my advice/experience!
Click to expand...
wow thats really great postpartum advice Em_in_FL I have nothing to add.
 
Been there twice. It is VERY hard since you cannot predict ovulation too early without a proper cycle.

Yes, we recoursed to almost complete abstinence (we didn’t want to be that 1% again either, so that’s the only option)

My body attempted ovulation 3 times before actualky succeeding. I was only charting mucous and would’ve been in big trouble if we didn’t stick to our “abstaing until cycle returns” resolution. Fortunately, we waited some more, only to have the highly fertile mucous again iand then again…in the span of 6weeks.

If you are temping you will know if it was or not, if you’re looking only at cm keep in mind that there are ATTEMPTED ovulations which have the exact same characteristics of the successful one.

Otherwise, if you have dry patches you are SAFE. It’s only very hard when cm patterns are all over the place and you’re never dry.

The only good news I can bring you is that we survived, it made us stronger and well, once the wait was over, it was like our honeymoon all over again. Even better 🙂 DH actually took a day off and we took off lol.

We cherrish the opportunities we now have more than EVER! so there’s something to look forward to 🙂

2 things that help: 1. chanel your energy in other things. Yours will mostly go to baby, his perhaps to a new project, new sport, something together etc.
  1. Be affectionate with eachother and remind each other often how much you love and aprreciate each other and acknowledge the sacrifice you are making, better yet offer it up.
God be with you!
 
Not trying to hijack this post.
I’ll make another if need be…

anyone not breast feed? My LO is getting my milk but I’ve been pumping to get it and I know that doesn’t count as LAM. She has a difficult time with BF.

Does that mean anything with my cycles? Will they come back sooner?

I’m fine with the abstinence. We’ve already been doing this in for the wedding for months.
 
I was using Creighton. Someone mentioned it is perpetual phase 1. Your mucus patches get longer and longer. Eventually I had long patches, two dry days and then I started spotting. I had it twice where I spotted long enough to be a period, but my flow never got beyond spotting. I was told that my body was trying to ovulate, reaching its hormonal threshold and starting over though I had not ovulated. Until I saw a medium flow, I was to continue to live like a perpetual phase 1. Once I had the medium bleeding though, my cycle quickly became regular though it was longer than it used to be and a lot of my menstruation problems disappears. My cramps are far less severe and I don’t have premenstrual spotting anymore.

My daughter still occassionally nurses, but since I am cycling I don’t feel like I’m in the confusion zone. I think the only frustrating part is that you want to figure out post peak before you reach that medium flow. I did start trying to learn BBT, but I didn’t succeed before I had a medium flow. I’m not even sure when my exact peak day was before the medium flow, but once I had that medium flow, I had very clear pre and post peak dryness. Hurray!
 
Kelfa28 said:
Not trying to hijack this post.
I’ll make another if need be…

anyone not breast feed? My LO is getting my milk but I’ve been pumping to get it and I know that doesn’t count as LAM. She has a difficult time with BF.

Does that mean anything with my cycles? Will they come back sooner?

I’m fine with the abstinence. We’ve already been doing this in for the wedding for months.
Click to expand...
it varies from women to women but **generally **yes your cycles should return sooner and normal out faster when pumping. Eco bf, LAM, co sleeping etc can postpone the return of your cycle and can also cause a much longer return to normal cycles ie crazy long postpartum cycles. all great ways to feed your baby and affect your return of normal cycles differently.
 
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