NFP advice for engaged couple?

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Therese18

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The love of my life proposed to me (yesterday!) and we’re hoping to get married this summer. 😃 We have a few questions about NFP, though… And we are in the minority in our location for being committed to natural methods. So:
  1. What natural methods have couples on here found most effective for achieving or avoiding pregnancy?
  2. Do we have to take a course from an instructor? Or can we teach ourselves effectively via a book?
p.s. Any tips on wedding planning?
 
If your health is normal, you can probably teach yourself from a book. I really like “Taking Charge of Your Fertility.” I’d say start charting now, while you’re still abstaining, so you’re not frustrated trying to figure out fertility signals. If you have health issues that make interpreting fertility signals difficult, then you might want a course with an instructor or to visit your doctor to see if there is some treatment available that might help.

Also - just throwing this out there - while NFP is a great tool that is moral for Catholics to use, you don’t HAVE to use it. I suggest learning it because even if you decide you don’t wish to use it now, you may wish to later, and then you’ll already have the basics down. Not using NFP is not a guarantee that you’re going to have a baby every nine months until menopause (it’s actually pretty unlikely.)

As far as wedding planning, I’ll just say that you can have an awesome wedding and reception without breaking the bank. I don’t know what you like or what your budget is, but you should have a clear budget, and stick to it. You and your fiancé should discuss what you want, agree together, and then be prepared to say “no” to everybody who insists on add-ons that you don’t want, whether that’s vendors or relatives. 😉

And congratulations!
 
First, congratulations.

For a book I would suggest The Billings Method by Drs. Billings & Westmore.It will give you a good foundation even if you chose a different method (most modern NFP is based on Dr. Billings and her husband’s work). While it is possible to learn most methods online or via a book, I still suggest an instructor as they can help guide you. Depending on the diocese you are in you might also be required to take formal NFP classes as part of a pre cana sequence.

I would also suggest reading about the moral foundations of NFP (Humana Vitae is a good place to start). When my wife and I taught NFP the first half of the class focused on on how sexual intimacy fit into Gods plan for marriage and how contraception damages the foundation of marriage. Remember that NFP isn’t a natural/drug free form of contraception, but must be practiced with an understanding and recognition that children are a gift and natural part of marriage.

For wedding planning, my first suggestion is to meet with your pastor as soon as possible. In my diocese there is a 12 month cycle for marriage prep. The marriage prep classes and required NFP training generally takes 6 months plus time for other required retreats and meetings. It is possible to condense some of that, but NFP was a minimum of 5 months (4 hour class + 5 monthly chart reviews). Our diocesan guidelines is that all prep is supposed to be completed 2 months prior to the wedding. Your diocese may vary.

On last piece of advice. Don’t let planning for your wedding day become the principal focus over the next several months. It is simply the first step of the marathon. Spend time praying and preparing for the 30, 40, 50+ years that are to come.
 
I don’t know anything about NFP…so I’d take a class.

But…as for wedding planning?
Several things:
Do your own invitations. There are so many website that will print them up for you beautifully. Find a wording that you like and design away! You’ll save oodles of money over going to a print shop.
Keep the wedding part small, if possible. That way the extended issues of buying flowers for everyone, many more people at the rehearsal dinner, etc. is avoided. The main witnesses are the big thin anyway.
Choose a color that fits the time of the year. (Unless of course you have a favorite color 🙂 )
We married at Christmastime, so I chose red dresses. Each of the women got to pick a style that flattered them, but it was all the same material. We didn’t have to purchase extra flowers because the church was full of red poinsettias. Just bouquets. You could accomplish the same thing after Easter.
I tried on dresses in the high dollar shops, get the tag info (item number) and then had the exact dress made overseas (Ebay vendor) and saved over a thousand dollars. Was identical. Saved so much $$$, I wore a different dress for the reception.
My choir sang. Friends who were excellent liturgical singers led the music.
The only think I spent a lot on was the food for the reception, I wanted everyone to have a nice meal. But I made the table decorations, and they were pretty fancy. My sister came into town and we went to the venue and did the table tops the day before. The venue let us components for the tabletops.
We used a DJ instead of a band.
Beware though. Make sure you have someone sit at the gift table. There were a lot of young people at our wedding, and someone stole all the gift cards out of the envelopes, as well as all the wedding favors. :eek: The people from the venue gave us a $250 gift card for their restaurant because they felt bad. But I never even dreamed that someone should sit there. 🤷
You’re probably thinking it was kind of homespun…actually it was very elegant. No one had a clue that I did a lot of legwork to save money. They thought everything was professionally done. You can do it. And it’s so much fun. Best wishes, and congratulations!
 
Marquette, Creighton, Billings, and Sympto-Thermal are the four main methods and they are all good options. I strongly recommend you take a class from an instructor.
 
Thanks for advice!

As far as we know, it’s 6 months at our parish for the marriage prep.

We have done a lot of reading on the moral aspects of NFP. We want to be able to understand the more “technical” aspects and to start charting, etc. before the wedding. The only instructor we’ve heard of remotely in our area is a Billings instructor in a community 2-3 hours from us, so we were hoping to learn ourselves. Are there online courses? Are they expensive?
We definitely don’t want to focus on the wedding part. Wedding/reception logistics are going to be a lot of work, though. We will have many guests (ie. most of the bridal party and all of our family -from opposite ends of the country) coming in from out of town). We just want to make sure we have a nice party afterwards for our family and friends after they travel all the way! (Yes, it’s actually the easiest location).
 
I learned from the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility personally. It’s worked pretty well for us. But I’m a good book learner and am fairly regular outside of the immediate post-partum period. I’m also a bit of a data nut so charting comes naturally to me. 😃

I do know that there are online classes available for some of the methods and if you have any reason to believe that you’ll have trouble interpreting your fertility signs, a class is probably the way to go.

We had an 8 month engagement and everything was done with time to spare so it’s definitely do-able as long as it falls within the guidelines of your parish. I would recommend contacting your church as soon as possible though to make sure you don’t get into a bind if it’s going to be a short-ish engagement.
 
It’s great that you are looking into this now- figuring it out before you’re married is going to make things a lot easier. Definitely read Taking Charge of Your Fertility. No matter what method you choose, there is a lot of good information in there. I am the most familiar with the Marquette method, learned it online easily and it’s worked well for us. We used it both to achieve and avoid. The instructions are online and there is also a board where you can ask questions and I believe there are nurses and/or instructors who respond with support, but I never needed it.

As for wedding planning, contact the church as soon as possible. Even though most parishes require a minimum of 6 months’ notice for preparation, if you’re planning on marrying this coming summer you’ll want to make sure it is booked well in advance.

I don’t know what your family and friends are like, but it seems that weddings tend to bring out some of the worst behavior in people. So I would say make sure that you and your fiancé (and parents if they are paying for anything) are on the same page about the guest list and finances, and then forget what anyone else thinks or says about anything. Planning a wedding is a lot of work regardless of the budget or amount of invitees, because there are so many different details to keep track of, and being firm about your choices and not explaining them to anyone can save from a lot of stress. You may have people invite themselves, invite other people, get upset about your guest list, complain about the date you chose, and so on. Trying to please everyone isn’t going to happen, so make peace with that. (Hopefully your family and friends are more tactful than many of ours were.)

It’s hard not to worry about all the little details, but in the end most of them don’t really matter. And most people won’t notice if something goes wrong except you. Enjoy this time of anticipation, and congratulations on your engagement!
 
Definitely take classes or read up and start charting ASAP.

Here’s my take on the three big methods that I’m familiar with. All are relatively equally as effective at avoiding if that’s your main goal.

Billings - easiest to learn. We used this early in our marriage when an “oopsie” wasn’t a big deal and it was always the fall back method at various other points when I was too lazy to take temperatures. My biggest issue with it was that infertile periods were determined by a negative sign (lack of mucus). While effective, the scientist in me was never totally comfortable with knowing when I ovulated by this negative.

Sympto-thermo - kind of a pain to take temps regularly but depending on our situation, I really preferred that positive sign of temp rising to verify ovulation. I especially prefer that now that I’m in perimenopause and all things are wonky!

Marquette- fascinated by this method. I’m sure if this was around earlier in our marriage, I’d have been all over this method.

Good luck!
 
Congrats on your engagement!!! Enjoy this time and soak in all of the love your family and friends are about to pour all over you. It’s an amazing time!

Like others have said, I highly recommend starting to chart ASAP! My husband and I were married this past May and I wish I had started chatting beforehand. Like you, I’m also in the minority in my immediate circle of close friends and family. Even in pre Cana the idea of NFP was met with scoffs, eye rolls, and comments like “who has time for charting?!” It is NOT difficult. I set my alarm for much earlier than I get up each morning. When it goes off, I roll over, take my temp, then back to sleep I go. Later in the day I mark the temp in the Fertility Friend app in my phone. Easy peasy. There are other fertility monitoring apps available too. A quick google search can help you find the best one for you. If you are a pen and paper kinda gal, you can print off the charts from the Taking Charge of Your Fertility website. I did that for the first couple of months to learn how to interpret my data, but discovered that the app was easier for me for long term use.

I cannot recommend enough the Taking Charge of Your Fertility book. I recommend it to all of my girl friends. It is so easy to read and chock-full of information. I think it’s around $16 on Amazon. Don’t be alarmed by its size if you get it. It’s a thick book but has lots of charts, graphics, and appendices in it. You can learn to chart from this book and it doesnt take long to figure out. If you choose to avoid pregnancy then charting will help you determine your most fertile times so that you may abstain for those days and the surrounding ones. It will also help you figure out your most fertile times to get pregnant. If you do not have a regular cycle, this book can still help you chart but like others recommended, you may also want to take a course. You should be able to find an NFP instructor (teaching various methods) through your parish or by doing an internet search.

As for wedding plans, figure out what you want and stick to it. Also, people are going to offer to help but then you may not hear from them. This isn’t because they weren’t genuine in their offer but because planning a wedding is such a personal experience that people can only help if you tell them exactly what you could use their help with. Need help cutting invitations? Determine a weekend and ask others to come help you. Need help putting together favors? Again, find a day or time and ask around. The key is asking for help when you need it. Remember that this day is about the start of your marriage, not just a huge party. All of this stuff doesn’t matter in the long run. Find the key details that are most important to you and your fiancé but don’t let the plans overwhelm you. Have fun. If it’s not fun then the emphasis is not on the main reason for the day! We had about 150 guests and a huge party after our ceremony. I was so thankful that we took into consideration our guests’ experience while we were planning. Although the day is not about guests, we had a much better time knowing that our guests were enjoying the day as much as we were.

Whew. That was a lot. Enjoy your engagement and God bless you and your fiancé!
 
I think most experts do recommend taking a class with an instructor for the sake of accuracy. I highly recommend getting the training prior to your wedding. At least with the Creighton model, you are asked to abstain for the first month so you can assess your signs accurately. I found out about this after my wedding and it didn’t go over well.
 
Wishing you every happiness!

My fiance and I are reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility after it waa recommended on here. It seems good.

We are also planning our own wedding. My main pieces of advice: set a budget and stick to it. Don’t even think about going into debt; things that seem really important at the time are not going to seem so important 6 months into marriage when you are thinking, “we could have used the money we spent on the photographer to buy a new sofa instead of this broken one”. Also, remember what you NEED to get married: a bride, a groom, a priest, and a couple of random witnesses. Every other guest, even close family, is nor entitled to an invitation. Nor do you have to have anything the wedding industry says you have to (cake, photographer, flowers, big dress, bridesmaids, professional hairdo etc etc). You may well choose to have some of these things, bur don’t listen to theconventional people around you who just take it for granted that you have to have certain things because “everyone else is”. No. If the church doesn’t require it, it’s your choice.
 
I also suggest Fertility Friend. It doesn’t get much easier then that
 
NFP isn’t a requirement, you can can leave your fertility up to God.
 
Cider said:
NFP isn’t a requirement, you can can leave your fertility up to God.
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It’s a good idea, though, to do some charting during engagement and to have an idea what’s going on and how NFP would work for you.

By the time you know you need NFP and need it bad (for instance after your fourth c-section), it’s the worst possible time to start learning. Better to learn it now even if you don’t ever need it, rather than have to learn it under life-and-death circumstances.
 
Therese18 said:
The love of my life proposed to me (yesterday!) and we’re hoping to get married this summer. 😃 We have a few questions about NFP, though… And we are in the minority in our location for being committed to natural methods. So:
  1. What natural methods have couples on here found most effective for achieving or avoiding pregnancy?
  2. Do we have to take a course from an instructor? Or can we teach ourselves effectively via a book?
p.s. Any tips on wedding planning?
Click to expand...
  1. What method works for you is dependent on each couple separately. If one was better then everyone would use it.
  2. Take a course. Trust me.
  1. Don’t spend too much money. There will be a baby on the way soon…😛
 
My wife and I went through NFP classes with a trained instructor in our diocese. She attends the same parish as we do and we see her almost every weekend for mass. We love her and her family.

With that being said, we got pregnant 1 month after we got married and about 3.5 months after the birth of our first daughter so we clearly have not implemented NFP quite effectively, yet.

What have I learned? Children are a glorious gift and, while we would have waited, I can’t imagine life without our daughter and I am excited to add the next one. Marriage is an amazing thing and I am so happy for you in your new chapter of life.

***On a side note, when my wife found out she was pregnant again, she looked at me and said, “You’re not touching me for a year after the next one’s born. Not even a high five.” 😉 ***
 
Joshua_Shorter said:
With that being said, we got pregnant 1 month after we got married and about 3.5 months after the birth of our first daughter Congratulations!

What have I learned? Children are a glorious gift and, while we would have waited, I can’t imagine life without our daughter and I am excited to add the next one. Marriage is an amazing thing and I am so happy for you in your new chapter of life.Yay!

On a side note, when my wife found out she was pregnant again, she looked at me and said, “You’re not touching me for a year after the next one’s born. Not even a high five.” 😉 That is too bad
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Wedding planning – definitely contact your parish ASAP. Mine requires notification 12 months before the wedding.

Seconding the “set a budget” advice. Next – get the dress, some have to be ordered and can take several months to arrive and THEN you have to have the dress altered to fit you.

If there are things you specifically DON’T want, make sure that your family is on the same page with you.
 
Summer is great time to get married and it is also a good time for event planning as you do not have to make extra arrangements. I also got married in summers.
 
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