NFP breastfeeding help/encouragement plz!

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lucyMP

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My husband and I got pregnant right after getting married, and now we have an 9 month old. I never figured out the NFP thing, it’s so complicated and I always seemed to get conflicted signs. I have no idea what my body is doing right now, and so we thought it would be best to abstain for a while until my cycles return … we thought it would be just a couple of months, but it’s been soooooo long and I am so frustrated. For a month or two is was just fine, but now we feel distant (I miss the physical contact and affirmation), life is hard with a little baby, but we CANNOT get pregnant for a number of reasons (health, mostly, but also financial, work, etc).

So a couple of things — ladies, when did your cycles (ie. aunt flo) return? I just want to know that it will be soon. We’re not even that strict with breastfeeding, we sometimes supplement, that kid always has a pacifier in his mouth, he sleeps through the night in his own room (since 2 months!).

Also, anyone try ovulation predictor devices? I’m thinking of maybe getting one next time around. They are expensive, I know, but are they helpful or effective?

Does anyone sympathize with me? Feel sorry for us? Please? Want to share with me their “oh I thought it was hard but it made us so much stronger” story?
 
I know exactly how you feel! After our first, I began having periods one month to the day after I gave birth and they came about every 40 days afterwards though they were anovulatory. I had to stop breastfeeding 3 months due to milk protein intolerance in the baby, and I began ovulating again at 5 months postpartum. We relied heavily on ovulation kits and they helped but after a couple close calls with potentially pregnancies, we decided to abstain until we wanted another baby and that is what we have been doing ever since. But we want a large family and space our kids close (I got pregnant with my second 7 months after having the first, though we ended up miscarrying) so it works out despite health issues and multiple c-sections.

My advice would be to, if you can, pump milk and give it to baby in a bottle once or twice a day and continue to avoid breastfeeding overnight. They won’t make your cycles entirely normal, but it could make them regular enough to give you a more predictable pattern. It’s the suckling, not the milk production itself, that causes the production of hormones that suppress ovulation.Also, what triggered my first period was falling hormone levels after a 24 hour period where I was unable to breastfeed. Maybe a day of giving just bottles could similarly set stuff in motion?

And yes, NFP is hard but it has drawn us closer together. Even though we don’t have sex anymore, the experience made us realize what we really valued in our relationship and how to turn towards each other in suffering rather than away. I have to think God was using this to prepare us for future times when things may be hard in other areas of life. You will get through this!
 
Do you have a local NFP teaching couple who can meet with you?

My cycles always started within a few months, even though I only breastfeed, used no pacifier, nursed the baby throughout the night, and was with baby all day. (We have 5 children.)

I think speaking with a teaching couple will be your best help, even if it is over the phone, even if you need to speak with them a lot of times.

I am so happy to see more families breastfeeding and following NFP.

Congratulations on your precious child and on your beautiful marriage.

:flowers:
 
CakeState said:
And yes, NFP is hard but it has drawn us closer together. Even though we don’t have sex anymore, the experience made us realize what we really valued in our relationship and how to turn towards each other in suffering rather than away. I have to think God was using this to prepare us for future times when things may be hard in other areas of life. You will get through this!
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“Even though we don’t have sex anymore”

CakeState, I was confused by this part of your message. Why does a married couple decide not to have sex anymore? You do not have to answer if it was rude of me to ask.
 
RoseMary131 said:
“Even though we don’t have sex anymore”

CakeState, I was confused by this part of your message. Why does a married couple decide not to have sex anymore? You do not have to answer if it was rude of me to ask.
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I’ve mentioned it in a few other threads, but we don’t have sex until we want another baby. NFP became too much of a source of stress and anxiety for a lot of reasons. One is health reasons make an unplanned pregnancy dangerous - one is that I need to be on meds to prevent a recurrence of the liver failure I had with my first. I found out later that I had about a 50/50 chance of surviving the c-section :eek: But the meds kept me safe the second time around though I had some issues when I went off them too soon postpartum, but I think we’ve got it down now. 👍 Another issue is my autoimmune disorder and antibodies against the baby’s blood, though knock on wood those haven’t caused anything too bad yet but they could at any point in any pregnancy if I get pregnant during a flare up of inflammation, which is why planning is critical. We want many children and don’t want them spaced very far apart, it was what we decided to do.
 
RoseMary131 said:
“Even though we don’t have sex anymore”

CakeState, I was confused by this part of your message. Why does a married couple decide not to have sex anymore? You do not have to answer if it was rude of me to ask.
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She might be referring to the long period of abstinence after a pregnancy. Depending on the method of NFP, post-pregnancy NFP can be quite trying but incredibly beneficial. With our method, any and all sensations or discharges had to be treated as more fertile until you have had two regular cycles, and it is not unheard of for this to last 6 months or longer.

To the OP, I nursed my baby full time. My cycle didn’t return for more than a year after giving birth. It was AWESOME. 🙂
But in all seriousness, we were in a very similar situation. We simply could not afford a second baby right away, so we needed to abstain a lot. It was more than six months of abstinence before I no longer had anything to chart for NFP. It definitely was trying on us. But we really truly are stronger and better for it. I would advise you take a post-pregnancy NFP class.

The Couple to Couple League are a great resource on this. Give them a try!

Congrats on your sweet baby. You and your husband will get through this!
 
CakeState, you and your husband are a blessing and a witness to married life and NFP. Thank you for sharing.
 
RoseMary131 said:
CakeState, you and your husband are a blessing and a witness to married life and NFP. Thank you for sharing.
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Thanks! I had kind of thought the opposite since we struggled so much with it for so long :o but the whole reason I started posting is to give hope and help to people with similar problems. I’ve been lurking since 2009 but I finally just had to speak up. Good to hear it was worth it.
 
If you’re not following ecological BFing you could get your cycles back sooner then 6 months. I got my cycles back after only 2 months PP. That was because I ended up exclusively pumping. You’ll get the cycles back far sooner but pumping exclusively is VERY hard. I don’t really recommend it. Even if you are a SAHM…it’s taxing on you and your sanity because you have to work to maintain a supply that matches what your baby takes A BF baby does that on his own. Plus, your pumping and feeding instead of just feeding. Nothing is worse then a baby that needs your attention and is hungry and your are by yourself and have to find a way to occupy the kiddo while you pump at the same time. I won’t do it again. I’ll go right to formula if the situation rises again.

Hubby and I did a lot of abstaining the first 3 months PP because my signs weren’t that easy to interpret. Plus I was new to the whole NFP thing anyway. But it’s gotten a bit easier and I’ve been able to find loads more green light days. I dunno, maybe I’m just blessed with a fairly easy cycle to interpret.

I have no intention of using an ovulation prediction device. You can research the Marquette method. It uses said device and I’ve heard they have a very user-friendly website with a forum that answers questions with knowledgable instructors.
 
There are various methods of NFP, and it is possible that if you tried a different method than you first attempted you would find NFP easier to practice. We have practiced and taught NFP since we were ten years married (14+years of NFP practice) including learning and practicing two different methods. We found different methods to be more helpful at various times in our continuing fertile life.

Our first ten years of marriage were lived in fear of pregnancy. Not only has NFP changed our lives and attitudes about pregnancy, but even when I was diagnosed with a heart defect (at 12 years married) which made pregnancy life threatening, we have been able to practice NFP and develop trust in God and in his provision of readable signs of our fertility.

If you pursue NFP classes again, I can attest that the Sympto-Thermal Method class covers ovulation predictors and their usefulness as part of their basic class.

I know that I experienced the temptation to write off our sexual relationship because of the struggles I had before I learned to practice NFP. I want to encourage you to continue to persevere in finding a different solution to your struggle, so you can fully experience the graces which are naturally available to you through your sacrament of matrimony.

May God bless you.
 
We use the CCL method, and their resources go into painstaking detail how to get through return of fertility post-partum. No need to “live in fear” of the unknown. CCL has done the research already - so no guessing.
 
I just wanted to say good luck. I hope it turns around for you. My wife and I have been trying to figure out NFP for 3 years. No luck so far. This includes multiple teachers, having charts evaluated by comittee, pricey obgyn meetings that said all is fine, and talks with the actual NFP insitutes.

We can’t risk pregnancy because it would destroy my wifes (permanent) fragile health and its a near gurantee it would kill or vastly damage a baby, not a question of if, but one of severity. This has lead to total abstinence. We risked it a few times early on but the sheer terror of waiting for the start of the next cycle to see if I hurt my wife or killed a child plus a close call was too much for us, especially for the 1 possible green day a month.

We are relatively young, still sort of newly wed, totally in love, and will likely be abstinent for the rest of our marriage due to this. It’s extremely painful, and there is little pity or help from others, even in the church. We’ve had clergy roll their eyes and scoff at us, teachers and institutes tell us ‘just get pregnant and see what happens’ when they can’t help. So i’d like to give you what no one else gives to us. My sympathy. I’m sorry your going through his, and I hope it gets better for you ASAP.
 
Many people swear by Creighton postpartum and can be great if your mucus cooperates well. We used STM after the birth of our first before deciding to abstain, and although it works for many it really didn’t for us. The postpartum book has a sample chart where the couple was in phase two for just under 2 months. That was basically our experience. We were pretty much always potentially fertile and instead of dealing with the frustration of waiting for a shaky phase 1 we just waited a few more months until we wanted another. I’ll be 2 months postpartum this Sunday and I still chart STM just to keep up with it, and it’s kind of the same thing again. But, bubby wants to try for baby #4 in January so it’s not much longer until we start testing again. I think each person has a method that is good for them and they need to keep looking until they find it. We want to have several babies pretty close together but after we’re done in however many years I think we might try Marquette if we feel like we can handle the stresses of NFP again. I’m hoping it won’t be so bad after a few years of practice with it and not being postpartum. You can say it shouldn’t cause anxiety all you want, but it really can, especially if you’ve had method failures in the past or other problems.

Helplesspilgrim, I’m so sorry you’re going through that. 😦 You have my prayers and sympathies. I agree it is very hard to find sympathetic ears for such struggles. Someone on another thread doesn’t even believe many people like us exist even though clearly we are right here on this forum, as well as all over the web if they’d only bother to open their eyes and hearts and look.
 
lucyMP said:
So a couple of things — ladies, when did your cycles (ie. aunt flo) return? I just want to know that it will be soon. We’re not even that strict with breastfeeding, we sometimes supplement, that kid always has a pacifier in his mouth, he sleeps through the night in his own room (since 2 months!).
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Wow! The baby sleeps through the night, takes supplements and a pacifier, and you don’t have your cycle? Some people would be envious. 😉

I got mine once the baby started solids. I have a friend who could nurse a toddler for a few minutes before bed time and wouldn’t get her cycles until she stopped nursing completely.

These things vary so much, I don’t think there is one answer. God Bless you and your husband. 👍
 
Thanks everyone! Helpless pilgrim, I admire your faithfulness, and I hope you and your wife find some method that can help, although I know it’s often so difficult, and not being sure is just not an option … 😦

It’s good to know my cycle should come back soon, I guess I’m just one of those outliers … I’ll look into the Creighton method in the meantime, and see if we can figure any of this out. Thanks again for the encouragement and suggestions.
 
I have a 9 month old too. 🙂 She is my fourth baby and I just got my first AF yesterday. I use Marquette, and knew it was coming. We have always done STM until now, and I will probably go back to it when my cycles normalize again, but for the postpartum period I have found Marquette helpful. It cut waaaaaay down on the abstinence. You might be one of those women who just doesn’t have a cycle while you are nursing. Or you may ovulate soon. There’s really no way to predict it! I got 6-9 months of LAM with my other babies, less when I was pumping and working part time.

We also got pregnant with our first as newlyweds and I remember feeling so frustrated with NFP after she was born, like I couldn’t figure it out. After charting for awhile it became much clearer. It just takes practice. This will sound weird, but looking back I see that I was reading too much into my CM signs. Over-analyzing them. It is so much clearer now and I feel really confident with NFP. I bet you will too, just give it some time. 🙂 Good luck!
 
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