NFP Couples.....How long

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Matt33 said:
Any people out there who are using NFP for severe medical avoidance of pregnancy. And how many days are people abstaining out of the month on average?
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We abstain 3 days per month. It has always worked 🙂
 
Tosk said:
Your post made me think about something. My wife and I are thinking of using NFP soon. Thing is, all the couples that I know how use NFP seem to have lots of kids after they try to avoid. It makes me think that NFP is really ineffective and not anything that we can use. Are most of the people who have “accidents” just throwing caution to the wind in the heat of the moment? Or is the difficulty in actually spotting the fertile and infertile times? I don’t really want to ask our instructors if they just can’t control themselves.
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Dear Tosk, I was hoping someone more eloquent might be able to answer this for you, but no one has yet and you deserve a response. Many couples who practice or teach NFP do have many children, but not because the methods themselves are ineffective. NFP is unique among methods in that it can cause couples to become more willing to have children. Through NFP, couples practice self-discipline, self sacrifice, and generosity. These are the virtues needed to welcome more children into a family. By practicing NFP many couples become more open and willing to have babies, and so they do.

NFP instructors tell me that anyone can learn to chart. The rules themselves are not so complicated, and when practiced correctly and consistently, NFP can be highly effective at preventing pregnancy. That is, when couples have good motivation for avoiding pregnancy, there are very capable of doing so. Most of the user “failures” (if you can call a child that) are the result of “pregnancy-seeking behavior.” That’s journal speak for a couple knowing they are or might be fertile and having sex anyway. I don’t think it’s fair to say that they weren’t able to control themselves. I think when couples “risk it” its often because they make a deliberate a decision (even if spur of the moment) that their original reasons for abstaining were not serious enough to warrant abstinence. I think this is a good thing; it keeps couples from practicing NFP too selfishly. But by your definition, yes, it would be more of a “throw caution to the wind” type of deal, as opposed to difficulty interpreting charts.

Bottom line, if you have good reasons to avoid pregnancy, be at ease. You will be able to learn NFP and use it effectively. Charting, interpreting, and abstinence are not as difficult as the world would make them seem.
 
manualman said:
Married 10 years, never used anything but NFP to avoid conception.

Score:
Planned kids: 2
Unplanned kids: 0
Oh, What the heck kids: 1
Regrets: 0

Average NFP abstinance days per month: 9-10. Yeah, that’s hard. But it is supposed to be. It’s the fasting, the giving up of something good that keeps you from forgetting the link between sex and life and sand-blasts your ‘serious reason’ for avoiding to help you see if it is real or rationalizing (note ‘what the heck kids’ class above).

I think the people who have the most trouble with NFP are those with an undiagnosed underlying medical condition and those who used the pill for a while and try to switch (doctors rarely tell you just how long it can affect your cycle and symptoms since most of them just plain don’t KNOW).
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I love your “score card” 😛
We have a few more “What the heck kids” though.

As another poster mentioned, it’s not so much that we lack control, it’s that sometimes our reasons don’t seem all that good 😉 and that’s okay. We are supposed to constantly discern God’s will for our families. P(name removed by moderator)ointing our fertility is easy, discerning family size, less easy!
It’s funny, because when someone asks me about NFP, I tell them it really does work, no really, it does. We have 6 kids on purpose! In this day and age, it’s hard for many people to believe.
 
Exactly as Jennifer J said. The ‘What the Heck kids’ aren’t so much a manifestation of lack of control as they are the positive product of God’s effective mechanism for helping us see past our own rationalizing and cowardice. WAY to many people use ABC for reasons that they THINK are serious, but really aren’t. It just never costs them anything, so they never scrutinize the alleged reason terribly well.

I have little doubt that after our very difficult child #2, we’d have called it quits for good if we were contracetion users. Forced abstinance gradually brought us to realize that we were mostly just being chickens.
 
This thread is turning out great. Two of our kids were what the heck kids and I think my wife just wants to be sure that if you take the what the heck factor out then it is pretty safe.
Are there any “NFP oop’s” out there?
 
nodito said:
D NFP is unique among methods in that it can cause couples to become more willing to have children. Through NFP, couples practice self-discipline, self sacrifice, and generosity. These are the virtues needed to welcome more children into a family. By practicing NFP many couples become more open and willing to have babies, and so they do.
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What he said! I think we would have stopped after 3 if I hadn’t converted and learned NFP (was a contracepting Protestant). We now have four and are seriously considering conceiving a fifth. We do have some significant challenges to consider, but we have come to realize what an incredible gift it is to be able to bring new souls into the world. As of now, we have been using NFP to avoid pregnancy for 24 months.
 
Matt33 said:
This thread is turning out great. Two of our kids were what the heck kids and I think my wife just wants to be sure that if you take the what the heck factor out then it is pretty safe.
Are there any “NFP oop’s” out there?
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They certainly exist, and probably in greater number than among the contrceptive users population. The hard part is separating the failure rate of the method from the failure rate to exercise it properly.

In controlled studies where the researchers have been confident that the users understand NFP and practice it per the rules, it is every bit as efficient as condoms or the pill. Unlike those, NFP costs you something (periodic abstinance), so it isn’t self perpetuating like ABC is.
 
Matt33 said:
This thread is turning out great. Two of our kids were what the heck kids and I think my wife just wants to be sure that if you take the what the heck factor out then it is pretty safe.
Are there any “NFP oop’s” out there?
Click to expand...
Ours was, but when I looked back over the charts it seemed impossible that I could have not known that was a fertile day! That opps is such a great blessing and has brought so much happiness to ours lives! 🙂 It’s been a year without conceiving now… who knows… we may have a “what the heck!” pregnancy soon.
 
We’ve been married for over 10 months and no baby yet. We have been TTA but I also would be extremely happy to have a child at any time. We usually abstain for 7-10 days.
 
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