Please share success stories of using nfp

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SpeakKindly

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I’ve read enough criticism on the Internet about nfp, and I’ve read defenders of it claim that a lot of people don’t practice it correctly, and so on.

I’m interested in hearing personal stories and claims about it working.

So, if it’s not too personal do you care to share:

How long have you been practicing nfp?

Have you ever not seen it work for you?

Most importantly, do you believe it has helped your marriage, and if so, how?
 
My husband and I have been using NFP off and on throughout our marriage - we just had our fourth anniversary. The times we weren’t using it were during pregnancy and the infertile postpartum period.

Some people might classify this as a failure, but I think it showed the method worked - when we decided to throw caution to the wind during the fertile phase - which we did, twice - I got pregnant, both times.

I still call it a success story because we knew very well that I might get pregnant then, and so we weren’t shocked/angry/confused when it happened. We weren’t trying to get pregnant, but it was still kind of fun to wait those couple of weeks and tease each other, “Well, how soon should we test?” I actually think we might have been disappointed if I hadn’t been.

We use sympto-thermal a la Taking Charge of Your Fertility.
 
Because in my parents’ case, nfp “failed” … my littlest sister was born. And thank God! Because now that she’s married and unable to have children of her own … she’s adopted two little girls who would have otherwise lived in a home for abandoned children. So I personally consider this an nfp success story. My parents were open to life, and so was my sister. Win/win situation!

:blessyou:
 
We had two surprises pregnancies and three expected pregnancies while using it.

When we spoke to NFP teachers about the surprises they said it was because we didn’t interpret this or that correctly or let our passion blind us to signs etc. It wasn’t as if I could have had the teachers there to help me read my mucus. lol.

User error. For some women the signs are harder to read, or if you are a woman who’s cycles are very sensitive to stress etc or not regular those two can make things harder to read and result in “user error”.

I suggest that women start charting their cycles before they are even thinking of getting married and get very familiar with the signs and their cycles so they are experts by the time they are married.

It would be wise for Catholic mothers to teach this to their daughter along with the “birds and bees”
 
We had one “oh what the heck” baby, one “on purpose” baby, and one kind-of-surprise (how surprised can you be at a pregnancy if you’re sexually active) pregnancy during the postpartum nursing period that ended in miscarriage.

So it has worked for us during the normal times of life. Wonky nursing cycles made it extremely difficult, even being ultra conservative and using several methods, though I didn’t have periods until nearly a year after childbirth. I admit though, that I’ve never taken any formal classes, and I did get a lot more confident with what I was doing after reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility.
 
This may not be the kind of success story you’re looking for, but to our family it isn’t only a success story but a miracle. :). I was 27 when we got married and we had no plans to use anything, we both could not wait to start our family and hoped and planned on at least four. I got pregnant on our honeymoon and lost the baby, got pregnant two months later and again lost the baby. We waited several more months, I never charted, just used the rhythm and it usually works pretty good with me because I’m very regular. Then when we tried again, I got pregnant and lost another baby. We waited a couple of years before I was ready to try again, and I said that it would be the last time if I didn’t carry the baby. It was just too hard to keep going through. Once again I lost the baby. If it wasn’t for my Catholic faith I most assuredly would have started taking/using some sort of artificial birth control. I didn’t, and just kept counting days, I never have charted my temp. or checked for other signs. Then one day I ended up pregnant and I cried and was scared to death, but nine months later God blessed us with a beautiful baby boy. I’m so thankful for the teaching’s of the Church because I believe if it wasn’t for that we would not have the two children we have now. Since the birth of our daughter I have lost four more babies, but I always got pregnant when we were trying. Once again I said “no more” and it’s been four years since my last miscarriage. Sometimes I hope God works another miracle for us.
 
pensmama87 said:
My husband and I have been using NFP off and on throughout our marriage - we just had our fourth anniversary. The times we weren’t using it were during pregnancy and the infertile postpartum period.

Some people might classify this as a failure, but I think it showed the method worked - when we decided to throw caution to the wind during the fertile phase - which we did, twice - I got pregnant, both times.

I still call it a success story because we knew very well that I might get pregnant then, and so we weren’t shocked/angry/confused when it happened. We weren’t trying to get pregnant, but it was still kind of fun to wait those couple of weeks and tease each other, “Well, how soon should we test?” I actually think we might have been disappointed if I hadn’t been.

We use sympto-thermal a la Taking Charge of Your Fertility.
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Our story is very similar. 2 pregnancies that would technically be classified as user error in a study when the reality is that I knew good and well that pregnancy was a strong possibilty but we had sex anyway. I also consider this a sign of NFP working.

I did have a 3rd pregnancy where I should have known I was fertile at the time but ignored the buffer time frames. That pregnancy did not last long however and we have been very successful at preventing since then while we work through some things. I am suspicious that in the next couple of years we’ll have another night where we throw caution to the wind and, with God’s help, have a beautiful baby nine months later.
 
We have been using it for about 7 years and it has pretty much always worked. By that I mean all 3 times we intended to get pregnant we did on the first cycle.

I do notice a common thread in the responses though. Most of us attribute success to having children as opposed to not having children. If you mean success in delaying pregnancy then that has worked also. The only time it hasn’t was after we lost our sixth child at 8 weeks pregnancy. We were going to wait a couple months before trying again but the next cycle my wife conceived 4 days post peak (or sperm survived 6 days until she ovulated). Not what we were expecting, but I certainly wouldn’t call our 7th pregnancy a failure.

My wife and I have taught NFP for the last 4 or 5 years and many “failures” can be attributed to user error. These can be improper charting, not following the rules for avoiding, etc. That being said it is still possible to get pregnant with 100 percent adherence. The only method that is 100% is complete and total abstinence. If you are sexually active the possibility of pregnancy always exists even if the probability is low at a given time. That doesn’t mean you are always fertile, but that it is possible for sperm to survive longer than the norm or ovulation early than expected.

As to the question if it has helped my marriage, I can emphatically say yes. We certainly communicate about family planning much more than when we contracepted. We also rediscovered the joy of simple, nonsexual affection. I notice I am more affectionate with my kids as a result.
 
16 years of marriage, four pregnancies total (two 100% planned, two at a reasonable time), 3 kids so far. So far, so good.

Even our two unplanned pregnancies happened at times when we were starting to think about having another.
 
My wife and I used the Symto-Thermal Method of NFP for over 20 years to conceive and to avoid. It worked as advertised for both purposes.

We have discussions here a lot about how long different couples abstain each moth. We ended up being conservative, and having maybe ten days a month that we were infertile. If we had any doubt, we would wait another day (for PhaseIII)

Did it help our marriage? Well, we were doing what the Church taught, so we weren’t causing the other to sin. Abstaining is really hard, and performing on cue is hard, too. It caused a lot of frustration and friction. Is it good to work through things like that together? Yes. Is it easy? No.
 
PaulinVA said:
Did it help our marriage? Well, we were doing what the Church taught, so we weren’t causing the other to sin. Abstaining is really hard, and performing on cue is hard, too. It caused a lot of frustration and friction. Is it good to work through things like that together? Yes. Is it easy? No.
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Thank you for your honesty! Great post.
 
We don’t have a ton of experience with NFP.
We’ve used it for 3 years now and have had 2 kids who were both planned.

We’ll see how things work out because we plan on using NFP for quite a while, several years actually, before we have a third baby.

I’m fairly blessed with easy to interpret cycles. Charting, or at least trying to chart, while you’re in the PP nursing phase is really difficult. So difficult that hubby and I abstained for almost 3 months. It’s also tough temping while you are taking care of kids.

I’m still up at least once or twice every night to take care of someone’s needs…my temps haven’t been regular some months I rely on my cervix and mucus more.

I don’t think NFP has helped or hindered my marriage. It’s just a tool we use. I’ve gotten frustrated with my husband sometimes because he has never really bothered to learn the process. He doesn’t read my charts and only seems mildly interested when I do show him something.
He’s better now then he was when we first started using NFP. I just tell him when his green light days are.

One thing I will say. The sex is so much better…regardless of when we are intimate. When I was on the pill the hormones wrecked havoc in my body.
Now, I feel like I’m operating the way my body was designed to operate. The strong desire for sex isn’t there as much as before but I think it’s because I’ve got two young kids and they wear me out.
When we are intimate, it’s great.
But that has nothing to do with NFP and everything to do with being intimate without using hormones or other barriers. The sex would be just as good if we weren’t charting.
 
We’ve used the sympto-thermal method of NFP throughout our entire marriage.
We have 4 children… 3 were well planned, and one was a known moment of “breaking the rules but hoping to avoid”… eh, God had other plans. Not a method failure, just a moment of “weakness”… and we’ve been blessed.

NFP works… that’s all there is to it. We’ve been through good times and bad… right now we’re struggling more than ever before financially (bare-bones, beans-and-rice again?), but we don’t “fear” a pregnancy because NFP WORKS and we’ve grown in greater trust of God. That fear is just gone.
 
SpeakKindly said:
I’ve read enough criticism on the Internet about nfp, and I’ve read defenders of it claim that a lot of people don’t practice it correctly, and so on.

I’m interested in hearing personal stories and claims about it working.

So, if it’s not too personal do you care to share:

How long have you been practicing nfp?

Have you ever not seen it work for you?

Most importantly, do you believe it has helped your marriage, and if so, how?
Click to expand...
My wife and I have used NFP through most of our 13-year marriage. We use a hybrid of Billings and CCL mucus-only, but closer to Billings. My wife also has used ecological breastfeeding with each of our children, which has provided 13 to 15 months of natural infertility from the birth of the child until her monthly cycles return, and we consider ecological breastfeeding to be an important part of NFP. (If you don’t know what ecological breastfeeding is, I would recommend one of Sheila Kippley’s books on the subject.)

We have had four pregnancies resulting in four wonderful children, and each pregnancy was either planned or semi-planned. (By semi-planned, I mean that we knew we were ready to try to conceive soon anyway, so we took a chance on a day that wasn’t the most likely day for conception but wasn’t a “safe” day for avoiding pregnancy either.) We have not yet had an unplanned pregnancy while using NFP, though it is always a small possibility (just as it would be with contraception).

So I would say that NFP has worked very well for us. The abstinenance part is frustrating and difficult sometimes, but it doesn’t last forever. And we find that we are more affectionate during that time, and that when we do finally get together, it is like a mini-honeymoon. Also, we did not have to abstain during most of the breastfeeding time, and my wife found that ecological breastfeeding brought many blessings to her relationship with our babies that go well beyond just delaying the onset of fertility.

And as far as contraception, I just cannot imagine being intimate with my wife with one or both of us using contraception. To me that would be putting a barrier between us (even if it were the pill rather than a physical barrier like a condom), during the one time that we should be fully united, body and soul. Or it would also be like eating a huge meal and then intentionally throwing up, because you want the taste of the food and the enjoyment of eating it, but without the calories. That’s how contraception seems to me anyway – the very idea of using contraception just seems repulsive. (I didn’t always feel that way, but after using NFP for so long, and learning more about the Thelogy of the Body, that’s the way I feel about it now.)
 
Em_in_FL said:
NFP works… that’s all there is to it. We’ve been through good times and bad… right now we’re struggling more than ever before financially (bare-bones, beans-and-rice again?), but we don’t “fear” a pregnancy because NFP WORKS and we’ve grown in greater trust of God. That fear is just gone.
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Nice to see you back. Hope all is well.
 
SpeakKindly said:
I’ve read enough criticism on the Internet about nfp, and I’ve read defenders of it claim that a lot of people don’t practice it correctly, and so on.

I’m interested in hearing personal stories and claims about it working.

So, if it’s not too personal do you care to share:

How long have you been practicing nfp?

Have you ever not seen it work for you?

Most importantly, do you believe it has helped your marriage, and if so, how?
Click to expand...
How long have you been practicing nfp?10 years

Have you ever not seen it work for you? no…it’s worked to achieve and avoid pregnancy

Most importantly, do you believe it has helped your marriage, and if so, how?I think it’s helped with communication and with understanding why we did or did not want to try for another pregnancy…but…it’s also been a tremendous cross to bear, especially now after 4 kids and a good 15 years before menopause
 
How long have you been practicing nfp?
7 years, since we were married

Have you ever not seen it work for you?
No

Most importantly, do you believe it has helped your marriage, and if so, how?
Yes

There’s a problem with all of these questions. It’s seems to presuppose that the only way NFP could be successful is if you avoid having children except for when you are trying to get pregnant. When first married we used NFP to avoid pregnancy for a while. The reason we used NFP instead of some other method was because we are obedient to Church teaching. I have to admit I didn’t understand then why it was the only method, nor do I now fully understand either. I did and do know the arguments, but that isn’t the same as a mature understanding of it in all its respects. I can follow the Church and know that I am doing right whether I understand it or not. That is why it is always important to be obedient, you may never figure it out.

Children are a blessing from God. Why would I want to receive fewer blessings from God? Or do you sometimes consider babies to be a curse?

Are they always easy and fun? No. Is NFP always easy and fun? No.

It is a very immature, selfish, worldly, and not Godly thing to try to only do that which is always easy and fun. Is that what the saints have done before us? Is that what Jesus did? His apostles? No, they faced their deaths. Is fasting and prayer always easy and fun? Hardly, yet the Church calls us to do these things.

So I say if NFP “fails” and you receive blessings from God at a more rapid clip than you had hoped for, or more in total, that it is still a success. Things may be harder for you for a bit, but your reward in heaven will be far greater. The other “options” for stifling the flow of blessings from God lead to perdition, and are therefore not options at all. So it is what it is, it is a system by which you can space your pregnancies, and if it doesn’t always work, that’s just how it is. You take what comes in life and do the best you can while you’re here.

I’d say that it has been a part of a successful marriage for us, one blessed by 3 children so far, and that we are better off for having done things the right way. We may have more children and them closer together than we would have ever decided to on paper, but I am sure it will all work out in the end.

NFP can be a little tough, but you can survive periodic abstinence. You don’t have to have sex every day to have a happy, fulfilling life. We abstain for months post-partum, and somehow the sun still comes up every day. How could I ever expect my kids to be abstinent as teenagers if I can’t manage it myself as a mature adult? Also, you don’t have to abstain at all during pregnancy!

I have found NFP to be like fasting, it’s tough sometimes, and gives spiritual rewards. I have not experienced a deeper marriage due to periodic abstinence, if anything that has made it harder. Nor do we communicate better because of it, if anything we communicate less. It takes effort on your part, and self-denial, which are good Catholic ideas. Just like asceticism. You can’t get all the benefits of asceticism without the sacrifice. That’s the way it works.
 
In the contraceptive mindset, there are only “planned” and “unplanned” babies. The connotation being that unplanned is bad.

NFP trains couples to think differently, which is one of the major reasons NFP is morally acceptable. God built us with interconnected links among marriage, sexual intimacy and babies. They aren’t really three different subjects like modern folk like to pretend, but aspects of one whole. In this view, you learn to think of three sorts of babies:
  1. Planned
  2. Oopsies
  3. Oh, What the Heck (another poster above stole my label!)
We live in a culture that’s among the richest in human history and, perversely, among the most anxious about wealth. Which is probably why every single nation on earth today in which contraception is cheap, widely available and socially respectable has a BELOW replacement fertility rate. ALL of them. I’d argue that for most couples today, when conjugal passion overwhelms financial concerns, it’s merely God’s sneaky trick for beating out our fallen selfishness. NFP maintains the divinely designed human self-regulating systems. Contraception destroys them and turns sex into a singular subject divorced from marriage and babies and in the process, turns it inward.

Me? 15 years, 2 planned, 1 What the Heck and 0 oopsies. Abstinence times stink and they’re supposed to. It’s the counter-balance to our fallen tendency to make sex purely about self. As usual, what’s good for you isn’t what’s easiest.

I have a bit of a problem with much of the limited marketing that NFP gets. NFP by itself does nothing for your marriage. What it does is reveal the weaknesses that are already there and forces you to either work on them of suffer the consequences. It’s like the old canary in a coal mine. If the miners notice the canary dying and don’t take action (i.e. get out), the canary did nothing for them. When the practice of NFP is intolerable, then something is either wrong physically or relationally in the marriage and either one needs immediate attention and correction.
 
SpeakKindly said:
How long have you been practicing nfp?

Have you ever not seen it work for you?

Most importantly, do you believe it has helped your marriage, and if so, how?
Click to expand...
Over 10 years.

Nope. It has worked to avoid pregnancy for the entire time.

Helped my marriage? No. Hurt it? No, not that either.

I have also used ABC. That didn’t help or hurt my marriage either.

Of course it hurt my soul. But at the time, since I didn’t know it was a sin, I also didn’t know it was hurting my soul.
 
maryjk said:
Over 10 years.

Nope. It has worked to avoid pregnancy for the entire time.

Helped my marriage? No. Hurt it? No, not that either.

I have also used ABC. That didn’t help or hurt my marriage either.

Of course it hurt my soul. But at the time, since I didn’t know it was a sin, I also didn’t know it was hurting my soul.
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Just because a person doesn’t perceive it doesn’t mean that contraception isn’t harming their marriage (and society at whole).

ETA: It may very well be due to a person’s definition of a good marriage. There may be swingers out there that feel they have a good marriage, but we all know that it really isn’t truly a good marriage in God’s eyes.
 
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