So...help? I am SO dern scared

[Alix1912]

I’m glad as well. There as a lot of pressure form som epeople in my family to leave him to find a Catholic man, but he’s far more accepting of my faith than any Catholic I’ve dated.

That’s exactly hat he told me. If we have to be super safe and not have sex 2 eeks a month at first, we’ll deal. We talkes about how we’re so excited for so many OTHER thngs besides that. We got all giggly and happy abour how nice it’s going to be to just SLEEP together. Actual sleep, not inuendo sleep

I thought waking up next to someone was pretty cool too. I love to snuggle with my husband at night (except when I’m pregnant in which case I don’t want anyone touching me). I’m glad he is that accepting of you and your faith.

 

[Syri]

His whole family is, and cinsidering his dad’s a pastor, that’s saying something! It was a BIG DEAL from the start, and he’s never had an issue. He’ll tell me he doesn’t personally agreee with aspects, but sees nothing harmful or wrong in said beliefs. Once he told me he had no qualms about his childrne being Catholic, that’s kinda when I knew…yup, I’mma marry this man! And his support of me using NFP only solidifies that.

 

[PennyinCanada]

We’ve used NFP and I’ve had quite irregular cycles and was able to tell when I ovulated, no problem. I really appreciated knowing when my period was going to start, especially with the irregularity.

I know you are an intelligent young woman who will gain confidence once you learn what to watch for. Practice for the months before your marriage, and let us know what you think.

Are there any Catholic home schooling families where you are? They are a great support group and fun to hang out with as well.

We have a large home schooling presence in the city where I live, Catholic families. I had one married lady from this group, that said she could spot a NFP couple sitting in the pews. There was something special that she could see in their love and attentiveness to each other. Always remember that NFP couples are enjoying an abundance of God’s grace in their marriage and their family life. (Has anyone mentioned that awesome part of NFP yet??) Along with the sacraments, may your love for each other grow in height and depth so people know there is something special about the 2 of you.

There are many previous posters on this thread that I have enjoyed reading.

 

[Being_Brave]

We were married when I was 23, and used NFP. We wanted to wait until we had our married routine down, and to have better financial stability as a couple before trying for a baby. I didn’t have access to an instructor, so I looked online at Amazon and found a workbook called “Honoring Our Cycles: A Natural Family Planning Workbook” and it worked perfectly. The book explains the how/why/when/and what you’re looking for, plus gives you a years worth of worksheets to chart everything easily. To be honest, he and I have never experienced a “'pregnancy-scare” and only had to obstain for about a week out of the month. My cycle stayed pretty regular, and I know that’s a big issue for some women, and is why NFP can be done correctly and still result in a pregnancy…but for me it worked. It’s statistically just as effective as ABC when used correctly. We did use it to get pregnant as well, and I got pregnant the first day we actually tried. Obviously the plumbing works, so I credit NFP with us being able to hold off on having kids for two years with no surprises.

 

[Fidelia]

I started this thread last night after finding Taking Charge of Your Fertility really cheap on Amazon:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=7525427#post7525427

It’s not a Catholic resource for NFP (it was explained to me that it is FAM the fertility awareness method) and the author recommends barriers during fertile periods. You would just keep in mind to ignore those parts and obviously you understand the abstaining part of NFP.
But a lot of people on CAF have recommended the book as a good guide to learning the method, even if it is not a good guide for the morality aspect.

 

[PennyinCanada]

My cycle stayed pretty regular, and I know that’s a big issue for some women, and is why NFP can be done correctly and still result in a pregnancy.

I had irregular periods and I could always tell when my ovulation was delayed and when it finally came around. I would say it was very effective.
Now that I look back, I was the one ‘being brave’ in looking to NFP and putting it into practice. I wish NFP was taught to our young girls while in school so they would have a better understanding of how their bodies worked.

 

[Fidelia]

I had irregular periods and I could always tell when my ovulation was delayed and when it finally came around. I would say it was very effective.
Now that I look back, I was the one ‘being brave’ in looking to NFP and putting it into practice. I wish NFP was taught to our young girls while in school so they would have a better understanding of how their bodies worked.

yea, i totally wish i learned it years ago. I would have understood my body so much better.

 

[Syri]

I know my periods are regular, but I’ve heard that doesn’t necessarily mean your ovulation cycles are as regular. I’m anxious to find out.

I also discovered something that actually helped calm me quite a lot. I was reading about the methods that require checking your cervical muscious, and reading about the phases and descriptions,. and realized I sort of already do this to predict when my period is going to start! So it’s rather like I got one foot in the game already :3

 

[Syri]

What cam you guys tell me about “failure” rates of NFP? I’ve heard many stories on this forum regarding people who try NPF and it doesn’t work for them

 

[jmcrae]

What cam you guys tell me about “failure” rates of NFP? I’ve heard many stories on this forum regarding people who try NPF and it doesn’t work for them

Keep in mind that when NFP “fails” it means that God has won. He will never create anybody unintentionally. So, if you are following all of the rules, and God sends you a child in what you are sure was your infertile season, remember Isaac, and John the Baptist, who were also born to infertile women, and realize that it might be (no pressure, though) that you are the mother of a Prophet.

 

[Alix1912]

We had a failure…because we weren’t following the rules. You have to chart and such, only counting days is not a good idea. It worked OK for us because frankly with a baby under one there isn’t a whole lot of time and energy for sex anyway…however if you miss count (like I did), you get pregnant. So we are about 6-7 months ahead of schedule from I wanted a baby. Not the end of the world, but I was pretty freaked out when I found out I was pregnant.

When we actually used NFP and followed the rules everything worked great.

 

[Syri]

Oooh, no, don’tintend on just counting days! I’m going to start with Symptothermal, maybe use a fertility test the first few cycles as a backup to reaffirm if I’m doing it right.

I figured many of the “failures” were from inaccurate counting or just a neeed for a little extra loving ,. but I’ve heard many people’s stories, who say they followed it to a T and now they have 6 kids.

 

[Fidelia]

Keep in mind that when NFP “fails” it means that God has won. He will never create anybody unintentionally. So, if you are following all of the rules, and God sends you a child in what you are sure was your infertile season, remember Isaac, and John the Baptist, who were also born to infertile women, and realize that it might be (no pressure, though) that you are the mother of a Prophet.

Oooh, no, don’tintend on just counting days! I’m going to start with Symptothermal, maybe use a fertility test the first few cycles as a backup to reaffirm if I’m doing it right.

I figured many of the “failures” were from inaccurate counting or just a neeed for a little extra loving ,. but I’ve heard many people’s stories, who say they followed it to a T and now they have 6 kids.

You just need to make sure you know enough about NFP and make sure that you use it consistently and correctly. It’s one thing to ask people if they have had unplanned pregnancies with NFP, but IMO, that wouldn’t tell me much unless I have more supporting information: What method were they using? How diligently did they chart and pay attention to fertility signs? How conservatively did they abstain? Can the pregnancy can be attributed to human error (e.g. forgot to temp or forgot what day it was…) or physiological event (e.g. ovulated earlier than usual)?
NFP as a method is not what has “failed” whenever an unexpected event might happen (which as stated above can be due to human error or an occurrence of physiological irregularity).
And, of course, God has won. God wins. And God will win.

 

[Syri]

Alright, thank you guys so much! I feel SO much better now than when I started this thread, though still a little nervous!

My periods are very regular, but are regular periods an indication of regular ovulation? Just curious.

 

[Fidelia]

Alright, thank you guys so much! I feel SO much better now than when I started this thread, though still a little nervous!

My periods are very regular, but are regular periods an indication of regular ovulation? Just curious.

Glad you’re feeling better! Being nervous is not always a bad thing. If your periods are regular, then yes, in a nutshell, your ovulation is regular, because your luteal phase (phase from ovulation to next period) will pretty much be consistent and remain the same number of days.
So if e.g. your period (a new cycle) starts every 28 days, then most likely you are ovulating on the same day every month also. If your period is “late” what actually happened is you just ovulated late, and your period is still “on time” relative to your normal luteal phase length. I have actually observed this on a couple of my own charts too.

 

[Alix1912]

Keep in mind that when NFP “fails” it means that God has won. He will never create anybody unintentionally. So, if you are following all of the rules, and God sends you a child in what you are sure was your infertile season, remember Isaac, and John the Baptist, who were also born to infertile women, and realize that it might be (no pressure, though) that you are the mother of a Prophet.

I love this…God has a great way of teaching us to be open to his plan. I was so mad when I discovered we were pregnant. (Trust me there was a lot of swearing my husband was never gonna see me naked again EVER, we caulk it up now to hormones and stress) I was really angry and stressed out and in the middle of moving and a tough couple months all around. Then one day I started to really bleed, and as I called my OBGYN and my husband in a panic it hit me that while I was mad at the timing I was not sorry for the baby. I laid on the floor crying and praying to God not to take the baby away, because I was sorry for being angry and I really did want another baby. Needless to say it was a false alarm…but it kinda made me put things seriously in perspective. A couple months was really NOT that big of a deal

 

[PaulinVA]

Keep in mind that when NFP “fails” it means that God has won. He will never create anybody unintentionally. So, if you are following all of the rules, and God sends you a child in what you are sure was your infertile season, remember Isaac, and John the Baptist, who were also born to infertile women, and realize that it might be (no pressure, though) that you are the mother of a Prophet.

Are you serious?

You are saying that God intervenes routinely in the biology He created? I don’t think so. That totally takes free will out of our lives.

We are co-creators with God. If we have relations, and the sperm and egg meet, a baby has been created. If they do not meet, no baby. You are supposing that God makes an egg and sperm meet routinely when it is biologically impossible, and I don’t buy that at all.

Yes, at critical junctures in human history God has intervened. But to say that an NFP ‘failure’ is God’s intervention is not born out by any facts or sound theology. People have ‘thought’ they understood the signs, or actually had a method failure (there are a few) but use failures and method failures are not divine intervention. They are imperfect knowledge or use of the biology.

God is not a chessmaster moving us around a board. We are exercising free will, as are the people around us. We must cooperate with God for his will to be done.

I know it is comforting to think that an unplanned pregnancy is some great miracle, but really, it’s just the biology that God created working the way He intended.

 

[jmcrae]

Are you serious?

You are saying that God intervenes routinely in the biology He created? I don’t think so. That totally takes free will out of our lives.

My point is that each human being is created by God’s will - nobody is an accident.

I know it is comforting to think that an unplanned pregnancy is some great miracle, but really, it’s just the biology that God created working the way He intended.

It’s saner to think of it as a miracle, than to think that your own child is “an accident” who should never have come into existence - but God is the creator of every human being - if He doesn’t meet the sperm and egg to join them together and ensoul the new life , then nothing happens.

I suppose it is just as possible that people are misreading their signs, as that there are people were infertile at the time of conception - who can say? Sometimes I suspect they’ve gotten it backwards, and think that the fertile season is actually the infertile season - however, regardless of what’s going on. each of those children was planned purposefully by God.

 

[kristleful]

My point is that each human being is created by God’s will - nobody is an accident.

It’s saner to think of it as a miracle, than to think that your own child is “an accident” who should never have come into existence - but God is the creator of every human being - if He doesn’t meet the sperm and egg to join them together and ensoul the new life , then nothing happens.

I suppose it is just as possible that people are misreading their signs, as that there are people were infertile at the time of conception - who can say? Sometimes I suspect they’ve gotten it backwards, and think that the fertile season is actually the infertile season - however, regardless of what’s going on. each of those children was planned purposefully by God.

:yup:

 

[Syri]

So is there a minimum amount of sleep reccomended for basal temping?