Why do you practice NFP?

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Because after a particularly difficult delivery, my husband and I decided it would be best to wait to have another child.
 
I began practicing NFP because I wanted a “healthy” alternative to ABC, which at the time I did not consider immoral. I had been on the pill and had suffered from depression and weight gain (related to the depression), and when I asked my gynecologist if there were alternatives, she looked at me like I was a crazy person, said that depression was not a side effect of the pill, but that she could prescribe me an anti-depressant. I decided to look for alternatives and stumbled across NFP.

I liked it at first because it was “environmentally friendly” - I will admit to being a crunchy granola type - no hormones in the water supply, for instance, and because it fit into my natural cycles. This turned into a gradual understanding that there is nothing “wrong” with me that needs “fixing” by a pill or interfered with by other means. While researching natural childbirth methods once I got pregnant (we were charting at the time and knew that it was likely I would conceive, but went ahead anyway :p) I learned about ecological breastfeeding, which to my mind is a form of “natural family planning” even though it doesn’t involve charting - because it involves a woman’s natural fertility. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do EBF because I would have to work, but then I was laid off when I returned from maternity leave so DH and I had to figure out how to manage on one income. It’s been easier than expected, but we’ve always been frugal so that helped. 👍

I will say that as we’ve done NFP I’ve become much more accepting of my own fertility. I went from thinking rigidly that we would plan one child, and then a second three years later, then my husband would get a vasectomy and we’d be “done.” At most I would stay at home for a few years (if we could afford it). I don’t think that way now. With EBF, I’ll probably have a child every 2-3 years, and we’ll make a decision when my fertility returns if we need to avoid for a while or not. I used to be all stressed about contraception and making 100% sure I didn’t get pregnant and that life happened according to how I wanted it to happen. I know faith often teaches us that we must fight against the “easy way” of doing things (the worldly way), but in my experience, accepting my natural fertility and working with it rather than against it has been the “easy way” (once I let it be!)
 
because I have serious reason to avoid pregnancy and with my beliefs in what the bible and church teachings me about truth and love its my only moral option besides total abstaince. it takes a lot of trust in God. practicing nfp has not been easy or affective but its God’s way so I leave it and my serious reason in his hands. Only God knows my future. maybe I have serious reason now but the children I have now will grow up and do good things and I then I will understand that my “serious reason” wasn’t as serious as why God sent me children.
 
I guess, I will first have to ask what you mean when you say “practice NFP.” I practice NFP, meaning that I chart my cycles, but where I am in that cycle has generally not played apart in deciding when to be intimate with my spouse. So I practice NFP for my own edification and knowledge, and so when I do get pregnant I know how far along I am.
 
So I can buy a new Jaguar!! 👍

Actually we seek to conceive …

(though there have been times when we had the reasons to avoid)

(by the way for either and for other reasons…the Paul VI institute method is very good…helpful for treating all sorts of things too…napro-technology!)
 
Well, because I see it as part of the exercise of responsible parenthood at this stage of our married lives. God trusts us to be co-creators with Him of new, immortal souls, and He also trusts us to prayerfully discern what He is calling us to in a particular month, as well as our responsibilities to our spouses, our existing family, and to society. I see that as a wonderful and awesome (in the reverential sense) responsibility.

For the last, oh, twenty-two months or so, it has been an easier discernment, what with a new baby and three others kinda close in age, homeschooling, etc., but it is approaching hard-core discernment time again. Off to adoration!
 
To monitor my body, to be in tune with what is going on so we could discern if we could be open to another life.
 
What are the experiences of members here with NFP to prevent conception? For how long did you/ have you used NFP to postpone another child? Has it been effective?

Has anyone here used it even though the woman’s cycle is irregular?

Thanks for all who respond! It will be very helpful for me!
 
Joel_PF said:
What are the experiences of members here with NFP to prevent conception? For how long did you/ have you used NFP to postpone another child? Has it been effective?

Has anyone here used it even though the woman’s cycle is irregular?

Thanks for all who respond! It will be very helpful for me!
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There are many, many threads here at CAF regarding NFP. If you do a search, I know you will find a lot to read regarding the information you seek. Here is one of my older posts from a thread that is now closed.

From your experence why does NFP feel better than contraception?
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8204772&postcount=302
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SwizzleStick:
For hubby and me, the use of NFP to avoid since our last child was born 8-1/2 years ago has been 100% effective. We were also able to space conception pretty much when we wanted. I say “pretty much” because we lost baby three to miscarriage, and with our last child, it took several months after the miscarriage before we were able to get pregnant again.

Since we are older now and my last pregnancy was high risk, it is prudent that we use NFP to avoid, but we will accept whatever happens. We know that no matter what, we accept God’s will and plan in our lives.
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If you want to start at the beginning of that particular thread above, here is the link:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=585934

Here is a link to another thread that may interest you.

The Struggles of NFP in PerioMenopause
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=602753
 
After my miscarriage, I need to avoid getting pregnant for a very long time so I can physically and mentally recover and take the medication I need to take (the medication is one that causes birth defects). And my husband is against ABC. I know at my age (30), that means I will never have a child since it be several years until I could even think of having a child. Is menopause good? 🙂
 
CountrySinger said:
…I know at my age (30), that means I will never have a child since it be several years until I could even think of having a child. Is menopause good? 🙂
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Don’t despair. At only 30, you could still have several years to have a child. 🙂
 
Joel_PF said:
What are the experiences of members here with NFP to prevent conception? For how long did you/ have you used NFP to postpone another child? Has it been effective?

Has anyone here used it even though the woman’s cycle is irregular?

Thanks for all who respond! It will be very helpful for me!
Click to expand...
I use creighton for 3 years tried to avoid pregnancy the whole time and had 3 kids ( I bet if I would have stuck with it I would have learned it better but most of the time I was pregnant). I switched to ccl stm and have successfully avoided pregnancy during irregular 7 + months of postpartum cycles and counting and for 15 months of normal cycles between kids. so as you see the stm method works better for me. effectiveness depends on the person and the method and what works best for you. the more you use it the better you understand it and the more issues (irregular) cycles you have the more you learn about them. NFP is not as easy! I shouldn’t say its not effective in pp I should blam myself not the method. its very hard to abstain during the fertile time because our bodies naturally want it the most at that time. when you have to avoid for 10 + days each month after month you can see how a couple could just start taking more Chances of getting pregnant. we already have a hand full so whats one more.
 
CountrySinger said:
After my miscarriage, I need to avoid getting pregnant for a very long time so I can physically and mentally recover and take the medication I need to take (the medication is one that causes birth defects). And my husband is against ABC. I know at my age (30), that means I will never have a child since it be several years until I could even think of having a child. Is menopause good? 🙂
Click to expand...
the average age of menopause (woman last cycle) is age 51. you still have time 🙂 my neighbor had number 10 at the age of 48.
 
Joel_PF said:
What are the experiences of members here with NFP to prevent conception? For how long did you/ have you used NFP to postpone another child? Has it been effective?

Has anyone here used it even though the woman’s cycle is irregular?

Thanks for all who respond! It will be very helpful for me!
Click to expand...
We use NFP because the Theology of the Body is really beautiful and we do not want to reject it. We also want to be true to our marriage vows (being open to children).
We are currently using it to avoid because my husband is in grad school. We have been married for a little over three months. I have short cycles though, so we are in our fifth “married cycle” now. It has worked well for us. We have friends who use it and have been married a few years.

We basically use the sympto-thermal method. We learned a lo from Toni Weschler’s book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I highly recommend it. A number of people on CAF have read it and recommended it (that’s how I heard about it). The one caveat is that she is not a Catholic writer. What she explains if the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). FAM is basically sympto-thermal NFP, except with the use of barrier methods during fertile times, instead of abstinence. HOWEVER she does list Catholic resources in the back of the book, she does say that abstinence is the most effective, and she does say that couples who abstain have positive experiences. As far as gaining knowledge about fertility would go, her book is a great resource.

edited to add:
Here is a link to the NFP group, which now has a forum. Please pass it around and join it if you are interested in NFP. It would be great if any NFP threads could be located there to best share information.
forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=840
 
Because a pregnancy would be VERY dangerous for both me and any child conceived.
Joel_PF said:
What are the experiences of members here with NFP to prevent conception? For how long did you/ have you used NFP to postpone another child? Has it been effective?

Has anyone here used it even though the woman’s cycle is irregular?

Thanks for all who respond! It will be very helpful for me!
Click to expand...
Around 8 years. Prior to that I used ABC. :o In the beginning my cycles were like clockwork. Now I am entering perimenopause and although my cycles are still pretty easy to read, they now may be anywhere from 20 days to 60+ days.
 
Wife has a condition called ICP. Liver functions improperly during pregnancy resulting in significantly increased risk of late term miscarriage. Condition tends to get worse with each pregnancy. Rare condition, poorly studied, few treatments and little is known of side effects. We felt we’d pushed it far enough after three.

I think you won’t get a lot of response on this thread because of how personal it is. I only share as much as I do because I don’t use my real name or specific location into my threads. If my name were out there connected to this, I wouldn’t feel free to disclose it. Probably the same with others.
 
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