Let’s Talk Natural Family Planning/Fertility Awareness
I am thinking about doing a series of posts on Natural Family Planning/Fertility Awareness. There are plenty of good bloggers out there who post about NFP regularly, so I never felt the need to do so myself. But I also realize that as something of an outsider, my perspective is different than that of a trained instructor.
Also, I really wish that I had posted more about the subject 5 years ago when I was immersed in it. There is so much that I have already forgotten, and 5 years from now I want to be able to look back on posts to remind myself both of interesting facts, and what my thoughts were at this point in my life. I certainly hope that my view will continue to develop and change, but I want to be able to remember what I thought at this point.
- Fertility Awareness vs. Natural Family Planning: Why I prefer FA to NFP but don’t think that the Fertility Awareness Method(FAM) makes much sense.
- How I learned to appreciate the value of fertility awareness
- Why I took an NFP class with Josh, even though I already had a year’s worth of charts and was quite confident in my knowledge
- Language Matters: Fluid vs. Mucus etc.
- Feminism and Fertility Awareness
- Why the Catholic NFP community is missing out by ignoring that other Jesuit school (Creighton and Marquette are great, but there is no way to ignore Georgetown without being, well, ignorant)
- Spreading NFP/FA: What Next?
- The best NFP book you’ve never read
- A defense of the rhythm method
- Maybe something from Josh, but considering the fact that he still “owes” me a few other posts, this could take years.
I will probably also post a bit on the Catholic side about conscience as well as what I currently see as universal ideals for sex and family planning.
Anyway, I did have a point with this post. I want your perspective! Please tell me if there is anything that you are interested in knowing about my thoughts on NFP/FA. I am happy to post about any aspect, but have no idea what people are interested in. I tend to assume that everyone knows lots about fertility awareness because if I know it then everyone else must, right? Also, I am going to try to keep the posts here about NFP to minimal religious content, so don’t worry about Catholicism when sharing your ideas (unless, of course you’re Catholic and that’s what you’re interested in!).
Also, I’d love to share other’s perspectives. I am thinking about a post with links to other’s stories (feel free to comment with your links!) and would be happy to include guest posts if you’ve got something to share that you haven’t already posted.
Hit it, Rae, I’m all ears. Can’t wait to hear what you have to share.
I can’t wait to hear your perspective. I think that I’d like to hear more about “•Why the Catholic NFP community is missing out by ignoring that other Jesuit school (Creighton and Marquette are great, but there is no way to ignore Georgetown without being, well, ignorant)” Not sure why… perhaps because I’ve only been familiar with Couple to Couple League.
I’ve always wanted to write more about NFP, but everyone else writes so well on it, I doubt I could add anything special. I look forward to your series!
I say write it! It will be special simply because no one else can have exactly your experience and perspective.
I don’t know all that much about NFP, so I’m looking forward to your posts. I actually know nothing about NFP at all. We haven’t tried to delay or space our children at all yet. I would love to learn more, especially methods that can still work even when you are still nursing (yes I ecologically breast feed (excepting the daily nap) and I still get my period back at about 6 weeks PP) and not sleeping long stretches at night. So if you have anything helpful there, I’m all ears.
I’m just going to clarify that I have ecologically breast fed my second and third child, I gave my first a pacifier at 4 months old and got pregnant the next month.
Wow! What a commitment to life, I just had to reply. Yes, you can learn NFP to postpone even as you are breastfeeding and weaning. You learn to recognize your body’s signs of fertility so that you know to abstain while fertile. One of the most helpful hints when breastfeeding – estrogen changes the taste of milk so your fussy baby may be trying to tell you something
More to your point of learning while breastfeeding, we (as in my friends, not me yet) have taught couples like that who are able to use the method after having a number of kids and realizing they need to start spacing children even though they hadn’t necessarily planned on that at the start of their marriage.
Yep, I’m not in panic mode or anything, I’ve always wanted to have lots of children. But it would be nice to learn more for future use, especially with a possible career change for my hubby and all the uncertainty that comes with that.
I’ll be happy to email you links to what some of the pros say, but I make no pretense of being an instructor.
Being new to the NFP world, I’m always looking for different perspectives (and success stories!).
Oh, looking forward to this series! I was going to say which of those posts I’d be most interested in, but really I’d like to read them all
If I had to pick a few, I’d say the feminism, Georgetown, spreading, and unknown book are at the top of my list.
Wow, excited I made the list with my new blog…now I feel like I have to write something.
Enjoyed the post and can’t wait to read your thoughts. I don’t know what I would add, but I always find it interesting that when I say NFP everyone thinks I am trying to have kids and don’t understand it is to postpone or achieve. Even Catholics married in the last 15 years have not heard about it as anything other than learning how to conceive. The other thought that was brought to my mind was about how my holistic doctor asked if I was using my charts as birth control or to achieve. I cringed at the mention of BC but couldn’t get him to understand the lifestyle.
You’d better keep writing! I’m looking forward to reading what you have to say on your new blog.
This is exciting! I’d love to see you talk about FA vs. NFP (I assume by NFP you mean her STM) vs. Creighton. As someone with fertility issues, I’d love to see how FA handles IF/sub-fertility. I’d hate to think that FA couples with trouble conceiving would be sent to an IVF clinic without being able to see NFP doctors. I hope that makes sense.
Also, the feminism post, and the book one. But really, I’ll love to read them all!
By NFP I was thinking of all the forms of family planning through determining a woman’s fertility and timing sex to either achieve or avoid pregnancy.
Your point totally makes sense, but I think that we’re using the terms differently. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it clear in the post!
I’m looking forward to your series Rae. This is an incredibly interesting topic to me, as I’ve chosen to teach and promote NFP for my career–full time no less! I hope you don’t mind my regular feedback. I just wanted to mention the Georgetown, Marquette, the US Bishops NFP Program, etc. all collaborate and respect each other. I’ll be going to a conference this summer they are all co-sponsoring. See conference flyer and list of co-sponsors here. The major difference between the approach of Georgetown, it seems, and the other groups, is that that the Georgetown Institute for Reproductive Health seems to be more accepting of use of barriers during the fertile time. I’ll be talking to faculty from Georgetown at the conference and look forward to hearing their take on it from them personally. I’ll be sure to share it with you. Perhaps you will send me your personal email address?
Batrice Adcock, MSN, RN
cssnfp@charlottediocese.org
I don’t know what you mean by Georgetown, so un-ignorant me!