I needed something between the first two responses. I love NFP, but it is a challenge. And it's not the best thing that's happened to my marriage, the Church gets that spot.
Wow, lots to say here, but I’ve long held onto a quote I read somewhere (sorry, but I forget when, where and by whom) that provides a decent thumbnail of our NFP experience: "NFP is the worst possible method of planning family size, except for all the other methods." The quote gets to the heart of how challenging NFP can be, but with a healthy sense of humor.
First; praise God for the courageous witness in our day and age of couples who, having no real reason to postpone having a child or to space children in any particular way, therefore trust for the duration of their joint fertility in God's plan for their family size. All Catholics need to praise God for these couples and to pray for their continued courage.
Our situation has been one of having special reason to postpone pregnancy due to severe varicosities in the lower left side of my body which were first manifest with our second child and made worse by each subsequent pregnancy. Non-the-less, we were open to children, stuck with NFP, and therefore had five children within the first 10 years of our marriage. NFP and breastfeeding definitely did not “work” in the sense of our feeling the least bit in control of our family size, but also we moved across country three times in our first 10 years of marriage and only attended an official NFP class during our engagement, so clearly we were what wasn’t working correctly, not the method.
So, with babies number four and five, I was wheelchair bound for the final 2-3 months of my pregnancies because of the severity of the varicosities. Then, after several surgeries and 10 years of “successful” NFP, we “failed” at the method again and a sixth beautiful child was placed in our family at the exact same time that his oldest sibling was heading off to college. Now, I put successful and failed in quotes hoping NFP users will get a knowing chuckle and that non-NFP users will not judge me. If you are using NFP to postpone having a child for a real reason, you will know that becoming pregnant feels nothing like success at that moment you see that double blue line! However, as you may have guessed by my other word choices, our “sixth beautiful child” has done more to reworked and soften this mother’s heart than any other spiritual excersize, so that I now fully believe that God knows what He’s doing when He either does or doesn’t give a child to a couple sincerely praying for His will and not their own no matter what their earthly circumstances.
While we continue to practice NFP with real reason, two years after the dramatic entry of our sixth baby, I am no where near as afraid of NFP “failure” as I was in the 22 previous years of marriage. Hey, I’ve survived to mother my six beauties! I survived blood clots, bed rest and being wheel chairs bound. I learned to accept massive amounts of help from friends and neighbors, living in my sister’s remodeled attic for 5 months while I was expecting Baby #5, and the financial strain and emotional stress of my husband’s also being unemployed at that time. I survived, our marriage has been strengthened, not weakened, and I am blessed to be able to tell my children that not only do their father and I love them more than life itself, God does too, because He moved mountains to get them here!
How do I feel about NFP after 22 years and having real reason to use it? “It’s the worst possible method of planning family size, except for all the other ones." > Heidi
Kristine - 14 years ago
Gee. I see all these responses and wish I could be so loving about NFP. Use it. Love it and HATE it. We have all the grave reasons to not have more children, my health, our economic situation, our age, etc. I have charted and graphed, spoken with experts and others. Have so many challenges with the process, very little intimacy with my wonderful spouse and therefore have a hard time loving something that causes me so much grief. I'm doing my part, because that's what we're called to do. Doesn't mean I have to love it.
Susi - 14 years ago
The most positive part of NFP, [which my husband and I used both ways: to space babies (I had very rough pregnancies.) and to try for another (That always worked.)] the most positive was that using NFP FORCES intimate conversation between husband and wife. A couple ends up closer because of the communication.
Jennie - 14 years ago
To echo what was said by Katherine, Beth and a few others, we don't use NFP because we do not have any grave reasons to do so. We're open to whatever and whoever God wants to send our way.:)
Heather - 14 years ago
I marked the first answer, "I love it..." because I do, for many reasons. NFP is part of what brought me to The Church and has had many benefits for getting my health and marriage in order. I was taught not to think of NFP as being used only to prevent a pregnancy but to help conceive and keep yourself healthy. On the other hand, I know a lot of people view it as "Catholic birth control," and that attitude certainly is dangerous!
Even though my husband and I are not postponing pregnancy, we still use NFP as a means of staying informed about my body. I am about to give birth to my first (only a few weeks to go!) and plan on charting afterward to see what goes on with my fertility. Not out of anxiety, or even out of wanting to postpone, just to help take care of myself.
I also wanted to put in a word for NFP as great for giving people hope in conceiving a child. I know so many women with reproductive problems who have gained hope when they discovered NFP. Many of them were told they just had to take hormonal birth control pills to "manage" their condition, and that there wasn't much hope for pregnancy. Thanks to NFP and the associated focus on women's genuine reproductive health that has come with it, many of these women have gotten off drugs, gotten much healthier, and often gotten pregnant! Instead of having doctors shut their bodies down, they are actually being treated.
I have also used NFP to show many women about how The Church loves and supports women. I come from a very liberal background where we learned almost nothing about how our bodies work. Women are often shocked to find out that you can know so much about how your body works and impressed that, as Catholics, we are concerned with that. It totally upends the claim that The Church views women as "baby factories" whose bodies are ignored for the sake of cranking out children. On the contrary, the Church truly supports women and their bodies, by teaching about what God intended for them, and that a healthy body is a fertile body.
In short, I think that NFP can be a very useful tool. Like any good tool, it is often misused. The question of what a grave reason for postponing pregnancy is something particularly hard to discern given the mentality of our society today. However, the positive results of NFP, helping women to really heal their bodies, and showing others how the Church cares for women's bodies, are not to be ignored.
T with Honey - 14 years ago
I went with the "It's natural" option but could have just as easily gone with the opinion that it is the best thing to have happened to my marriage. Most of my marriage we used NFP as a tool to achieve pregnancy. After both of us were diagnosed with fertility issues we started on the route of medications and procedures. At the time I didn't fully understand the church teaching on fertility procedures. We went through with one attempt at an IUI. I fretted about all the 'what ifs'. My husband was very disappointed because he couldn't be there. That was when we decided that the only way of getting pregnant for us was the good old fashioned way with no 'third parties' involved.
If it wasn't for my knowledge of my body's signs of fertility I am sure we wouldn't be blessed with our 2 beautiful children. Or at the very least it may have taken a lot more trying.
Alison - 14 years ago
We are currently in a season of using NFP. It is a challenge and that's ok. I am deeply thankful that my body gives clear signs; I know that many women don't. We are completely open to new life and I love the way NFP never denies this. I remember my husband asking John Kippley ( CCL founder) how we could be sure using NFP in our marriage wouldn't be sinful... Mr Kippley's reply was something like- it's too hard to be sinful! I had to laugh at this because we constantly feel that pull of "it would be easier and nicer to have another baby".
melissa - 14 years ago
I don't agree with any of these options. The feeling that comes to mind is not on the love/hate spectrum. It is a tool to abide by a teaching. I LOVE the teaching. I LOVE theology of the body.
I *appreciate* NFP and we use it during seasons of our marriage. Living in a marriage that is open to life has been revealing of our selfishness and fears. Along with living so freely, comes beautiful uncertainty and vulnerability - and always obedience to God's design.
Beate - 14 years ago
I have a different take than some of the commenters :-) I learned about my fertility cycles in H.S. and was fascinated by the way God designed my body and appalled by how harmful hormonal birth control was to the environment (and to women.) Not exactly what my agnostic biology teacher was envisioning when he told me to explain the "rhythm method" to the class, LOL.
At any rate, after living with the cyclical nature of my body for a decades, I can't imagine ignoring the signs of fertility. We don't "use" nfp, we live it. All of our children were conceived with informed consent ;-) I love that the children we lost to miscarriage were part of our conscience from the very beginning, and thus I was able to treasure them as long as possible. For us, God said "no" more often than "yes" which brings it's own brand of difficulty to nfp - there were all too many times when the knowledge that the timing was perfect and again no baby, really stunk!
All in all though, I still love God's awesome design and can't imagine not using the knowledge He has graced us with so generously.
I have to agree with many of the comments up above. We currently use NFP and have for a good part of our marriage - in between 6 kids. But there was a time between child #5&6 that God finally woke us up and made us say, "wait a minute, why are we avoiding a pregnancy, do we really have serious reason?" We just got in that mode, had everyone out of diapers, etc. Now, that little one is such a blessing to our family - just 4 years after her next older sibling. It's hard to remember sometimes that we are only to use NFP when we have a serious reason to avoid a pregnancy. That the need to do so should be carefully and prayerfully discerned with God. I love Kimberly Hahn's thoughts on the need to avoid in her book. So many of our excuses can be more of a lack of trust in God. So, I voted the first option but I too would say it's somewhat in between 1&2 - it is a great blessing but it does require work. Love is a decision not a feeling.
LeAnn - 14 years ago
We are leaving our family size up to God. I checked box #1 because we use NFP to try to achieve pregnancy, not to avoid.
FamilyMan - 14 years ago
Most of these comments are in line with my "I don't use NFP" approach. My wife and I just leave it up to God. Worked well for 8 kids over 27 years, richer and poorer, good times and bad...the poll should reflect better categories for "I don't use NFP". I think it is too tempting for most folks to still insert their own will in the process.
Lacey - 14 years ago
I said "I love it" but I needed a box in-between the first and second. NFP has been a blessing for us, but it has also been tough; I am going to have our first baby after 11 months of marriage, so it wasn't what I would call "foolproof" for us (not that we weren't a bit foolish too). I think that for us there is a bit of a learning curve (which resulted in baby!) but I also see now that we can have sex whenever we want that having the natural breaks of my fertile periods were a no-pressure different kind of bonding time. I am looking forward to improving our efforts once it's pertinent for us again.
Beth - 14 years ago
I wanted to add something to my comment above. We did learn to chart (CrM) when we were engaged and did so when we were first married to help to know fertile times. I found that my husband and I learned a lot about each other, my husband was fascinated with the way my body worked and for the first time in my life, I embraced, with joy, my femininity.
We stopped charting shortly after I miscarried because I was upset but conceived again shortly there after. However, it was after the birth of our son that we came to the realization, that, while we never intended to use NFP to space our children, why not put the conception of our children in to God's hands also? (What a concept, I know ;)) So the charts went away and we have relied on the Providence of God for 4 years now without regret.
Margaret - 14 years ago
I also wanted to clarify why we chose the "I don't use NFP". We are a young couple, desiring to be open to life and God's will as to how many children we will have. We have no need to limit that at this time. I also wanted to mention that through extended breastfeeding, we have been blessed to have our children spaced in a way that has made the use of nfp for us unnecessary.
Christine - 14 years ago
We do not use NFP eithe, as we have no serious reason to do so. Our family's size is in God's hands.
Beth - 14 years ago
I wanted to second what Katherine said. We do not use NFP either, because we do not feel we have a reason to prevent or delay pregnancies.
I voted "I don't use NFP" but I wanted to explain why. We used NFP the first few months of our marriage and enjoyed its benefits but discerned that we had no serious reason for preventing a pregnancy. So we don't use anything and simply let the Spirit do what it will. I wanted it to be understood that voting "I don't use NFP" could mean that no prevention is being used whatsoever.
I needed something between the first two responses. I love NFP, but it is a challenge. And it's not the best thing that's happened to my marriage, the Church gets that spot.
Wow, lots to say here, but I’ve long held onto a quote I read somewhere (sorry, but I forget when, where and by whom) that provides a decent thumbnail of our NFP experience: "NFP is the worst possible method of planning family size, except for all the other methods." The quote gets to the heart of how challenging NFP can be, but with a healthy sense of humor.
First; praise God for the courageous witness in our day and age of couples who, having no real reason to postpone having a child or to space children in any particular way, therefore trust for the duration of their joint fertility in God's plan for their family size. All Catholics need to praise God for these couples and to pray for their continued courage.
Our situation has been one of having special reason to postpone pregnancy due to severe varicosities in the lower left side of my body which were first manifest with our second child and made worse by each subsequent pregnancy. Non-the-less, we were open to children, stuck with NFP, and therefore had five children within the first 10 years of our marriage. NFP and breastfeeding definitely did not “work” in the sense of our feeling the least bit in control of our family size, but also we moved across country three times in our first 10 years of marriage and only attended an official NFP class during our engagement, so clearly we were what wasn’t working correctly, not the method.
So, with babies number four and five, I was wheelchair bound for the final 2-3 months of my pregnancies because of the severity of the varicosities. Then, after several surgeries and 10 years of “successful” NFP, we “failed” at the method again and a sixth beautiful child was placed in our family at the exact same time that his oldest sibling was heading off to college. Now, I put successful and failed in quotes hoping NFP users will get a knowing chuckle and that non-NFP users will not judge me. If you are using NFP to postpone having a child for a real reason, you will know that becoming pregnant feels nothing like success at that moment you see that double blue line! However, as you may have guessed by my other word choices, our “sixth beautiful child” has done more to reworked and soften this mother’s heart than any other spiritual excersize, so that I now fully believe that God knows what He’s doing when He either does or doesn’t give a child to a couple sincerely praying for His will and not their own no matter what their earthly circumstances.
While we continue to practice NFP with real reason, two years after the dramatic entry of our sixth baby, I am no where near as afraid of NFP “failure” as I was in the 22 previous years of marriage. Hey, I’ve survived to mother my six beauties! I survived blood clots, bed rest and being wheel chairs bound. I learned to accept massive amounts of help from friends and neighbors, living in my sister’s remodeled attic for 5 months while I was expecting Baby #5, and the financial strain and emotional stress of my husband’s also being unemployed at that time. I survived, our marriage has been strengthened, not weakened, and I am blessed to be able to tell my children that not only do their father and I love them more than life itself, God does too, because He moved mountains to get them here!
How do I feel about NFP after 22 years and having real reason to use it? “It’s the worst possible method of planning family size, except for all the other ones." > Heidi
Gee. I see all these responses and wish I could be so loving about NFP. Use it. Love it and HATE it. We have all the grave reasons to not have more children, my health, our economic situation, our age, etc. I have charted and graphed, spoken with experts and others. Have so many challenges with the process, very little intimacy with my wonderful spouse and therefore have a hard time loving something that causes me so much grief. I'm doing my part, because that's what we're called to do. Doesn't mean I have to love it.
The most positive part of NFP, [which my husband and I used both ways: to space babies (I had very rough pregnancies.) and to try for another (That always worked.)] the most positive was that using NFP FORCES intimate conversation between husband and wife. A couple ends up closer because of the communication.
To echo what was said by Katherine, Beth and a few others, we don't use NFP because we do not have any grave reasons to do so. We're open to whatever and whoever God wants to send our way.:)
I marked the first answer, "I love it..." because I do, for many reasons. NFP is part of what brought me to The Church and has had many benefits for getting my health and marriage in order. I was taught not to think of NFP as being used only to prevent a pregnancy but to help conceive and keep yourself healthy. On the other hand, I know a lot of people view it as "Catholic birth control," and that attitude certainly is dangerous!
Even though my husband and I are not postponing pregnancy, we still use NFP as a means of staying informed about my body. I am about to give birth to my first (only a few weeks to go!) and plan on charting afterward to see what goes on with my fertility. Not out of anxiety, or even out of wanting to postpone, just to help take care of myself.
I also wanted to put in a word for NFP as great for giving people hope in conceiving a child. I know so many women with reproductive problems who have gained hope when they discovered NFP. Many of them were told they just had to take hormonal birth control pills to "manage" their condition, and that there wasn't much hope for pregnancy. Thanks to NFP and the associated focus on women's genuine reproductive health that has come with it, many of these women have gotten off drugs, gotten much healthier, and often gotten pregnant! Instead of having doctors shut their bodies down, they are actually being treated.
I have also used NFP to show many women about how The Church loves and supports women. I come from a very liberal background where we learned almost nothing about how our bodies work. Women are often shocked to find out that you can know so much about how your body works and impressed that, as Catholics, we are concerned with that. It totally upends the claim that The Church views women as "baby factories" whose bodies are ignored for the sake of cranking out children. On the contrary, the Church truly supports women and their bodies, by teaching about what God intended for them, and that a healthy body is a fertile body.
In short, I think that NFP can be a very useful tool. Like any good tool, it is often misused. The question of what a grave reason for postponing pregnancy is something particularly hard to discern given the mentality of our society today. However, the positive results of NFP, helping women to really heal their bodies, and showing others how the Church cares for women's bodies, are not to be ignored.
I went with the "It's natural" option but could have just as easily gone with the opinion that it is the best thing to have happened to my marriage. Most of my marriage we used NFP as a tool to achieve pregnancy. After both of us were diagnosed with fertility issues we started on the route of medications and procedures. At the time I didn't fully understand the church teaching on fertility procedures. We went through with one attempt at an IUI. I fretted about all the 'what ifs'. My husband was very disappointed because he couldn't be there. That was when we decided that the only way of getting pregnant for us was the good old fashioned way with no 'third parties' involved.
If it wasn't for my knowledge of my body's signs of fertility I am sure we wouldn't be blessed with our 2 beautiful children. Or at the very least it may have taken a lot more trying.
We are currently in a season of using NFP. It is a challenge and that's ok. I am deeply thankful that my body gives clear signs; I know that many women don't. We are completely open to new life and I love the way NFP never denies this. I remember my husband asking John Kippley ( CCL founder) how we could be sure using NFP in our marriage wouldn't be sinful... Mr Kippley's reply was something like- it's too hard to be sinful! I had to laugh at this because we constantly feel that pull of "it would be easier and nicer to have another baby".
I don't agree with any of these options. The feeling that comes to mind is not on the love/hate spectrum. It is a tool to abide by a teaching. I LOVE the teaching. I LOVE theology of the body.
I *appreciate* NFP and we use it during seasons of our marriage. Living in a marriage that is open to life has been revealing of our selfishness and fears. Along with living so freely, comes beautiful uncertainty and vulnerability - and always obedience to God's design.
I have a different take than some of the commenters :-) I learned about my fertility cycles in H.S. and was fascinated by the way God designed my body and appalled by how harmful hormonal birth control was to the environment (and to women.) Not exactly what my agnostic biology teacher was envisioning when he told me to explain the "rhythm method" to the class, LOL.
At any rate, after living with the cyclical nature of my body for a decades, I can't imagine ignoring the signs of fertility. We don't "use" nfp, we live it. All of our children were conceived with informed consent ;-) I love that the children we lost to miscarriage were part of our conscience from the very beginning, and thus I was able to treasure them as long as possible. For us, God said "no" more often than "yes" which brings it's own brand of difficulty to nfp - there were all too many times when the knowledge that the timing was perfect and again no baby, really stunk!
All in all though, I still love God's awesome design and can't imagine not using the knowledge He has graced us with so generously.
I have to agree with many of the comments up above. We currently use NFP and have for a good part of our marriage - in between 6 kids. But there was a time between child #5&6 that God finally woke us up and made us say, "wait a minute, why are we avoiding a pregnancy, do we really have serious reason?" We just got in that mode, had everyone out of diapers, etc. Now, that little one is such a blessing to our family - just 4 years after her next older sibling. It's hard to remember sometimes that we are only to use NFP when we have a serious reason to avoid a pregnancy. That the need to do so should be carefully and prayerfully discerned with God. I love Kimberly Hahn's thoughts on the need to avoid in her book. So many of our excuses can be more of a lack of trust in God. So, I voted the first option but I too would say it's somewhat in between 1&2 - it is a great blessing but it does require work. Love is a decision not a feeling.
We are leaving our family size up to God. I checked box #1 because we use NFP to try to achieve pregnancy, not to avoid.
Most of these comments are in line with my "I don't use NFP" approach. My wife and I just leave it up to God. Worked well for 8 kids over 27 years, richer and poorer, good times and bad...the poll should reflect better categories for "I don't use NFP". I think it is too tempting for most folks to still insert their own will in the process.
I said "I love it" but I needed a box in-between the first and second. NFP has been a blessing for us, but it has also been tough; I am going to have our first baby after 11 months of marriage, so it wasn't what I would call "foolproof" for us (not that we weren't a bit foolish too). I think that for us there is a bit of a learning curve (which resulted in baby!) but I also see now that we can have sex whenever we want that having the natural breaks of my fertile periods were a no-pressure different kind of bonding time. I am looking forward to improving our efforts once it's pertinent for us again.
I wanted to add something to my comment above. We did learn to chart (CrM) when we were engaged and did so when we were first married to help to know fertile times. I found that my husband and I learned a lot about each other, my husband was fascinated with the way my body worked and for the first time in my life, I embraced, with joy, my femininity.
We stopped charting shortly after I miscarried because I was upset but conceived again shortly there after. However, it was after the birth of our son that we came to the realization, that, while we never intended to use NFP to space our children, why not put the conception of our children in to God's hands also? (What a concept, I know ;)) So the charts went away and we have relied on the Providence of God for 4 years now without regret.
I also wanted to clarify why we chose the "I don't use NFP". We are a young couple, desiring to be open to life and God's will as to how many children we will have. We have no need to limit that at this time. I also wanted to mention that through extended breastfeeding, we have been blessed to have our children spaced in a way that has made the use of nfp for us unnecessary.
We do not use NFP eithe, as we have no serious reason to do so. Our family's size is in God's hands.
I wanted to second what Katherine said. We do not use NFP either, because we do not feel we have a reason to prevent or delay pregnancies.
I voted "I don't use NFP" but I wanted to explain why. We used NFP the first few months of our marriage and enjoyed its benefits but discerned that we had no serious reason for preventing a pregnancy. So we don't use anything and simply let the Spirit do what it will. I wanted it to be understood that voting "I don't use NFP" could mean that no prevention is being used whatsoever.