WooHoo, Kallie! So happy for your blessing…

That’s great, Kallie! We’ve had a very positive experience with NFP over our 15 years of marriage - to conceive, to avoid pregnancy, and to diagnose. There are challenges, for sure, but I really can’t imagine any other lifestyle.

That happens to me when I’m under more stress than usual. I’ll either get patches of mucus that start to dry and then start up again, or (more often), extremely long stretches of fertile mucus before ovulation occurs.

The process of ovulation can definitely be interrupted by stress or illness. But this pattern is something that also occurs with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). If this is normal for you, it’s something your doctor should look into.

Thank you for your responses.  I imagine sometimes it is stress-related, but it happens nearly every month.  May I ask how you know about the PCOS connection?  I have been tested for PCOS in the past and had negative results.  But it may be worth mentioning to my provider anyway.

My daughter has PCOS. Plus I am an NFP consultant for CCL.

I don’t have an answer to your question, but I wanted to offer some support anyway. I was diagnosed with episodic depression when I was 21, after having struggled with it for years.  I was ashamed, too. I felt weak for letting it control my life, I felt I should have been able to deal with things without any help. But I’m so glad I finally told my doctor! She helped me to understand that it’s not something I can control, it’s a disease that just happens to some people. Would you feel badly if you had asthma, or poor vision? After telling my mom my diagnosis, I found out that she too struggled with depression, along with two of my aunts and my grandmother. Two of my brothers also deal with anxiety issues, and I never knew!

I’ll keep you in my prayers, and I wish you luck in your recovery. I strongly encourage you to talk to your doctor about your symptoms.

I am sorry to hear you are going through this. After my second (I have 5 now) I had PPD. for 6 months I kept it a secret. I exercised, prayed, cried, took out sugar etc. But for me it made only a slight change. I finally got up the nerve to go to my doctor. She was wonderful and I was medicated. I was only on the meds for about 6 -8 months. I went off when I was expecting #3. I am so very glad I chose to talk with my doctor. It has been 6 yrs and I finally told my mother about it last week. It went about as well as I had thought it would. (my family is very anit-drugs)... so my advice to you is 1. share it with your husband and your dotor. 2. Pray, ask our Lord what is best for you and your family. Lastly, please do not be ashamed, you didn’t do this… this is just one of the many ways our body’s handle stress. I will add you to my prayers.

PLEASE do not keep this a secret!!!  I had PPD after our daughter was born and I couldn’t function.  I remember seeing my doctor at 4:00 one afternoon and he immediately gave me a progesterone injection.  When I got in bed that night, my husband looked over at me and said, “You haven’t cried since we left the doctor’s office.”  It was literally the longest amount of time that I hadn’t cried in the few weeks since she had been born.  It took one more injection a week later and I was a new woman!  I’ll be praying for you.  But please, please don’t try to treat this on your own!  There is NOTHING to be ashamed of and you deserve to be happy this second!

Hello, 
Are you sure you are suffering with postpartum depression?  If you had a difficult birth you could be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.  Often PTSD is misdiagnosed as depression and should be treated differently. 

It takes courage to do what you are doing.  Persevere!  And please don’t be afraid to talk about it.  You deserve to give yourself the very best.

I have had varying degrees of PPD/ppa for the last 6 pregnancies. I’ve muscled through it without any help a fee times, I’ve been medicated a few times, including now. The only difference in the long run? I and MY FAMILY are miserable, stressed and suffering far, far longer when I try and go solo. I am currently in talk therapy with a PPD specialist and taking medication and continuing to exclusively breastfeed. No one knows what I’m doing aside from my doc and therapist and pharmacist but I am getting help and I am getting better. Suffering alone and waiting it out benefits no one, especially your child(ren)

anon - I’d encourage you to look into some type of treatment as well. It is certainly NOT a sign of weakness on your part. I had PPD 3 times. The first time around it took me a while to acknowledge what was happening and when I finally accepted it and started treating it there was a tremendous difference in my outlook and my ability to function. I’ve always had my PPD treated with progesterone. Sometimes after giving birth our progesterone levels get really wacky and it can cause depression - so the best way to treat those lacking levels is taking progesterone. http://www.naprotechnology.com/depression.htm  If you can find a NaPro doc they will be able to help you! And I would certainly recommend other medical treatments along with counseling. Arwen had a great post on counseling not too long ago…http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/blog/talking_truth Maybe you will find it encouraging! Just please know you’re not alone and SO many women go through this! You deserve to feel better and you totally can with the right help!

Please do not feel ashamed.  I can commiserate.  I feel like I could be reading my own post a couple months ago when I read yours.  What worked for me was to take some very high quality prenatal vitamins every.single.day.  I had even written a long letter to my dh to try to explain how I was feeling since anytime he tried to talk to me I would either start to cry or get angry.  I take Metagenics.  I currently find them disgusting for some reason - as in gag them down and feel gross for about 30 min.  But, when I tried switching to a different prenatal vitamin twice all my depression symptoms came back.  I’d rather gag the vitamins down than live so up/down.  Please though…do ask for help if you don’t find a solution very soon.  This isn’t your fault.  You’d certainly seek help if you had high blood pressure or something along those lines- this is no different.  We can’t control the hormones floating around.  I promise if my vitamins stop working for me I’ll seek help - you seek help too if you need it - O.K.?

Anonymous, please seek help!  You can’t do this alone. I’ll be praying for you!

no, it sounds normal and responsible

just like in the US, you *can* refuse any tests you want.  so just smile and say no, and maybe ask your priest/local parishioners for any good doc recs? or midwives?

Heather, can you call or send emails to any or all of the following American sites for help?

-Priests For Life
-American Association of Pro-life Physicians
-Catholic Medical Association
-Pope Paul VI Institute

Btw, what are they saying they’ll do if you decline? I mean, even here in the states, I have to sound like a broken record for most of my prenatal visits… “No, we’re not doing the triple screen….no, I don’t want an amnio…”

Surely one of them would have *some* idea of who to contact in Portugal.  Our Lady of Fatima, help your daughter Heather!   And, congratulations!

I have been in South America during several pregnancies (but not births) since my dh is Peruvian.  They LOVE interventions if they smell $$, which the fact that you are American confirms.  Just tell them that they can do the tests if they want but you refuse to pay for it.  Neither are things that will compromise the baby at all, they inconvenience you.  When I was in Peru I looked on the website for the American College of Nurse-Midwives and actually found an American nurse-midwife in Lima.  I was glad to return here for the births because they have a 90% c section rate there for anyone who is not super poor.

A fertility monitor (or chart) helps you track what your own body is doing so you can work WITH the cycles God put in your body.  A condom or birth control works AGAINST your body’s natural ways.  There’s nothing wrong with getting a more detailed understanding (Even with the help of a monitor) of the way God designed things, and using the times he designed for sex to occur without conception.  When when you start trying to create your OWN times for sex to happen without conception… that’s the no-no.  God provides a certain sized window for this (different sized window for each couple), but it is not allowed for us to tear down the walls and expand the window’s size on our own.  The rest of the month is for sex-with-the-possibility-of-conception.  This is how I understand it all, anyway.

I think the difference is in the marital act.  The condom changes the marital act.  The monitor just give you some knowledge.  The condom, like other forms of ABC, is like eating, then vomiting so that you can go on eating some more without gaining weight.  The monitor is a luxury of our times that tips you off to hormonal changes that you could discover on your own with a bit more trouble.  When you say that use of charts and monitors is not “natural” I think you mean that it’s not spontaneous—the acts are sort of arranged and calculated.  Looked at it in a different light, you can say that with each act you and your husband together are embracing your fertility, with full knowledge of the possible outcome.  While that may feel a little odd when you’re avoiding, it’s a double thrill when you’re trying to conceive!  It’s a great question, and I can tell that you’re asking it with a heart open to God’s will.

Wondering, God bless you for seeking answers and coming here.  Don’t stop! Seek the truth at all times.

This is a wonderful article about precisely your question, written by a trustworthy expert priest for the National Catholic Bioethics Center:
“NFP and the Telos of Sex” by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk
http://www.ncbcenter.org/page.aspx?pid=1124

I am so tempted to copy and paste a key paragraph for you here, but instead, I pray that you will read the entire article and consider sharing with your husband.  The analogy to eating & vomiting is close, but I think Fr. Tad comes closer in his example. God bless!

Have you read Theology of the Body by Pope JPII?  Or Humanae Vitae?  I completely agree with both of the above comments, but I also think it helps to direct people to actual teachings of the Church, especially since I myself am not a scholar or theologian. Both are available at the following link (along with many other papal documents on the teachings):

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/catholic-teaching/

It is so great that you are seeking to understand this.  I agree with the above posts and that you should read the documents.  You remind me of me.  So I will tell you how I understand it from what I have read.  I think you are thinking that the “natural” in Natural Family Planning means “low-tech” or like no preservative in food.  What the “natural” in NFP refers to is Natural Law.  Meaning that it is family planning that works within the natural law that God has given us.  If someone steps off a high building, we know that they will be pulled to the ground by gravity, that is natural law.  God set up the natural law, it is His law, His order to the universe.  His laws also pertain to us, in the moral order and in our bodies.  He made our bodies to work in a certain way.  He chose to allow us to participate in creation with Him during a certain period every month.  If we do not want to take part in creation, we must abstain.  I think of that fertile time as God’s time, not ours.  (Just like He took one day a week that is His day.)  He has given us the rest of the month to enjoy the unitive aspect of sex with our spouse.  So if we do not want to participate with God in creation, we must respect His time and abstain.  It is a sacrifice that we make to please Him.  This is why every marital must be open to life, otherwise martial sex becomes barren sex.  Barren sex is not moral.  This is why homosexual sex and mastubation are immoral.  It is taking the gift of sex and using it for pleasure only, not using it according to God’s will.  Modern science has made it possible to know when we are fertile.  God gave us the ability to figure it out—what a gift.  Now you can know when you are fertile and offer that time back to God in the form of a sacrifice by abstaining.  A sacrifce that you can offer for the salvation of your family.  I hope all this rambling makes sense!!

All of the above responses are great.  I just wanted to add a little analogy to help you understand the difference between “natural” and “spontaneous.”  Yes, with NFP sex is not always spontaneous.  But how often can we do things purely spontaneously whenever we feel the urge?  Do you eat the second you start feeling hungry or do you wait until meal times?  If you are in an important meeting at work and you start feeling your bladder full do you jump up to go to the bathroom or try to wait until the meeting is over?  Almost everything we do in life is scheduled.  This is called discipline and self-control which we try to teach our children.  “Natural” on the other hand means living according to the natural order of things.  The natural order that God created means we should not separate the two purposes of the sex act: being unitive and being open to life.  So even if by understanding our natural cycle of fertility we try to have sex during the infertile times, the integrity of the sex act itself is preserved and not perverted.

I don’t use NFP, but am also wondering why the term for the act during the infertile time is often described as “still open to life” even when the NFP method is 99% effective.

“Open to life” refers to your openness to God’s plan and cooperate with Him and that plan.  We have reason, so we can learn to understand how He operates—how he made our bodies—so we can more effectively cooperate with that plan.  Unlike using contraceptives, NFP requires the users to sacrifice their own desires for union with their spouse if they do not want to participate in creation of a new human life (that is, for “grave reasons” they think that they can better fulfill God’s plan for their families by not conceiving a child).  However EVERY TIME they enjoy the marital embrace, they put NOTHING in the way of God acting to create a child, should He choose to give them such a gift, EVER.  With contraceptives, they are, instead of trying to cooperate, specifically intending to block God’s normal way of acting (in other words, trying to change/interfere with the way God has made the world—and their bodies—to work).  God allows us to know how fertility works, but even so we should never use it or manipulate it to block out God. By the way: it is entirely possible for a couple to use NFP methods with a “contraceptive mentality,” that is, by trying to avoid pregnancy for selfish reasons, not because they have prayerfully discerned that God’s will is that they not conceive.

thank you all so much for your thoughtful and respectful comments and suggested reading.  You’ve all given me so much to think about and share with my husband.  I feel so blessed to have found this site!

Wondering, what we do with our bodies is very important. It has deep meaning, especially when it comes to marital intimacy. In those moments, we are actually saying with our bodies what we said with our words in the vows we made to each other before God at our wedding. This is so important to remember! Recall that a marriage is not fully consummated until the husband and wife have made love, and that a marriage that has not been consummated does not need an annulment. The meaning of our lovemaking is powerful and very real.

Because our marriages are a sign of the mystery of Christ’s love for the Church, our acts of love are meant to reflect his act of love on the Cross - they should be free, total, faithful and fruitful. Anything less is simply less than what God calls us to in marriage and does not reflect fully the vows we made.

All acts of contraceptive sex - including those with a condom - are not free, total, faithful or fruitful. All contraceptive sex involves a holding back, a changing of the meaning of what is being said. It does not reflect the dignity of the love we pledged. It says “I want this but on my terms.”

With NFP a couple uses knowledge of their God-given bodily design to determine when to make love if they prayerfully discerned a sufficiently serious reason to postpone pregnancy. In that case, they abstain when the woman is fertile. However - and this is key - every time such a couple make love, their acts are complete gifts of self as they are in that very moment according to God’s design. They have altered nothing. They have respected God’s design and areb working within it as they are called.

The body language with NFP allows a couple to truly live the love of their marriage vows. Contraception is less than that, and God wants so much more for us!

Oh, how I love hearing your voice here, my friend! Welcome back to this community. 

Prayers for you continued recovery! I can’t imagine what you must be going through. As for being an old lady with long hair, both my mother and mother in law are in their mid sixties (I know not really old, but they are senior citizens) and have long gray hair, going lighter gray every year. My MIL keeps hers in a braid and my mother wears hers in a bun.  I have an aunt who is 62 who has long gray hair and wears her flowing down. Just you let you know that there are others bucking the trend too!

Glad to see you back!  Prayers for you and your continued recovery!

Welcome back!!   Continued prayers for you and yours!  Hope to “see you around,” too, so to speak!

Oh my…. what trials you have.  I will pray for you.  I love your long hair comment too!  I was thinking about this the other day:  why do women always feel the need to dye their hair? I hate the whole process.  It stinks to high heaven, stings the scalp and then my scalp gets all flaky afterwards.  If no one did it, NONE of us would be expected to, right?  Also, you’re right - why do all ladies w/ gray hair all have short hair?  Why NOT long hair?

Hi Scared, I can only answer for myself.  I am now officially menopausal because I haven’t had a period for a year.  I had two in the previous twelve months.  I have had no hot flashes, no discernable mood swings, no HRT, no misery except for a few more hairs on my chin, which I am vain enough to pluck out.  So far my relations with my husband are also unaffected.  I am 52 and noticed fewer and shorter periods starting at about your age.  I know I am lucky - but I guess you need to hear that menopause is not necessarily a miserable experience.

Ignore the horror stories.  With a good diet, exercise and a few supplements I am doing well.  I"m not completely done yet, but expect to be soon.  I think a lot has to do with how you take care of yourself.  Some women get a little weepy (I do on occasion) and a little moody, but that doesn’t mean you will.  At 49 I was more symptomatic than I am now, and was having regular periods like you. I’m 52 now and haven’t had a “REAL” period in over a year.  (Just a little spotting here and there.)  I think a lot has to do with attitude, if you think you are going to be miserable you might just be because of the power of suggestion.  The worst symptom I am having right now is dryness, but that can be addressed with natural lubricants. Wishing you well!

Thanks Scotch Meg and Joan!  You have alleviated my anxiety.  At least I know that it is possible to get through it and be able to function normally.  I guess I have to go back to the knowledge that women have been going through this for thousands of years and somehow survived without drugs and doctors.  I do like to be prepared for the worst but I don’t want to be paranoid either.