Tag: creighton

Asking couples to use NFP is asking a lot. Can’t the Church help more?

It is no secret: Natural family planning has its discontents. A number of studies have shown that few Catholics use it, and it is not hard to see why. N.F.P. can be difficult, it can be frustrating, and occasionally it is impossible. I am a discontent myself, albeit a stubbornly faithful one, which is why I wrote a whole book about how ordinary, non-saintly couples can learn to navigate the spiritual, emotional and marital problems that N.F.P. sometimes brings into sharp focus.

N.F.P. is worth learning well and sticking with, despite all the trials it can bring. When we were first married, my husband and I did not know how to communicate well. We did not understand what sex was really about. We had no clue about how God’s will actually works in our lives. Sacrificial patience, generosity and transformative suffering were mysteries to us. They are not mysteries now but are daily practices, thanks in part to the rigors of N.F.P. I wrote my book to let other struggling couples know they are not alone, and that their suffering does not have to be in vain.

But one thing my book did not cover was the logistical obstacles to using fertility awareness based methods of family planning successfully. (Most now shy away from the more colloquial label N.F.P.) These obstacles are not negligible. It was not long ago that we desperately wanted to switch to another fertility awareness based method that would work better with my body, but we simply did not have the money; so we were stuck with an unsuitable method that caused frustration and confusion. Some struggling is inevitable and can bring about growth; but some is avoidable and causes only pain. A small cash grant would have made a world of difference for our family.

I wondered how common our experience was; so I designed some surveys and shared them on social media and on my personal website, targeting women who use or have used a wide range of different forms of fertility awareness methods. Nearly 700 women responded. Here is what I learned.

Some women love N.F.P. Some of them find it cheap and simple and empowering. Some of them find it pricey and labor intensive, but well worth the cost. Some of them say it healed their bodies, enriched their marriages and drew them closer to God.

But for others, N.F.P. brought one trial after another. The church teaches us to forgo birth control, and so they did, whether out of obedience, love of spouse or a desire to understand their own health better. But even if they were willing to take on the spiritual and psychological challenges of N.F.P., they found themselves stymied by logistical problems beyond their control—things that could easily be solved with something as mundane as money, or better marketing, or better organization or even something as simple as a babysitter.

Oddly enough, even as the church struggles to interest its flock in fertility awareness based methods for spiritual reasons, fertility awareness is having a moment in the secular world. Cosmopolitan gave N.F.P. some positive press, and so did The New York Times. The interest is fuelled partly by a slow but growing disenchantment with artificial contraception among women of a variety of backgrounds and faiths. There are now countless fertility awareness based methods (usually paired with targeted condom use in secular circles) on the market; and women, religious or not, are snapping them up. You can buy bluetooth-enabled super-thermometers for $300 and compact fertility monitors straight out of Star Trek that smile at you when you are fertile. It is a far cry from the days of a scrap of graph paper, a thermometer and crossed fingers.

There are dozens of slick fertility apps, many free, some with millions of downloads. Women who have no idea that the church pioneered fertility awareness are turning to fertility awareness methods because they cannot seem to get pregnant or because they are thoroughly sick of birth control side-effects like migraines, blood clots or mood swings and wandering I.U.D.s; and they are ready for something else, something natural.

Here is the frustrating part. The church has something natural and effective to offer, and it is not some antiquated calendar system. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has approved a number of fertility awareness based methods: Marquette, Creighton, Billings, Sympto-Thermal, Boston Cross Check and N.F.P.I. The church is, in theory, delighted when a couple want to manage their fertility naturally. And many of these methods offer some level of personal instruction, which greatly increases their effectiveness. But because they can also come with some psychological, cultural and logistical baggage, women who have powered through the judgment of the secular world find themselves facing obstacles from within the church itself.

What Women Want

Given the church’s desire for couples to practice fertility awareness based methods, you might think every parish and diocese would offer numerous, easily accessible and affordable ways to learn these methods in order to use them consistently and reliably. You would be wrong.

It is a long history, and it would be funny if it were not so maddening. Back in 1932, Leo Latz, M.D., of Loyola University Chicago wrote his slim volume The Rhythm of Fertility and Sterility, outlining the basic principles of calendar-based family planning, so couples could learn to chart their fertility cycles quickly, easily and cheaply. It sold 600,000 copies to a readership ravenous for information.

Dr. Latz, for his trouble, was booted out of the university, a decision some historians attribute to his attempt to put dangerous information in the hot hands of so many married Catholics who might make decisions without the blessing of a priest.

Read the rest of my article for America Magazine. 

 Photo via Good Free Photos (Public Domain)

The financial cost of NFP and FAM. Please take my survey!

Everyone knows that barely any Catholics use NFP, because it’s hard and it’s counter-cultural. But even among those who are ready and willing, there can be obstacles. One of those obstacles is money. I’ve put together a survey to get an idea of how much of a problem money is for people who use or want to use NFP. The survey is anonymous, and I will use the information in an article I’m writing. 

It’s not a scientific survey, but I’m hoping to get enough responses to give me an idea of what is common around the country and the world. You don’t need to be Catholic to take the survey! It has seven questions, is anonymous, and should take about two minutes to complete. I’d be very grateful if you could take the survey and share it on social media or with anyone who might be interested. Here’s the link, or you can use the embedded widget below.

Follow-up question: What other obstacles might prevent you from using or trying NFP, besides money? Distance? Opportunity? Childcare? Cultural attitudes? What else? 

 

 
Create your own user feedback survey

Image Love for money (Free photobank torange.biz) / ©torange.biz Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 

Very inside basketball

The most amazing Twitter thread just happened. If you’re not familiar with NFP, probably just keep walking. Here’s how it happened:

First, Lauren the Great drives down the court:

with me giving a somewhat competent assist:

but no, it’s a block shot from Tommy Tighe!

It’s savage out there. No one can trash talk like Billings. And now Advent Friday sets a screen:

but then Sugar PLUM Jenny brings down the house with a dunk for the ages:

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

Slimes and Blunders caption contest

My sister Abby used to write an NFP column called “Signs and Wonders.” Her husband, naturally, referred to it as “Slimes and Blunders.”  See? Marriage building!

With that in mind, this one goes out to all you Creighton folks. Caption this for NFP Awareness Week:

Green_Globs

Or, maybe I’m in the wrong frame of mind to write about NFP Awareness Week.

 

Desperate need for Creighton NFP instructors in Portland

So, you live in the Portland, Oregon area and want to learn about Creighton NFP.  You’ll be talking to someone about your body, your health, maybe your sex life, your marriage, even . . .  DUN dun dun . . . your mucus. Would you like to have this kind of teacher?

 

PIC mean teacher

Or maybe this kind of teacher?

Kate L. (pictured at right — and yes, I believe we were talking about NFP!) is exactly the kind of person you want to be teaching NFP — sympathetic, funny, sincere, and smart as a whip.  And to tell the truth, it’s not so much of a choice between a mean teacher and a good teacher. What they have now in that area is no teachers.

So Kate has started a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money for tuition, books, and travel expenses so she can complete the extensive training to become a certified Creighton NFP model practitioner.

Oh, and Kate is co-founder of the Real Catholic Love and Sex blog, where she is giving away a Love and Faith locket as a raffle prize, and there are five ways to enter.  Some excellent, honest writing about love and sex at this blog.

Go fund Kate! If you can throw even a few dollars her way, and maybe spare a prayer, she will be able to keep on fundraising until she reaches her goal.

Progesterone cream (prescription and OTC) improved my Creighton NFP charting of cycles and now NFP is tolerable instead of intolerable

This is my story of how progesterone cream made NFP tolerable, instead of intolerable.

The following post is purely in the interest of public service, and is not especially entertaining, amusing, or edifying (hence the Google-friendly title).  I am not offering medical advice! I am just telling my story, in hopes that it will encourage other women to talk to their doctors, too.  I wish I had done it a lot sooner, because now my cycles became intelligible, and NFP became endurable.

This post is all medical, and not for the squeamish.  I will be using the words “cervix,” “mucus,” and “period.”

Background

PIC Lasciate ongi speranze voi ch’entrate

We use the Creighton Model of NFP.  I do not seem to be able to take my (bizarrely low) temperature consistently, and I am too technophobic and mistrustful to try a monitor.   Creighton was a good choice for us because you can use it while breastfeeding.  But still, it was pretty awful for many years.  If Creighton is “an authentic language of a women’s health and fertility,” then my charts were clearly saying, “Wha?  Hasenpfeffer.  I think!  Potrzebie!  Huh?” and occasionally, “Ow.”  In other words, I never really knew what was going on, except that we did not have a lot of days available for sex.  Some months, we had a grand total of one day (and I would be deep in the throes of PMS, so, super sexy with all the crying and screaming and paranoia).  This was no good.

My Fertility Care Practitioner knew I was frustrated and kept on encouraging me to call this NFP-only doctor she knows, but I was sure it would just be a waste of time and money, because nothing will help, I’m doomed to suffer, etc.

The problem before progesterone cream

My main problem was continuous mucus.

  • I never had dry days, even when my cycles were fully established and regular after night-weaning.
  • There was just never a very strong distinction between peak-type (more fertile) and non-peak-type (less fertile) mucus, and that made charting almost useless, and a source of constant anxiety.
  • To accommodate these ambiguities, I got yellow stamps, but the “is this essentially the same?” question hit me right in one of my weakest spots:  I’m a compulsive second-guesser, especially when I’m tired, and the strain was enormous.  We had so, so, so few available days, and I was never sure that they were actually okay to use.  And saying “end of the day on alternate days when you’re — well, do you think you’re fertile?  Trust yourself!” — well, that ain’t sexy talk.

Also, I could never do the seminal fluid elimination properly, no matter what ridiculous contortions I tried or how much water we both drank; so even once we were post-peak, there was always some uncertainty about what I was seeing.

So finally I went for a check-up.  The doctor expected that I would have a cervical eversion from eight vaginal deliveries in 11 years, which can cause  chronic irritation of the cervix, causing superfluous and confusing mucus.  They can do simple treatment right in the office.  But no, it turns out my cervix is (inexplicably) fine.  So he gave me a prescription for progesterone cream, but I didn’t fill it for several months, because nothing will help, I’m doomed to suffer, etc.

 

Benefits

So I finally filled the Rx, and within a month of starting to use a dab of cream for a week or so per month, I started having cycles like in the manual.

  • The longer I used the cream, the more dry days I saw.
  • The peak-type (more fertile) mucus is more abundant, and very distinct from non-peak-type.
  • And most importantly, we now we have what seems like a luxuriously long post-peak phase.  We can even have a fight post-peak, and still have time to make up and have sex again!  It’s pretty sweet.

There are more available days pre-peak, too, but since most unexpected pregnancies seem to come from pre-peak conception, we are pretty conservative.

Seminal fluid is easy to eliminate, and even if I don’t do it, it’s very distinct from any cervical mucus.

I’ll say it again: my cycles now look like the ones in the manual.

Drawbacks

  • When I’m using the cream, my cycles shortened from a typical 29-30 days, to 26-27 days.  My practitioner says that that is unrelated to the progesterone cream, but it sure is an amazing coincidence, because I never in my life had a cycle shorter than 28 days until I started using the cream; and now I rarely have a cycle longer than 26 days.
  • My period is more “efficient,” which means it takes 5-6 days, but most of it happens over two extremely heavy flow days.  They are no more painful than usual, but much more messy; but it is kind of nice to get it over with all at once, instead of having a gradual build-up and gradual wind-down that goes on and on.
  • You can only use the progesterone cream if you are certain that you have already ovulated; otherwise, it may prevent ovulation.  So if you suspect a double or split peak, you can end up waiting and waiting for the actual peak day to come, and then it turns out you just get your period anyway (and then your next cycle might not be as spiffy, because you haven’t had the benefit of the progesterone cream from the previous cycle).  Obviously, that’s not a drawback of the progesterone cream itself, but could happen any time – – it’s just something that adds a slight layer of uncertainty, because you’re not just waiting to see what happens in the cycle, but also waiting to see if you should use the cream.

Details

I rubbed the prescription cream into my inner wrist, inner elbow (is there a name for that part?) or abdomen once a day, starting on day P+3 and continuing until the end of the cycle.  It hasn’t caused any type of rash or irritation, or dizziness or nausea.

In order to know exactly how much progesterone you’re getting, you need a prescription, and you need to get it at a compounding pharmacy.  The only local one here does not accept insurance, and the cream costs $40 for two pre-filled syringes, which last me nearly three months.

However, after several months, I decided to try an over-the-counter version of progesterone cream called Emerita Pro-Gest, and it works exactly the same for me.  It’s much cheaper and I just order it from Amazon.  I use it in the same way at the same part of the cycle, but twice a day (morning and night).

However, I am probably going to go back to the prescription kind, because I want to make sure I’m getting the right dose if/when we go for another baby.
For goodness sake . . . 

Please, please, please, do not try progesterone cream without talking to a doctor first!  Strange cycles can be caused by any number of things, some of them quite serious. Progesterone cream is a hormone, and just because it’s sold OTC doesn’t mean it’s safe or appropriate for everyone!

Many people use progesterone cream to alleviate PMS symptoms. It hasn’t helped me with that at all.  However, at least my cycles are intelligible enough that we can say, “Yep, it’s PMS” and we know I’ll be back in my right mind in 48 hours.
But you may not be doomed to suffer

If your cycle looks anything like mine did, maybe you should ask your doctor about progesterone cream.  It couldn’t hoit!  It does make some people feel terrible, and it doesn’t work for some people.  Some people are allergic to it, and some people, as I said, have serious conditions that won’t be helped by progesterone, so talk to your doctor talk to your doctor talk to your doctor.  You are much more likely to be taken seriously if you talk to a doctor who understands NFP.  One More Soul has a directory of NFP-only practices.

I wish I had emphasized this more in my book:  there are lots of kinds of NFP, and there are often things you can do to make your cycles more manageable.  So don’t be a fatalist like I was! Look into your options, and make the investment of time, effort, and money to improve things, if you possibly can.  Marriages are not meant to be sexless.  NFP is hard, but sometimes it’s harder than it needs to be.

But for goodness sake, please, seriously, talk to your doctor.