Thursday, September 26, 2013

My Journey through NFP

Jeff and I took our first class learning the Creighton model, which focuses on mucus observations, during our marriage prep. I observed and charted using this method during our engagement and I was a text book candidate. My cycle was easy to decipher and very predictable.

Once we were married, I threw my charting out the window since Jeff and I wanted to conceive asap. And we did. I found out we conceived our first child about 5 weeks after our wedding. Unfortunately, about a week later, I miscarried our little Raphael. Realizing how it might not be as easy as we had thought to maintain a pregnancy, we wanted to conceive again and soon. I remember noticing peak type mucus two weeks after my miscarriage and I excitedly texted Jeff, "Peak type mucus!" (A little fyi, peak type mucus is what appears when you are fertile.) We conceived again, and this time I was able to carry the baby up until 10 weeks. I miscarried our second child, Therese. It took 6 weeks to conceive after this loss, but we did and God blessed us with the birth of our third child, Zelie, 9 months later.

After Zelie was born, my cycle went hay-wire and we had a difficult time figuring out what was going on. Jeff and I were open to more children right away, so we weren't concerned with charting and didn't worry too much about my cycle being hard to decipher. We conceived 9 months after Zelie, and our little Rocky joined our growing family.

After Rocky, my cycle was still being difficult and we still weren't charting. Quite honestly, I was not wanting to make the commitment of observing my mucus, and ccl classes were rarely available in our area (ccl uses the Sympto-thermal method, which uses mucus and temperature signs to chart compared to Creighton that focuses only on mucus). Not to mention, we didn't really want to spend money on taking a class (excuses, excuses!). So, since we decided to do nothing, we conceived Max, 7 months after Rocky. And Max was such a God send...I'm so glad God intervened on that one!

I had some issues with post-partum blues after Max was born and it was a very difficult 2-3 months. We knew that we needed to take a little break from having children, and so, we signed up for a ccl class and quickly learned the answers to our questions about my crazy post-partum cycle. We have been so impressed with NFP, especially through using the Sympto-thermal method, that we decided that we needed to become a teaching couple and share our experiences with others.

And so, that is the reason for this blog.

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