Seeking Advice About Natural Family Planning

We did NPF, my cycle was so messed up I never knew when I was ovulating. I did end up with 2 pregnacies without trying.
If you are on a good cycle I think it can work. :)

Many, many, many catholic churches have classes on nfp. Some for free some for pay, some with religious overtones, some with no overtones. They are alway very open to teaching this as they are anti contraceptives.

Read "Taking Charge of Your Fertility." It will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about NFP.

It is a daily commitment to knowing your cycle and being aware of your body, but I say it is well worth it. I used the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility, by Toni Weschler. For me it was, and is, an excellent resource for Natural Family Planning and taught me a lot about my body as well. I have recommended it to many friends and family.

I have heard it can work really well!! I am on my third pregnancy in three years so there you go! I have never liked the whole hormone thing and I hate IUDs and condoms stink, so it has been a bit of a wild ride over here!! We are like super duper fertile so that factors in as well. There are three aspects of it as I am aware, charting your cycle, taking your temp daily and charting and finally watching your cervical mucus. I did the cycle charting and the cervical mucus and it worked well for like 5 months, then I got preggers even though I thought it was a 'safe' day!! But hey, we wanted three kids and now we have them :D Just a tiny bit sooner than planned. So my suggestion is really read up, take a class and do every aspect of NFP if you want it to really work bc probably had I been charting my temp, I would have still seen a slight elevation on the day we go prego even though it was 5 days post ovulation. Good luck, if you both commit to it, I think it can be wonderful. For the short time we did do it I liked it bc sex was more spontaneous, if it was a safe day, it was going down!! Didn't matter if was Tuesday or Sunday bc the days to abstain were never far behind. I think we actually had sex more ;) Of course we are now pregnant..... ;) Good luck!

My husband and I have been using NFP our entire relationship--never used condoms or anything else. All 3 of our children have been planned.

I don't even use the full-on method (it is more like the rhythm method and cervical checking. I pretty much just keep track of my calendar and cervical position and mucus to know my fertile times. There is a great free App I have on my iPad called My Fertility Friend (they also have a website.)

The best resource is the John Paul II Institute out of Omaha, NE. You can also look for a doctor in your area who does NFP-only, by checking out www.OneMoreSoul.com

My cycle ranges from 28-30 days

ETA: Also check out the Couple to Couple League, which is a group of NFP couple teachers who use it in their marriages and have been trained to teach others. It can get pretty technical, so you definitely want to learn all you can and have someone help you interpret your charts if you are definitely hoping to avoid conception.

Taking Charge of your Fertility. Awesome book, I also bought the software, it comes with a demo CD-ROM. It explained so much about everything having to do with my cycle and made it so easy to follow. There is an online community too that is great for any other questions. I highly recommend it.

There are lots of apps and websites to help you track your cycle. I love my iPhone app called FMC menstrual calendar (or something like that). There are also lots of signs to look for, cramping, discharge (which is how I always know when I'm ovulating), basal body temperature, strong libido. Paying attention to your body and these little signs are a great way to know if you are ovulating. I never noticed any of it until I started really listening to what my body was telling me. Now I have no problem knowing when I'm ovulating. We plan on using this method forever so avoid unnecessary hormones and pharmaceutical drugs (: Good luck!

We haved NFP for 8 years now and are very happy with it. We started off using Sympto-Thermal method as taught by the Couple to Couple League but now I am also taking a class in the Creighton Method which seems to be more medically oriented and more geared towards monitoring my health as well as avoiding/achieving pregnancy.

The biggest "down side" to NFP is the diligence in charting that it requires and the self control required during the times of abstinence. As my husband and I have gained in maturity and gotten better about talking about our feelings it has gotten easier though. I love that there are no side effects, and REALLY love the communication and intimacy it has brought to our relationship.

NFP has been very effective for us as long as we used the method properly, which I suppose is the case with any form of birth control. responsibility with US and we're not relying on a pill for it. In our group of friends there are many couples who use NFP and it has been very effective for them as well. It really just depends on (a) learning the method properly and then (b) being motivated enough to avoid pregnancy that you follow the rules.

If you have any other questions I'd be happy to talk with you via email, jojosmom06 at gmail. :)

It depends on what you consider troublesome. You and your partner will nerd to work together and communicate. You will have to choose to abstain for periods of time. You have to stick with it everyday. BUT - I love knowing what is going on with my body. I love communicating with my husband and finding other ways to connect when we are abstaining. And inknow this doesn't happen for everyone, but when we decided to start trying, it was easy to know when it would work!

I've used the book from couple to couple league. Taking Charge of Your Fertility is good also, but I preferred Couple to Couple League (it is a Catholic group so it includes some of the theology behind NFP, but the method is good).

It's taken some time for me to get regular-enough for NFP. Honestly, I wasn't all for checking myself "down there" daily. And now, I don't even take my temperature every morning. I guess I just need to buy a new thermometer. My son is 3.5 yrs old now and we've been just watching my cycle making sure not to have unprotected sex on my 'peak' days of possible ovulation. For me and my 28-32 day cycle, I am OVER-protective and say that days 9-24 we gotta use condoms. But days 25+ or days 1-8, we can do whatever we want. I also got the book "Taking Care of your Fertility" and if I had a phone with apps on it, that fertility app sounds very cool.

The thing about this method is you HAVE to stick with it. No getting drunk and forgetting, your husband has to be on board to wear condoms or abstain for certain days.

Good luck to ya.

My husband and I do NFP and follow the rhythum (sp) method. I am 27/28 days so, I usually ovulate about day 12-14. We just use condoms or pull out if we have sex btwn days 11-15. We have used it for a 3 of our children.
Hope this helps~

I have four Natural Family Planned (unplanned) children...and I adore each and every one of them! I think it actually works...but there are times when you simply WANT to have fun...and there you go, four kids later!

While NFP works, you must obstain during the time of the month when a woman most enjoys/wants sex. When her hormones are ripe for pregnancy, her natural desire is heightened. So, in order for this to work, you can only engage in sexual relations when your libido is at its lowest. Um. No thanks. I will say that if I *had* to use birth control of some sort, I would chose this kind, but we prefer to not put that type of barrier between us. Best decision ever. It's hard to explain the effect of letting that go has on a relationship. It's awesome.