In Gratitude for our NFP Instructor, Nancy

My husband and I married in our mid-thirties and were ready to start our family right away. We were excited to learn about Natural Family Planning during the Diocese’s Marriage Preparation program. Our first thoughts were “how come we haven’t heard about this before?” and “what a gift our body is”. So, we began the NFP journey. The NFP Instructor who conducted the introductory class happened to be located close to us, so we gladly began working with her. What a blessing to learn about NFP, a natural and effective method to achieving or postponing a pregnancy from our dedicated instructor.

Our second blessing came when we were able to achieve pregnancy the second month of our marriage. The expertise we had been given with our charting helped us to achieve pregnancy and we were thrilled. After the birth of our son, again with the guidance and support from our instructor we transitioned into charting while breastfeeding and then back to trying to conceive again. However, our plans are not always meant to be and instead of regular cycles and ovulation we encountered secondary infertility. Nancy helped us learn how to chart with additional details that would help us understand my body and hopefully conceive again.

During the next three years our instructor worked with us as we continued to chart, analyze and plan for achieving another pregnancy. Our charts gave us the knowledge that infertility was real, but I was still occasionally ovulating. We achieved another pregnancy but miscarried our child just six weeks later. My gynecologist did not “accept” what our NFP charts said and basically told us it was not possible that I could have conceived. This is when I finally knew I needed to move to a medical doctor who acknowledged and supported NFP and the knowledge we had gained while using it. Our instructor was our champion and gave us the confidence to have faith in ourselves and what we knew to be true and seek out a NaProTechnology doctor who would support us during this new phase of our journey.

Given all that we have been through during this past year and the overwhelming guidance to listen to “the science”, we believe our NFP instructor gave us the confidence to know “the science” behind my cycles and be strong enough to advocate for myself while seeking a medical professional who would walk with us on our life-affirming journey. To say we are grateful for our NFP Professional doesn’t really capture the gratitude we have for her and her commitment to us through our journey. Thank you, Nancy!