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In our five year struggle with infertility, the first suggestion from friends and coworkers was always, “why don’t you try IVF?”. These were well-meaning people, who understood the natural yearning for a child that a happy couple has. As a nurse working in the ER, my coworkers were especially perplexed as to why I hadn’t yet tried this medically advanced “solution”. In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) seems, on the surface, to be the logical solution for this heart wrenching problem of infertility. But while this procedure might result in a healthy pregnancy, it isn’t, in fact, solving any fertility problems. Moreover, in the process of trying to become a mother or father via IVF, couples become participants in an act horrifying to the very nature of a parent.   In the heart of most happy, God-loving couples, is a deep desire to multiply this love with children. When pregnancy doesn’t occur...

Practicing NFP as an unmarried, 24-year-old woman has been one of the greatest blessings of my early twenties. I wouldn’t describe myself as a very tenacious person. I am not motivated to complete tasks simply from the satisfaction of checking them off my list. My motivation comes from being able to see (or at least visualize) the fruits of my labor. As you can imagine, what would usually seem like a daunting task—charting my cycle every single night—shouldn’t have come easy to me. But it did. What motivated me? My motivation came from a deep desire and responsibility to share what I had learned with all the women I had the privilege of being friends with. As well as all the people I knew God was going to put in my life in the future. Through my involvement in youth ministry and college ministry over the past ten years I...

Our journey with Natural Family Planning (NFP) was far from easy. Carlos, a committed Protestant, and I, raised in a Catholic family, faced a significant hurdle as our wedding drew near. Carlos came to realize that I intended to use NFP, a method he disagreed with due to its abstinence periods. This conflict even led us to contemplate the possibility of canceling the wedding. We were both heartbroken. After a week of turmoil, Carlos, aware of the side effects of contraceptives, agreed to adopt NFP, hoping I might eventually change my mind. We married in 2009, and over time, Carlos and I became firm believers in the method’s effectiveness for spacing our children. Moreover, we discovered additional benefits that contributed to our happiness. NFP strengthened our bond as we openly discussed my fertility. Abstinence periods created a honeymoon-like phase, anticipating intimate moments. Additionally, Carlos gained better self-control of his sexuality,...

When my husband and I first got married we had no idea of the richness of grace our marriage would provide for us as a couple. Being Catholics we had an understanding that contraception wasn’t the way to go in terms of planning our family and that a moral alternative was NFP. Since my husband is a chemical engineer who makes pharmaceuticals, he had a keen respect for chemicals and naturally thought using chemicals to alter our fertility was not a good use of them. As a scientist, he appreciated the science behind NFP. This was something we were going to try. We thought it might “work” but weren’t very confident in it “working” for us. After a year of using NFP to avoid a pregnancy and not becoming pregnant, instead of believing it was “working,” we thought we might be infertile! The next cycle we decided to test out...

When my husband Zach and I married, like every one of my girlfriends, I began taking the birth control pill without hesitation. It was just something every young married woman did, like any other “to do” on the wedding planning checklist: book florist, select responsorial psalm, pick up birth control prescription… check, check, check! I had no idea what I was putting into my body, how it would affect my health, or why my Church was against it. It wasn’t until two years later when my partner at work began talking with me about NFP, that I decided to look further into the pill. It was the pill’s abortifacient nature that caused me to sign up for a Creighton information session, but the information my husband and I learned in that session changed our entire outlook on our bodies, our marriage, and our life. I stopped taking the pill the...

As I reflect on my married life and think about all the extreme viewpoints I’ve had in regards to NFP, I can’t help but laugh at myself a bit. If I was truly honest, I’d admit I’ve been all over the place on this topic and have made it much harder than it needed to be. Early on in my marriage I knew very little about natural family planning. I remember hearing a little about it at our Engaged Encounter weekend, but I got the impression it was out dated and not something anyone really practiced anymore. As I learned more about the teachings of our faith I saw the importance of NFP, but never knew how to make it work for me or even where to go for help. I scoured the internet looking for explanations and apps, subscribed to blogs and podcasts, used ovulation test strips and even...

“The life of man upon earth is warfare.’ So said Job many centuries ago. There are still some easygoing individuals unaware of this fact” St. Josemaria Escriva I read a fascinating article a while ago about happiness. It seems the least happy times for most people are in their 40’s—with all the financial pressures of taking care of kids, sometimes parents, and work, work, work. The article says it gets better with time and I hope this is the case, as I am 47 and right in the thick of things. Life is a struggle. For me the hardest part has not been figuring out the truth, but submitting my will to it. Fortunately our Lord has given us a road map—for most of us it involves marriage. God has given the majority of us a helpmate to be with us on our journey. NFP is one of the main...

“You know this is just a movie, right?” replied my husband Mark, as he graciously changed the channel. The movie had gotten too scary and depicted a scene that I know would give me nightmares. The only way I could control the movie was to not watch it. Sound familiar? We humans love control in aspects of our lives, and modern conveniences like smart phones, drive-thru windows, and remote controls make us feel that way. Even in the aspect of our fertility, secular society offers the ultimate control: a surgery, a pill, or IVF to make a pregnancy happen or prevent it. Whether it’s having kids at the perfect time, avoiding at the perfect time, the illusion of contraception makes it look easy. But were we meant to exhibit that much control in the first place? Natural Family Planning (NFP) would say, nope. And while we’re on the subject of...

My wife Cassandra and I were married May, 1, 1993. From the beginning of our marriage we wanted to understand and practice natural family planning as the means by which we could live out our vows to each other as well as the Catholic Church’s teachings on the beauty and power of human sexuality. This led us to take classes in NFP in Sacramento at Mercy General hospital. There we were taught the biological observations that we needed to make and track regarding Cassandra’s cycles. More importantly, though, we learned a more holistic approach to human sexual relations in marriage. For the initiated, you know what I’m talking about: SPICE – the Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Communicative, and Emotional dimensions of our relationships as husbands and wives that need to be balanced to have a healthy, strong marriage. As everyone trying to live out NFP soon finds out, however, there are...

I never thought I’d have a big family. I certainly wasn’t opposed to it. It just wasn’t in my imagination. There were three of us in our family growing up and my mother, who very much wanted a big family, sadly, was deprived of it for health reasons that resulted in a hysterectomy that grieves her to this day. But I didn’t need any imagination to guide me in what to do. I was thankful for my faith and realized that the size of our family was in God’s domain, not mine. And I need to be quick in talking about domains to say “ours,” not “mine,” as my dear wife, Cari, was every bit as committed to a faithful life as I could ever hope to be. Obviously, having that joint commitment is something I take for granted and that others may not happily enjoy. But that was one...

Sometimes when I look at the beautiful chaos of my life I am completely amazed by the work that God has done in me. After almost ten years of marriage and four children, I am transformed by His love. Although I am a cradle Catholic, and attended fourteen years of Catholic schooling, I never received any instruction about the Church’s teaching on natural family planning. I first learned of NFP during our marriage preparation course, and I was anxious about its efficacy. Nevertheless, encouraged by my husband and desiring to be faithful, we began our marriage with a complete openness to life. The irony of my anxieties became very clear when after more than a year of marriage, we had not yet conceived. It was then that we sought out the help of Dr. Mary Davenport. Through her, we discovered the Creighton Method and subsequently conceived our first child when...

To me, being a Professional Member of CANFP means belonging to an elite group of people in California who are doing God’s work. I am a Creighton Model FertilityCare Practitioner (FCP). Before becoming an FCP, I had a nearly 16year career in agricultural finance. I loved my career and serving my customers. I used to joke with my NaProTechnology doctors about becoming a teacher of the Creighton Model, but it always seemed like a pipe dream. It seemed impossible as I had a nice cushy career which I didn’t really want to leave. Little did we know that God had other plans! I now realize He was working towards this end for many years. He was molding and preparing me (and my husband) to answer a calling He had for me. My husband and I suffered through six years of infertility before we were blessed with our own NaPro miracle:...