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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:...

Wow, CANFP has been around as long as I have been an NFP teacher and that means I have been a member of CANFP for 27 years now! And what a joy it has been to be affiliated with CANFP for all these years. My husband and I first learned and used the Billings Ovulation Method of NFP when we got married back in 1978. We were so amazed at the beauty of using NFP that after our four planned pregnancies, with the children all in school, I decided to go to school myself and became a Billings teacher, completing my course work and be certified in February of 1993. And it was just a month later, March 1993, that I attended the first ever CANFP conference held in Santa Clara. It was so exciting to be with so many other NFP teachers and supporters! As a new Billings teacher,...

Do you remember when you wanted a question answered and you only had a few sources to find the information? Maybe, you asked your parents, a good friend, your doctor or a priest. In this age of technology, the approach to finding answers is much different. My children say, “Just google it, Mom!” But, where can your Natural Family Planning (NFP) questions be answered with expert knowledge and truth? The internet provides the opportunity for couples to seek information beyond their small circle of contacts. As a Couple to Couple League NFP teacher, my contact information is on websites like CANFP which have allowed conversations about NFP to become a reality, when in years past they would not have. For many years, I have answered general and specific questions regarding NFP. The conversations have never been dull, and some of them were very memorable. What follows are two unforgettable conversations....

On March 8, 2017 I went to work like I always had. It was a very typical day until I was nearing the end of my workday. I was setting up for the last patient of the day, when suddenly I realized something was terribly wrong. Confused, and having no pain or symptoms, I rushed to the bathroom and confirmed that I was losing massive amounts of blood—fast. I calmed myself, clocked out, and drove to the hospital. The staff at the hospital saw how much blood I was losing and admitted me right away. One of the first forms I remember signing was consent for a blood transfusion. I explained to the doctor that although I was losing large amounts of blood, I felt completely normal. No pain, light headedness, etc. The doctor took some blood samples and left the room. I called my husband and calmly explained where...

“Does that look like a line”? “Yep, that’s a line.” So began our joys that would turn into sorrows. My wife and I had been married for four years, and while we had been seeking children, we’d been unable to conceive. In the grand scheme of things four years isn’t that long, but it’s certainly long enough to start asking if we’d ever conceive. We’d already gone through many moments of struggle, riding the rollercoaster of hope and dejection with each pregnancy test, wondering if this was going to be the month only to find that wonder replaced with the feeling that maybe there’d never be a month. And so, my wife asked with a sense of trepidatious disbelief, “Does that look like a line”? The joy and anticipation grew with every week, and each step along the way. But it was not to be. In maybe the strangest of...

When I was 16, my mom “suggested” I attend a retreat organized by our local diocese. I began the retreat filled with resentment towards her for forcing me to go. But as soon as the weekend started, the scales started to fall from my eyes. Here was a group of excited and joyful catholic youth! They loved me and accepted me for who I am, and yet challenged me to grow in my faith. This retreat, open to any confirmed Catholic, was a great experience for me as an individual. Instead of learning from priests and nuns, I was gaining knowledge in my faith from youth my own age, from our perspective. I was hearing experiences of conversion and love. Everyone who ministered that weekend was younger than 21, and beaming with joy. They would love you and pray for you. But if you wanted to continue and become a...