Discover a natural way to postpone or achieve a pregnancy…the Art of Natural Family Planning® is based on an awareness of a woman’s fertility. It’s medically safe, 99% effective in postponing pregnancy, very low cost, often has a positive effect on the couple’s marriage, and is morally acceptable to all major religions.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Our Story about NFP


We have been married for 8 years and have 4 beautiful children. We hope that by sharing our story about how natural family planning has touched our marriage, hearts will be opened to the many blessings that natural family planning can bring into a marriage. As we look back on our 8 years of marriage, we can see the great good that natural family planning has brought into our lives.

Eight years ago when we started discussing marriage, we discussed family planning, in which Sarah brought up natural family planning. Bill had been raised Lutheran and had never heard of natural family planning before. However, after discussing it, we made the decision to use natural family planning after we were married.

So, why did Sarah feel it was important to use natural family planning? Well, when she was young her mother used to talk to her about Catholic moral teaching, abortion, and contraception. Sarah soon developed a strong passion for natural family planning, even though some family and friends, even many Catholics, told her that natural family planning does not work, or that natural family planning is impractical and too hard to practice, or that there is simply no reason not to use contraception. However, Sarah believed otherwise. When we met, Sarah was so thankful to God for leading her to Bill, but he was Lutheran, and Sarah was a little scared to mention natural family planning!

Initially, Bill was uncertain about the effectiveness of natural family planning and about the periods of abstinence if we were postponing a pregnancy. During our engagement, Sarah ordered the Couple to Couple League’s home study course and Bill had a chance to read about natural family planning methods and scientific studies supporting the use of natural family planning. He really found the concrete data about the effectiveness of natural family planning to be reassuring and it satisfied the scientist in him. Bill also found their suggestions for periods of abstinence to be encouraging.

Being newlyweds, the abstinence was difficult at times, but we believe it really strengthened our marriage during a time in which we were still getting to know each other. It gave us time to sit back and learn about each other, to talk to each other, and to ‘date’ each other, as we had before we were married. This allowed our marriage to grow and our love and respect for each other to deepen. It also gave us a reason to learn about our fertility. Bill would help Sarah chart by reminding her to take her temperature each morning by handing her the thermometer and recording the temperature on the chart. Later, we would discuss how to interpret the chart to determine whether she was fertile or infertile. There were a few months that we had questions about our charts, but we were able to call the Couple to Couple League central office or a teaching couple to help us with chart interpretations. They were instrumental in helping us to learn and become confident in using natural family planning early in our marriage.

Having Bill help with charting and interpretation meant a lot to Sarah. It was one way for him to demonstrate his love, respect, and dedication towards her and our marriage. It also made us a closer couple. It also started many conversations about children (the number and the spacing), sexuality, theology and church teachings, and perhaps most importantly about God’s plan for our lives. After we were married we moved to Missouri for graduate school, Sarah was working on a 2 year masters degree and Bill was working on a PhD. After prayer and a lot of discussion, we decided we should postpone children at least until Sarah was through with her schooling. Natural family planning allowed us to postpone having our first child until 2 years into our marriage. After Sarah graduated, we used natural family planning to help us conceive on the very first cycle that we tried! After William was born, and again after Andrew was born; we used natural family planning to postpone pregnancy for 2 years. Each time we were able to conceive easily using natural family planning. Rebekah, our youngest, was born 18 months after Elizabeth. We chose to space our last two children closer because after much prayer and discussion, we decided that we had no reason to postpone pregnancy and in fact, would more than welcome another one of God’s gifts to our family.

We are so thrilled that God has blessed us so abundantly. One of the greatest things about natural family planning is its affect on our marriage and our way of thinking about children. Before our wedding and for several years after, Bill had the traditional American mindset of having only two kids. Natural family planning allows for a lot of communication monthly or even daily about the possibility of children. We also talked a lot about the value of life and being open to what God had planned for us rather than our own selfish plans. We have found that each child is unique and blesses our family in a wonderful way. We do not know how many children God is going to call us to have, but we have learned to trust God’s wisdom for our family.

Together with natural family planning, prayer, the Couple to Couple League's support, and other resources, we have learned so much about God’s wonderful and grand plan for human sexuality and our personal lives. That is why we became a Couple to Couple League teaching couple, because we wanted to share this wonderful knowledge about fertility that has helped our marriage so much.

We invite you to spend time prayerfully considering Natural Family Planning. We hope our story has shown some of the blessing that Natural Family Planning can bring into a marriage.

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