I have a confession to make.
I wasn’t always so confident in tracking my fertility signs as I am now.

Ahaba Marriage Meter app

Not the sort of saucy and sordid confession you were hoping for? Sorry. But that’s my confession. Anyone who has used Natural Family Planning for some time knows that it takes experience to gain confidence. I think back to my early NFP days and the questions and uncertainties I had and I think, “Why didn’t I call my instructor?!?”
I learned NFP when I was postpartum and breastfeeding. Charting while breastfeeding is known to be of particular difficulty. I think it’s optimum if someone can learn to chart and gain confidence prior to becoming sexually active. Then later on when they get married or have kids, or experience any health concerns, they can just add to their level of knowledge and expertise. But we can’t all begin under such ideal circumstances and some of us just have to be thrown into charting under very difficult situations and though it might take more time to gain confidence, it’s important to know that it will come and all will be okay.
In my particular experience, I learned the rules of charting with a typical cycle: that is days of menstruation, followed by early dry days, followed by days of fertility, followed by late dry days. I learned the rules for avoiding under such circumstances. During my actual NFP classes and my meetings with my instructor, however, I had lactational amennorrhea, or no periods due to breastfeeding. Later on, when my periods and my fertility returned, I could have used some expert advise, and I don’t exactly know why I didn’t call my instructor and have her look over my charts again. My instructor had used NFP successfully for many years and had lots of experience. I could have just given her a phone call and arranged a quick meeting. In my mind, though, I had taken the classes and so now I knew NFP and all there was to know about it. (It is rather silly to me now).
The rules for avoiding pregnancy is that the couple can have intercourse in the evening on every other dry day during the early days. The couple practices abstinence during the days of mucus, then the fourth day after peak, marital relations can resume anytime after that until the start of the next menses. Simple enough. I, however, like many breastfeeding women, never had dry days. In my whole 7 years of charting, I have had only a handful of truly dry days. But rather than pick up the phone to talk with my instructor, my husband and I mistakenly thought that we had to abstain the whole first part of my cycle until after I confidently identified my peak day. This misunderstanding, coupled with the fact that I had long cycles and often didn’t ovulate until day 21 or 23 of my cycle, meant for me a lot of frustration and a lot of unnecessary abstinence.
If this was my experience, I can’t help but think that there are a fair amount of other people who struggle with NFP alone instead of just getting some help.
What I didn’t know was that there are different rules that govern different circumstances. I think it’s important to learn the basic method, however, if you find yourself with anything other than a textbook cycle, make sure to keep lots of contact with your instructor until you know your body like the back of your hand. For women with continuous discharge, it is not necessary to abstain until after three days post-peak. Such women can learn what fluid they can ignore, and how it changes when it is truly the start of their fertile time.
So this is my friendly post to say that

  • if you are breastfeeding,
  • if you have continuous discharge,
  • if you are coming off of artificial methods,
  • if you just have a wonky cycle and aren’t sure which way is up,
  • or if you have any sort of difficulty,

don’t give up and don’t assume that you know all there is to know about “the rules” of NFP. At some point in my practice of NFP, I realized that NFP wasn’t about learning the rules written to accommodate a wide range of women, and then blindly applying them to the way my body worked. NFP is about observing and getting to know the signs of fertility that MY BODY gives me, and then prudently applying the rules accordingly. But it takes practice and experience to get there, so I wouldn’t advise anyone to willy-nilly disregard any rules before then. Until you have a great deal of confidence in understanding the signs of your body, BE SURE TO ASK FOR HELP FROM YOUR INSTRUCTOR!


This post has been reprinted with permission. The original post can be found here.