Becca’s User Questionnaire

I am a Catholic woman, wife, and mama adjusting to life with our little baby girl. As a melancholic phlegmatic, INFP/INFJ, amateur faux-calligrapher who works part time at an outpatient clinic adults with neurological impairments as a speech-language pathologist, I also love learning about theology, watching my daughter learn and explore, relaxing outdoors, and supporting other women in my life as they go through similar stages of life.

I was directed to the Marquette instructor database (https://www.marquettemethod.com/instructors/), reached out to a few, and chose my instructor because she had the most personable response. Her soonest spot (virtual) was an individual training that cost $125 for the intro and a year of follow up consults. I have definitely appreciated being able to reach out to her after the intro because I am breastfeeding and return to fertility can be confusing!

I began using this method around 6 months postpartum, so about 4 months ago. I mark on a paper chart and on the monitor when my period starts, and beginning on the indicated day as ovulation approaches, I test my first morning urine by peeing in a clean medicine bottle and use the approved Clearblue monitor to read the test strips. I do this on the days indicated by the method leading up to peak ovulation and stop testing once my monitor reads "peak" as taught by my instructor to save some money instead of wasting test sticks. I used to track cervical mucous but haven't been able to since I had a bad scar from a perineal tear in labor and am breastfeeding which affects mucous. Overall, it can be annoying or challenging to collect the sample because my daughter wants to be in the bathroom with me, but since that only happens first thing in the morning and not every day, it is pretty reassuring that I don't have to pay close attention or mark information down whenever I can run to the bathroom during the day.

We choose to use a FABM for religious reasons that are founded on moral theology, and I appreciate that I am not adding any chemicals or medicine to my body or repressing my fertility by using a FABM. We chose Marquette because I was comforted by the objective nature of using the urinary hormones and a monitor, especially since I wasn't 100% confident in my mucous observations pre-pregnancy, and that lack of confidence combined with less mucous to observe and physically healing from birth meant I needed a method that wouldn't rely as much on mucous observation. Even though we were not going to be able to return to sex quickly, I wanted to be confident in knowing when my fertility was returning.

It did on the previous method we used more than with this method.

We switched to Marquette from Creighton when I was postpartum after our (first and only) daughter's birth. We had chosen Creighton while we were engaged because of the low cost, and used it for two months intending to avoid pregnancy before our daughter announced her presence unexpectedly. I'm still not sure whether I made incorrect observations and that's what led to pregnancy, but regardless, I was no longer 100% confident in my mucous observations postpartum. That lack of confidence combined with less mucous to observe and physically healing from birth meant I needed a method that wouldn't rely as much on mucous observation. Even though we were not going to be able to return to sex quickly, I wanted to be confident in knowing when my fertility was returning. I was comforted by the objective nature of using the urinary hormones and a monitor, in spite of the additional cost required to use the method. The transition was fairly easy since I had only used Creighton for a few months and then stopped for about a year during pregnancy and immediately postpartum.

I located an instructor through our Archdiocese website of local instructors for different FABMs. She charged $453.20 for the intro ($35), materials ($65), year of 8 follow ups ($330), credit fee ($13), and shipping ($10). We had four follow up sessions before pregnancy, and attended a pregnancy evaluation and one postpartum follow up.

N/a, no longer use this method

We chose Creighton initially because of the lack of continual costs once you are confident in the method, and for the information it reveals about your overall health. I disliked having to pay close attention and mark observations down every single time I used the restroom.

Yes, it helped to identify multiple indications of low progesterone, which led my instructor to refer me to a NaPro physician and be able to start receiving bio identical progesterone three days after a positive pregnancy test, which I continued taking throughout pregnancy and now again postpartum after my fertility returned.