Current Method: Creighton Model
Previous Method: Couple to Couple League
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- Tell us a little about yourself.Married to my high school sweetheart for 6 years, living in Central California. I am a high school English teacher and also teach college classes on the side in the psychology and education departments at a local university. I mostly enjoy playing with my dogs, reading books, and traveling.
- What effects has fertility awareness had on your relationship?I was on hormonal birth control for the first 3 years of marriage and went off of it because of my feeling that it was a sin and also because it caused health issues for me. At first it really tested out relationship and I think itβs because I didnβt fully trust that my husband loved me enough to abstain for days sometimes weeks. I realized now that I had this perception that sex was some kind of duty I had as a wife to my husband. Over time, my husband showed me through charting that wasnβt the case and it was really healing. When we started trying to conceive and couldnβt we felt much more on the same page because we had the chart and he could see the physical changes treatment was having on my body and the frustrations when nothing was helping. Overall, FAM was way less easy than the classes made it out to be but with time and both of us being committed Iβm glad we did it.
- First Method: Couple to Couple League - How did you find your instructor?I googled it and we took the online self-paced class. They charged around $200β for the class and supplies. It was an extra $50/year for the Cycle Pro Go app
- Describe your daily charting routine.I used CCL for less than 2 years. I would wake up and take my temp while I was still in bed. That night I would record mucus. I always felt confident in my tracking but struggled with interpreting the temperature because so much made it vary (drinking alcohol, being sick, having the fan on at night). As someone who is really type A and thinking I might have infertility issues, I would obsess over every temperature.
- What made you choose this method?It was one of the cheapest and also the class was self-paced. My husband and I had gone to a Billings class for marriage prep and we felt really embarrassed at the time talking to other people about this stuff.
- Has charting helped you to understand your overall health?I definitely identified abnormalities right away and even printed out my charts and brought them to my Ob/Gyn. My temperatures were really low and slow to rise and I had lots of bleeding at the end of my cycles. She blew me off and that contributed to my decision to switch to Creighton and pursue NaPro.
- Did you stop using this method? If so, why?We switched to Creighton because we started seeing a NaPro doctor who required Creighton. CCL did help me identify the need for one though.
- Second Method: Creighton Model - How did you find your instructor?A friend gave me her number after I had made an appointment with a NaPro doctor and was told I needed to switch. She charged $60 per session and we had to meet around 8 times within the first 6 months. Now we meet once every 6 months.
- Describe your daily charting routine.I track mucus, bleeding, and pelvic pain. I also write treatments for each cycle on the side of my chart so I remember what I was on. My husband asks me for my βsignβ every night and he writes it down. I like charting on a physical chart way better and him being involved makes me feel like he is being a part of our fertility journey. We have now been using Creighton for almost 2 years and have been experiencing infertility the entire time.
- What made you choose this method?We made an appointment with a NaPro doctor and it was required. I like that there is no temperature because I donβt have to freak out about what might cause an abnormal temp all the time. I like that we have an instructor who I know cares about us and prays for us. What I like least is that I constantly am ordering stickers.
- Has charting helped you to understand your overall health?Yes. Charting helped my NaPro doctor suspect endometriosis. She did surgery to confirm and remove. Later, mybleeding increased to 12 days a cycle and that tipped my doctor off to do an ultrasound which led to surgery and removal of uterine polyps.
- Did you switch to this method from another one? If so, why?I switched to see. NaPro doctor. The transition was easy because I already had background from CCL.
