Current Method: Creighton Model
Previous Method: Couple to Couple League
👩🏾🤝👨🏽⛪🚸🌡👌🏻🥼
- Tell us a little about yourself.Scientific and logical, former engineer who now teaches high school science, loves the knowledge that NFP provides through good observations (I'm a sucker for scientific observations).
- What effects has fertility awareness had on your relationship?My spouse usually charts for me. It forces us to talk every day about what our desire and calling for our family is with what our life currently looks like. We both are happy using NFP, despite its challenges.
- First Method: Couple to Couple League - How did you find your instructor?I found my instructor online through marriage prep from diocese, ~$200 for the whole course & pursued some follow-up after initial instruction.
- Describe your daily charting routine.N/A don't use sympto-thermal anymore
- What made you choose this method?It was inexpensive to start and easy if your cycle is very textbook and you have steady sleep to track temps, but very confusing if your cycle is irregular and your temperatures aren't typical.
- Did you stop using this method? If so, why?My temperatures were all over the place, which made it very challenging to identify ovulation. Without a dedicated instructor to turn to, I was not confident at all in this method and wanted a method that gave me more support. I switched methods shortly before my wedding after using sympto-thermal for 6 months.
- Second Method: Creighton Model - How did you find your instructor?Family friend, $240 for initial instruction with 8 followup sessions, $40 per appointment after that, cost of materials - either stickers and paper chart or online chart ~$10 a month
- Describe your daily charting routine.I chart at the end of the day, every day, using the online chart that I subscribe to through Creighton, mucus only tracking, and charting for 5 years, with time off during pregnancy. This method makes me feel much more confident than sympto-thermal did. Once the routine of observations sets in, this method is very easy for me. My husband is confident in my observations, so we plan abstinence accordingly.
- What made you choose this method?I love the individual support - it's critical to have an instructor you trust. I have friends who don't have a good relationship with their instructor and don't like Creighton method very much as a result. I feel that I get 1:1 support with interpreting my charts, which has made me much more confident and helped me through continuous mucus, low progesterone and post-partum. Sometimes it's too conservative, which can be challenging to abstain out of extreme caution if TTA, but I appreciate that I get continuous support to be sure my interpretation is correct. My instructor is very experienced (20+ years), which is really helpful because she has seen so many patients and cycles.
- Has charting helped you to understand your overall health?My chart led me to see a doctor for treatment of continuous mucus, which was partially effective pre-pregnancy. My continuous mucus has returned post-partum and my instructor recommended against further treatment since we would like more children. It also helped identify a minor progesterone deficiency, which was managed by supplementation and turned out to not be needed during pregnancy. I'm grateful I could identify this before TTC to ensure that I didn't miscarry as a result.
- Did you switch to this method from another one? If so, why?I switched from sympto-thermal before getting married. The transition was easy because I already knew about hormones/how charting would work, but just found a method that was easier for me and more consistent, as well as a method that was more supported.
- Did you stop using this method? If so, why?I stopped during pregnancy only and picked up ~1 month post-partum.
