Long answer-but feels like a piece of my story. I grew up in a catholic home, but in the sense of being very active in the parish and school but no strong prayer or catechesis at home. My mom was clear with me that my parents used a wide variety of contraception over their lives, they strongly encouraged waiting until marriage or "until you're an adult" but that you have to BE CAREFUL women can get pregnant anytime. As I entered adulthood, I was exposed to the medical field that also placed no stock or emphasis on FAMs. My experience with FAM was speeches of NFP from people who touted how close they and their spouse were, how fertility is a beautiful miracle, and they often had 5+ kids. While this is beautiful and wonderful, it felt idyllic to me and I approached NFP with a lot of fear and reservation. I felt that NFP really just meant "have a huge catholic family"--not wrong, but (I thought) without flexibility or nuance that I desired. When I met my husband, I found out he was from one of those beautiful big catholic families with 5 siblings, and parents who taught Couple to Couple League STM. The first time I met his mother, she talked to me about the couples she was mentoring in NFP, how passionate she was, and how so few catholics are "open to life" (in her words, 3+ kids). I respect her passion, but as someone already teetering on the edge of understanding this teaching, I was overwhelmed and she fit every fear I had of an NFP instructor--that I would be taught a method to encourage constant pregnancy and judged for choosing to delay. [Please note, I have no disdain or anything bad to say about CCL, large families, and the huge faith in God my in-laws and many others have; from my background without the strong support and faith this all felt like a huge ask. I knew that if I conceived on our honeymoon, my family would place a lot of judgement on that as well--NOT our reason for delaying pregnancy, but a piece of my experience and hopefully to explain what I meat about fear and reservations]. As my now-husband and I began dating more seriously and considering marriage, I began digging into the Church teachings on marriage and family as well as the science of FAM. I utilized Reddit, facebook groups, blogs, to understand the application and reality. I grew in faith and understanding of the teaching and as we entered engagement I knew my husband and I would not use contraception (which was big for me). I was much less fearful of pregnancy and I knew it was something we desired mutually and felt called to as a couple. However, through prayer and discussion we knew this was the right time for our marriage, but that for a host of reasons, delaying pregnancy was our goal initially. I was very drawn to the science and medicine behind CrMS. It was also the method least based on an algorithm and your past cycles, which felt the most reliable in my mind. We signed up for a free intro course, which took place via Zoom (yay COVID). Our instructor was very enthusistic, knowledgeable, and professional. While faith was acknowledged, the method instructions explained the science which appealed to my nursing background. Immediately it was a good fit. We continued with follow-ups and learning the system. I was most grateful with the questions we were asked about our intention in using the system, our receptiveness to unplanned pregnancy, our satisfaction, and our confidence with the system at every followup. We were never asked why we were choosing to avoid pregnancy, although we have noted our receptiveness to unplanned pregnancy has greatly improved;) Our instructor never offered her experiences as a lesson or guide, rather teaching the use of the system and further resources as needed. My husband and I joked that we didn't even know if she was married, much less had kids, for almost a year--for me, this fit wonderfully and kept from triggering my previous fears and insecurities about our family planning. She was a joyful cheerleader as we became more confident in our abilities to identify fertility and as we have discussed our hopes to soon start a family. I like the standardization and clarity of Creighton-while I've heard some say that mucus signs are unclear, in time they have become mostly simple to me and the "rules" are clearcut. I love that I don't have to worry about my sleep schedule interfering with temps, as a nurse it would be hard. I like not having to rely on technology, during COVID I know testing strips were at a premium or impossible to find. And for 9 months we have sucessfully avoided, and feel fully confident we can continue to avoid as long as needed. I really struggled with the system initially, finding the identification of CM so difficult. My advice is to just chart something, and after a few months it is much more easy to chart accurately. Additionally, we REALLY struggled with implementing the system after we were married. It is highly recommended to use only every other night for 1 month or until you can practice the seminal fluid instructions 3x successfully. I was in tears often that first month, that thinking I had eliminated seminal fluid the night prior, and seeing discharge that required us to wait another 4 nights. But we learned, and now it is much better! And I'm happy we weren't learning in a post-partum phase. We both still struggle somewhat with the fact that pre-peak, we must wait until the end of the day to determine fertility. There's less chance for flirting and building up to intimacy throughout the day, because it could end in disappointment. Or we've already wound down for the evening, and have to decide if we want to try and turn it on because its a useable day. This has improved because we can use any time of day post-peak; but it is still hard to be on the same page about intimacy when 2/3 of the month we don't know until late in the day if its a possibility.
