When NFP Doesn't "Work"

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Marriage causes kids. The world may be in denial about that, but Catholics aren't. We read encyclicals about it. We study it in marriage prep. We embrace it in our vows.

Still, few of us are mentally prepared for how quickly it happens. And how often.

Take us. When I married Greg, both of us were fully accepting of the Church's teaching on birth control. We were both raised that way. It was never an issue. So it was no surprise to either of us that we found out just weeks after our wedding that our first baby was coming, as my mother in law used to say, "nine months and ten minutes later."

I cried anyway.

Our second baby arrived not two years later. Seventeen months after that, we had our third.

After that I had my first two miscarriages.

Every time I saw that little plus sign I cried. Tears of...joy? Well no. But they weren't tears of sorrow either. They were tears of—

How am I gonna handle this?!

Much as my head was in full agreement with the Church on matters of family planning, and my heart wanted children and loved the ones I had, my body rebelled. It doesn't like fatigue. It is not a fan of varicose veins. And it would prefer never to speak to pain again.

Didn't St. Paul say, that the flesh and the spirit are in opposition to one another? (Galatians 5:17)

Tell me about it!

Greg and I had other issues too. He worked long hours and I had little help. My mom died in the middle of my second pregnancy, so I was pretty bummed out. And money? We'd never met.

But who's complaining?

With my husband's agreement, I ran down to the Diocesan family life office and took a series of classes in NFP.

You know what they call people who use NFP don't you? Parents.

Yup! We went on to have seven children, ten pregnancies in all.

To the world, we look like the poster couple for how NFP does not work. In fact, people tell us that all the time: Seven kids. Fail!

Not at all. NFP gave us the little space we needed so that we could continue to be generous.

You see, there are two levels on which NFP works.

Achieving pregnancy

One is the technical side. NFP works 99.5% in avoiding pregnancy—if you follow the directions. Perfectly. But even if you don't—which is most people—your chances of avoiding pregnancy are still at around 96.8%.

However, it is still a popular misconception that NFP does not technically work.

So I checked with my friend and expert, Barbara Meier, an RN who is also a fertility care practitioner. Barb teaches fertility challenged people how to optimize their chances of having babies—naturally. (In fact, NAPRO has a higher success rate than IVF.) But she also teaches people how to use NFP effectively to avoid a pregnancy.

Her response to people who claim NFP doesn't work to avoid a pregnancy?

"So far, every one of the many folks who insist NFP didn't work for them were not using their NFP method correctly. Or at all. I ask those folks to show me the chart, so I can help figure it out. More often than not they say something like, 'Well, we weren't actually charting, but we know when we are fertile.' To that I reply, 'Apparently not.' With that said, it is not 100% effective, so sometimes God does sneak in a surprise...about 0.5% of the time."

Barb's comment about God sneaking in a surprise leads me to the second way NFP works.

It keeps you open to life.

If you are committed enough to practice NFP in the first place then you are hip with having to make sacrifices for the sake of your marriage and family. Sometimes those sacrifices mean abstaining when you really really don't want to and sometimes those sacrifices mean being honest about whether you really need to avoid a pregnancy, or if you just want to fit into your skinny clothes.

The Church gives us guidelines to help us figure that out.

"If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained."—Humanae Vitae

Life in the desert

In plain English: physical, mental, emotional, or some version of financial distress. Just to name a few. Each case is particular to each couple, so it is impossible to give more than just general categories.

A couple is supposed to take it to prayer and to their spiritual director and then make a decision based on what is best for the family.

Pope Paul VI made a lot of people mad when he signed Humanae Vitae in 1968. To many, the pill was the miracle drug which liberated an entire generation from the burden of childbearing, and they fully expected him to change Church teaching to suit the mood of the times.

But that would be to ignore the very first command God gave about marriage:

God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply." (Genesis 1:28)

Notice that being fruitful is a blessing.

A blessing that—as Greg and I discovered with pregnancy after pregnancy in rapid succession—it is not always going to be easy.

Even then, there was never any doubt in my mind that it was well worth it. Six daughters, one son, and two grandchildren are the direct result. An indirect benefit is that NFP-only users also have an extremely low divorce rate.

Why is that? We stress out just as much as the rest of the world. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed. We want a solution. Now. Something foolproof. That is when we cry out, God, help us handle this!

And He does. Because this marriage and family thing was His idea. If we try to do it His way—meaning the natural way, without deliberately suppressing or damaging our healthy fertility (I'm not talking about when you have to take out a diseased organ), He is going to help us with His grace.

This means giving us the grace to bear the sacrifice.

Speaking of sacrifice, waiting a few days or even several to be intimate is difficult for most couples, but it is nothing compared to waiting a few years. I have friends who went through that out of concern for the mother's health. I know it runs completely and utterly counter to today's culture where people think you just can't be happy without sex. But they managed it. It wasn't easy (understatement). But then again, heroic virtue never is.

However, if there are concerns about the mother's health, it is usually not necessary to abstain for years. Most people just go back and learn NFP from someone who really knows how it works and use it very strictly.

Take up your cross

Either way, it requires sacrifice. Why pretend otherwise? It's part of being a Catholic. If everyone in our history had abandoned the parts that got difficult or even dangerous, we would have no history. There would be no heroes to plant the Faith, no martyrs to water the seeds, and no laborers to reap the harvest of souls.

Sure it's hard to be faithful to everything the Church teaches. I know. I'm human. I get it. But marriage is a Sacrament, a vocation, a way of sanctification, ultimately a way to heaven.

Who is our fearless leader? Jesus. Did He have to do tough things? All the time. What does He tell us?

No worries. I did all the suffering for you!

Nope.

Take up your cross and follow Me. Matthew 16:24

But He also promises that it will give us peace.

My yoke is easy. My burden light. Matthew 11:30

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