Jennifer’s story
I am happy to share my experience of NFP & infertility. However, I want to say that NFP, particularly sympto-thermal(STM) forms of NFP can only take an infertile couple so far. NFP is very helpful in identifying if/when a woman is ovulating, which can be important in order for correct timing of intercourse and testing, and can identify things like inadequate cervical mucus or short luteal phases. It may help indicate things like PCOS by noticing long cycles and unusually long mucus patches in phase 2.
For anything beyond these factors, it is much more helpful to turn to the Creighton method of NFP. After learning and using NFP with CCL for 10+ years and teaching for many of those years, it is very impressive to me what a NaPro doctor can learn from a Creighton chart. Because Creighton is a mucus-only method, they do a very, very good job of teaching the mucus sign and I learned a lot just from being a student. Of course, 10+ years of practice makes it very difficult for me to ignore my temperature sign, so I continue to use that as a secondary sign and continue to question why they don’t use temperature at all, particularly for women with difficult cycles. But that’s another story…
Creighton resources are important for couples trying to achieve pregnancy, particularly for women who are in their mid-30s and older. Time is definitely an issue and while NaPro doctors are finding success with women well into their 40s, if a couple has 3 months of anovulatory charts or 6 months of good charts & good timing with no results, they need to start checking into medical answers. In my experience and in the experience of many other women is that secular ob/gyns will at best ignore charts and worse will mock the women for charting or completely disregard NFP charts; NaPro doctors are the way to go!
I was diagnosed with PCOS in 2000.
NFP was very important for me in helping me conceive. Both times I conceived around day 23. Traditional medicine would have told me that I would ovulate around day 14. Had I not been charting, my husband & I wouldn’t have necessarily been timing intercourse around the time of actual ovulation. Knowing that I ovulated late also helped me know when my due date was, since by traditional calendars, I would have been off by 10 days.
Charting was important to me so that my testing was done correctly. Traditionally, an ob/gyn will have a woman come in on day 17 for “post-ovulation” testing. Well, in my case, day 17 was still pre-ovulation. Testing on day 17 would have been a waste of time, money and bloodwork.
I knew for about 2 years that I wasn’t ovulating based on my charts. I had almost non-existent cervical mucus and my temperatures were irregular and never showed a shift. Because I was charting, I knew that the periodic spotting that I experienced was not a true period. I also had records showing that occasionally I would go for up to 3 months without any menstrual bleeding, which can increase risks of uterine cancer. So by monitoring my cycles, I could go to my doctor and induce a withdrawal bleeding for the safety of my uterine health.
From the time of diagnosis to pregnancy was about 4 months the first time (after 18 months to get the diagnosis). I did not conceive naturally; I was on multiple medications. My second pregnancy happened very quickly, my 2nd postpartum cycle. Since my cycles resumed 5+ years ago we have not been able to achieve pregnancy again. Nine months ago, after exhausting the medical resources in my town, I turned to a NaPro doctor who practices 5 hours away from my home. I submitted two months of Creighton charts along with my previous medical records and have been impressed with how many things Creighton doctors can diagnose that my local docs never even looked into, as well as the variety of treatments that are outside the usual ob/gyn track of clomid-iui-ivf. The other cool thing about NaPro is that they will treat the male side of infertility as well, where poor male fertility will usually make doctors even more likely to push illicit technologies.
I invite women to join an email group I moderate for Catholic women trying to achieve pregnancy: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/catholic-fertility/ The group is only for women who are faithful to the church’s teachings on fertility treatment and is a great resource and support group.
-Jennifer