NFP

As practicing Catholics, the only "birth control" (if it can be called that) Therese and I use is Natural Family Planning, or NFP. For those of you who are not familiar with this technique, it basically breaks down a womans fertility cycle into 3 parts. You measure several things while practicing NFP: daily temperature, mucus, and a couple of things having to due with the cervix. Phase 1 begins on the first day of her menstrual cycle. It lasts for about 6 days (depending on the average length of her cycles). During this time, a couple can have sex and will most likely not get pregnant. Phase 2 begins immediately following this cycle. It lasts for a couple of weeks. There are several ways to measure the beginning and end of phase 2, depending on how careful you want to be in terms of conceiving or not, but in general a couple who does not want to conceive would not have sex at all during this period. Please keep in mind that the Church teaches that there must be a serious reason to avoid pregnancy for this to be used. Phase 3 begins following phase 2, and the length is determined by the length of phase 2. Generally it is a week to a week and a half. Once again, you can have sex during this time and reasonably expect you will not conceive. While NFP can be used to postpone conception, as I mentioned, its true purpose is to help WITH conception. Using this method, I can tell pretty accurately when Therese is ovulating and therefore we know when to try to conceive. When we decided to try to get pregnant, it happened in a short time using this method, but because of my long commute and other various reasons when we were first married, we chose to postpone pregnancy initially. And that is really what I want to talk about in this post. During Phase 2 we had to find ways other than sex to show our love to each other. We both wanted sex during this time of each month, believe me, but we knew it was best to wait. So phase 2 consisted of us constantly trying to find ways to show each other we cared. Nights out with dinner and movies were pretty common. One time I recall drawing her a bath before she got home from school. Reading, playing music, long walks.... let me be honest, it was basically anything we could do to keep our minds off of sex! And it didn't always work. There were times we would make out and have to stop just before getting to the sex part. It was hard. Therese, of course, doesn't do anything to make it easier. She will put on the silk nightgowns for bed that make her look so hot, she will kiss me passionately, she will call me at work and tell me how much she wants me, and eventually in the heat of the moment we will talk about how we don't really need to wait any longer to have children, we are ready, etc. In the end, we always managed to get control of ourselves again. Phase 2 was almost as exciting as being able to have sex because of the anticipation of what was to come. But we learned to appreciate each other in new and unique ways during this period. If you are struggling in your marriage, this "no sex" time pushes you to learn more about each other and grow with each other. It teaches you to respect your partner in a whole new light, and love each other in new ways.