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.

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.

My Wife

My wife and I were friends for a long time before we started dating. We had a regular group that spent time together. When we first got married we both made sacrifices. I moved to where she was finishing school, which was about two and a half hours each way from my job. Since I was successful with my company and we planned on moving back, we didn't see any reason for me to quit. She offered to move somewhere more equidistant from our two destinations but it really didn't make sense to me, so instead she accelerated her degree. She finished a semester early - and I really don't know how she pulled it off. Our marriage was truly bliss. For the first year, I don't think we had a fight (not that I consider disagreements in a marriage to be a bad thing.) We spent every evening together, just the two of us, and on the weekends we caught up on sleep. We took long walks. We participated in the church choir together. We enjoyed life in a small town. We look back on those days with fondness, life was so simple and innocent for us. My wife is a wonderful cook. She is an extremely talented musician. She is one of the most thoughtful people I know. She has a classical personality, and she has a classic, timeless beauty. She is smart, well spoken, and (thanks to me) she has an excellent sense of humor. But the quality I admire most about her is how close she is to God. I have never met someone like her in that respect. Whenever she prays, her prayers are answered. Whatever she asks of God, it is done. When we finally hit revelation, my wife cried. She withdrew into herself. Where she used to be trusting before - well, I stole that quality from her. But she handled the situation with a maturity beyond her years. She forgave me within a week of revelation - though of course actual healing takes much much longer. I admire that she never lost her faith in God. She believed He would take care of us, and He has. There is still one prayer she has in regards to the situation which God has not answered, but those of you who believe in God know that He answers prayers in His own way and His own time frame. She believes, deep down, that He will either answer her prayer or give her the strength to get through it somehow even though she struggles with it. The point of this post is really just to talk about how much I admire my wife for the way she has dealt with the situation. She has been truly amazing. She stayed with me, first and foremost. She continues to teach our son that I am a good man, despite my weaknesses. She continues to make sure that those members of our family who know about the affair support us and treat us with respect. And because of her strength, we are healing. I love you, my dearest, thank you for everything.

Last Night Away

I hate being away from my family, but I can't say I didn't get anything out of it. You might think I am talking about all the knowledge I received, but I am not. I am talking about the Ipod Shuffle, the 2 bluetooth headsets, the two 20" monitors and the desktop I won!!! Looks like we won't have to do a lot of Christmas shopping this year! :)

It has been a long few days. I still am not sleeping well, so I am beat down. Tonight we have dinner, than a quick morning meeting before I head to the airport. I have been thinking a lot about Michael Richards little racist rant. I watched it on one of the video channels. It is obvious he was totally drunk, not that being drunk is an excuse. But the guys were being total arses to him, as well. He should have gone off on them, just without the racist flair to it.

I also realized on this trip just how much my wife means to me. Being without her was especially tough. My blog will be more organized when I am not on the road, so until next time.... Home, here I come!