Natural Family Planning what to do when it don't work

[allis-challmers]

I have been married for 10 years now.  My wife and I have been "practicing" nfp for 10 years. we have 6 wonderful kids and are wanting to space the next baby out a little bit longer than has been our experience in our past pregnancies.  Our first three were I guess normal newly wed spacing with wanting to have kids and wanting them to have siblings to play with. (Actually our nfp doctor told us we had a good chance not to have any kids due to some issues my wife had).  Then after kid number 3 we had some erratic cycles and our dr did a hormone test and said we couldn't get pregnant.  We proved him wrong a month later..  Kid number 5 we had ovulation jump from day 21 to 14 in one cycle.   Kid number 6  our nfp practitioner said we couldn't get pregnant and our nfp dr couldn't tell us why .  Now we are post pardom and   my wife had a hemrige with baby number 5 and hernia with baby number 6 NFP dr says good luck, CCL never idetified thermal shift, and Creatien seam more interested in proving why we should abstain till we are 80.  I do not know what to do.  We have tried switching methods 2 different nfp drs, and  hypercation. The only 2 alternatives I see left is have as many kids as we are able ( we are in our lower 30's) or abstinence till we are out of child bearing age.  I know as a husband I am supposed to  take care of my wife and  the church doesn't advocate for years of abstanace.  I am at not sure what i am supposted to do.  I feel that our marriage is not being  helped by this added stress of fertility and  that i am avoiding my wife because we don't want to disobey a church teaching.

[Archaeology cat]

OK, that is a lot. First off, I want to say that you're doing an amazing job of sticking with something that can be so hard and just generally suck sometimes. Yeah, I teach NFP, but I also hate it sometimes, so I get that. I will be praying for you, as I know this is a cross to bear at the moment. 

So, you've done CCL and Creighton, yes? And those aren't working for you. If you aren't seeing a thermal shift to confirm ovulation, then staying away from a temp method seems better. Normally I'd say Creighton can be good if you have reproductive health issues, since they do focus a lot on the medical side of things, but if they weren't helpful for you, then that's out. I teach Billings, which is also mucus-only, but very different from Creighton. However, given the level of stress about this, I think I'd recommend trying Marquette or the Boston Cross-Check method. Those are sympto-hormonal, utilizing a fertility monitor to help pinpoint the fertile phase and thus eliminate some of the guesswork if you aren't having clear signs on your chart. I personally know an instructor in the Boston Cross-Check method (she specializes in postpartum and breastfeeding clients) and would be happy to talk to her. I'm happy to talk to you personally, as well. If you send me a message, we can set up a phone call or Skype call and try to find what will work for you. I love that there are different methods of NFP, so that if one method isn't working out, perhaps another one will. 

[Theoketos]

Anecdotally, my wife's cycle is more regular when the room she sleeps in is completely dark. 

[Archaeology cat]

On 2/7/2017 at 11:18 AM, Theoketos said:

Anecdotally, my wife's cycle is more regular when the room she sleeps in is completely dark. 

She isn't the only one for that to be the case.