An Introduction

Hello, friends! My hope for this blog is that it will be a place people can come for information and support about Natural Family Planning. As any of you who have tried it know, it can be a tricky business and my own experience with NFP has been challenging to say the least. If you are uncomfortable with very explicit anatomical information, this blog is not for you. If, on the other hand, you are in search of as much information as possible, read on.

There are lots of reasons for using NFP. While some couples use it in order to conceive, my application of NFP has been entirely to avoid pregnancy. I am not a fertility expert and would probably be of little help to someone who is struggling to GET pregnant. Infertility is simply not within the scope of my experience.

I decided to start this blog because I have encountered a staggering amount of misinformation regarding fertility, especially fertility and breastfeeding. One of my major frustrations with much of the current literature on NFP is that it assumes a woman is having regular 28-day cycles and is not breastfeeding; in my experience, most women who desire to avoid becoming pregnant look into NFP because they have a young breastfeeding infant and therefore their cycles are often irregular and difficult to track. I was one of those women. Jack decided he really didn't want to breastfeed, so I pumped. When he was three months old, I ovulated. I know that some women would be open to the idea of having babies that close together, but I wasn't one of them. The reasons for avoiding pregnancy vary from couple to couple and are a private decision. What I will NOT do on this blog is discuss the moral validity of avoiding pregnancy. This blog is not a space for moral debate, just information and support. For obvious reasons I will allow anonymous comments but you can also feel free to e-mail me directly. If you e-mail an interesting question I may address it in a blog post, but I WILL NOT use your name unless you specifically tell me that's okay. I know it's a hard subject to talk about and you might think twice about leaving a comment, but I want to encourage dialogue here. I have had some invaluable conversations with some amazing women which contributed to my understanding of how NFP works and how to make it work for me, an understanding which would be far less rich without those conversations. Sharing has been a powerful tool in my journey to understanding NFP, and I want to welcome everyone's voice in this conversation.

I've decided to start with a brief overview of basic fertility and then move into discussing issues outside of what I'd call "basic" fertility, which I feel is where the greatest lack of information is. I'll start that in my next post, but in the meantime I'd welcome any questions anyone would like addressed. I might not know the answer, but I'm a relentless researcher and would be happy to provide that support for you. Don't be shy!