Welcome to our first Blessed Chats series! Each month, we will dedicate an entire week of blog posts to a topic that affects many of us. These conversations often come up in our Facebook groups and in our real life friendships. We want to share a variety of perspectives on the topic at hand, so we’ve asked women to share their stories and how the teachings of the Church have guided and comforted them. In this first series, we’re talking all about fertility. We’d love for you to join the conversation!
There I was, sitting on the bathroom floor staring at two little pink lines. My heart was pounding, I could feel my blood pulsing in my ears, and I could not breathe. I walked over to the foot of my bed where my husband was waiting. I sat down next to him and broke down in sobs—gut-wrenching, cannot-catch-my-breath sobs. He held me and rocked us back and forth. His face was nuzzled in my hair and he was whispering that everything was going to be okay and that we are blessed and that we will manage everything together as always.
But I could not see it that way. Truthfully, I was terrified.
Terrified at a future I found overwhelming, terrified at being unprepared, terrified of the unknowns and the what-ifs, and mostly, terrified that none of this was planned.
Finally Saying Yes
I am a planner. I am an organizer. I live comfortably in the known zone. You’ll find me with my calendar and planner, filling out every moment of my schedule. I’ve lived by spread sheets and timelines and to-do lists and checkboxes. And it worked for me—or so I thought.
If you have lived like I have, planning every moment, day, week, and year, you will find that anything that does not go according to plan completely throws you off balance. And here I was, completely spinning.
When my second child was born, I felt a pull by the Holy Spirit to change my mindset on contraception. Like all other aspects of my life, I was trying to control something so innately feminine and precious about me—my own fertility.
My Journey to NFP
It started when I was around seventeen years old. I had been experiencing excruciating menstrual cramps in high school, sometimes to the point of fainting. And when seeking help from my doctor, I was placed on hormonal birth control. Like so many other women, instead of trying to figure out the root of my pain, I was given a bandaid.
I took hormonal birth control every day, set to my alarm, for years. When preparing for marriage to my college sweetheart, I finally learned about Natural Family Planning (NFP).
I am a cradle Catholic but I had never understood what NFP meant for my fertility and for my future marriage. I thought it was another thing to checkoff during my marriage preparation. I learned about my temperatures and mucus, but ultimately, I did not think I would need the information. I did not understand on any real level what contraceptives would mean for my marriage or my saying yes to God’s plan over my own.
My Plan. Not His.
And while I never actively decided to reject the plans of God for myself, I definitely did not allow them to guide me in my daily decisions. I lived in ignorance. Was I faith-filled? Yes. Did I love God? Absolutely. But did I live a prideful and selfish life? Completely.
I decided exactly when I wanted to have my first child. I stopped the contraceptive and got pregnant the next cycle. My plan. Not His.
After I gave birth, I started the contraceptives right back up again. My plan. Not His.
A Yes that Led to More Yeses
But in 2014, something changed. God brought something into my life that completely changed my entire way of thinking. It changed everything. And that something was Blessed is She.
One day, I saw a message that would change my life.
“Are you a Catholic woman interested in this writing project I have in mind?”
I thought, I am Catholic. I write a blog. I am interested.
And my involvement in this life-changing ministry was born.
I was a new mom, a dental student, and a wife trying to navigate a world that felt lonely and incompatible with my Faith. I met the other writers through emails and video chats during that summer before the first devotion went live in September of 2014. These women completely changed my heart. Here was a group of women, in every life stage, from every background, with an infinite number of perspectives and experiences different from my own, and I was completely inspired.
The Witness of Other Catholics
Several women in particular inspired me greatly. These women had multiple children and they still kept their hearts open for more. I was in awe of their bravery, their selflessness, and their own yes to God’s plan. It made me question my own hesitation and pride. I wondered why I could not trust that the Father had a greater plan for what our family would look like. They shared their struggles and fears so openly with me and yet they kept saying yes.
I was jealous of that trust. I had never been able to trust the Father so fully.
Several months after the birth of our second child, I kept feeling that stirring in my heart. The Holy Spirit would whisper to me in the quiet of the night while nursing my baby. He kept saying, “Trust, love, be open, say yes. I will guide you, I will protect you, you are safe.”
As someone who planned every minute of my life, I could not imagine what it would look like to fully trust. Relinquishing my control and death grip on my life would take more than a nudge. It would take a giant push off of the cliff.
Being Open to Life
Several months of discernment, prayer, and arguments conversations with God, my husband and I decided that we would start the process to learn to trust and be open to life. A Blessed is She friend started teaching us an NFP method. I learned about charting, mucus, stamps, and more about my own body than I thought possible.
When my menstrual cycle resumed, I continued to track my symptoms daily. A yellow stamp here, a white baby stamp there. If this was my way of saying yes, at least I had a chart that made me feel productive and in control. I finally felt like I was getting the hang of it.
By saying yes to my own fertility and allowing my mindset to shift from one of contraception to one of openness, I saw other aspects of my life change, too. I learned to lean more heavily to the guidance of God. In January of 2018, I felt the Lord calling me towards a career change. I took on a huge responsibility of leadership at work and I felt like I had finally learned to listen to God’s plan.
But then, just as I started this new position at work, I saw those two little pink lines that terrified me. I was flabbergasted! God, how could You so clearly lead me towards this change at work and now add a baby into this chaos!?
I was frightened because this was my first pregnancy that was not planned to the day. I had to trust again. And it was scary. But I turned to those sisters who inspired me and to a loving Father with a plan for me. I finally said yes.
Allowing my mindset to shift from one of contraception to one of openness to life changed other areas of my life, too. #BISblog #blessedchats // Click To TweetFreedom from Fear
What I learned so entirely from this change in mindset is that God does not promise to remove the chaos or lay out every plan with neon signs and arrows. He promises that I am never alone, that to say yes to His plan is to say yes to the unknown, too.
He turned this type-A, control-freak, planner extraordinaire into a trusting daughter. And while you’ll still find me planning every moment of our family schedule, you’ll also see me now including God in the mix and mess of it all.
Has anyone else made the shift from contraception to natural family planning? Please share your story with us in the comments below!
If you want more on the Church’s rich teachings on these engaging topics, our best-selling study, “Blessed Conversations: Rooted,” dives into the Catechism’s teachings and now offers a video companion series along with it featuring Theological Editor Susanna Spencer and Managing Editor Nell O’Leary. Get it here.
Blessed Chats: Fertility // From Contraception to Natural Family Planning #BISblog #blessedchats // Click To Tweet
This is so echoing of my story! It may be due to the 20week pregnancy hormones, but this hit home in my eyes! We didn’t fully understand or choose NFP until after our 1st was born. Baby #6 is coming in January and I can count the times I had to grieve the ‘loss’ of “MY PLAN” in the past 8 years! I am so appreciative of this new type of Blessed Conversations. Hearing the stories makes me remember that I am a part of a collective, not just a lone mama ship.
I have PCOS. So birth control was a way for me to get my periods. I stopped taking them because U knew it was wrong. The doctors said I would have a hard time getting pregnant. We weren’t even trying, then I was pregnant with my daughter. Two and a half years later, still having crazy periods, I became pregnant with my son. Who was also not planned. After I had my son my periods come every 35 daysish lol. He’s almost 9 now. My daughter is 11.
thank you for sharing!
I learned of NFP in my Marriage Prep classes leading up to our Wedding day. I remember a female doctor was teaching the class and every time she spoke more truth about birth control my heart sank a little more with each fact. I felt so ignorant. Once I learned there was another way there was no turning back. I learned NFP is not an easy task and you will struggle learning it and your body but I would not have it any other way. Thank you for this series on fertility/infertility. I think it’s so important to talk about how different each one of our journey’s can be. I have struggled with infertility a bit, but had not given much thought to hyperfertility at all. Eye opening to hear Bonnie’s story and understanding the struggles that come along with that side.
So helpful to hear each other’s stories!
I am single and not married yet, but I am trying to learn all I can now about NFP before I get married if it God’s will to get married. I really appreciated this and just the openness to God’s plan instead of using contraception. I still am fearful about having children. It seems like contraception is a sure way to gurantee that one won’t get pregnant, but blocks off God’s plan, it is not natural, and you don’t know what you are putting into your body. This is why I am beginning to really appreciate NFP, but there is a lot I still don’t know and wish I could learn more. I want to be more open to God’s plan. But, the reason why I am afraid even though I am not even married yet is because I am afraid of passing on autism and epilepsy to my children, which my sister has. I have been told by family to use contraception and to never get pregnant because of this. My sister has severe autism. It has been very hard on my family to deal with all of her medical needs along with all of her other needs. I love her very much regardless. I think it is likely that my children could have autism or epilepsy. I would of course love that child just as he or she is, but I am very afraid and don’t know what I would do if this happened. I wonder if it is still worth the risk to get pregnant and I guess I would just need a lot of faith and deep trust in God. I guess I am wondering how could NFP work in my situation. I really want to have children one day if I do get married, but it is very risky. I am not sure if there is really a good answer for now since I am not married yet.
praying, sister!
Hello Abbey!
Thank you for being so vulnerable about where you’re at regarding the gift of your fertility and the possibility of having children who need extra help. It’s very touching!
I just wanted to encourage you in the exploration of learning how to track your cycles now. If you use a thorough method of NFP it actually has a very high success rate, sometimes better than artificial methods, depending on which one. I am a Creighton Model teacher — feel free to contact me at Kathrynfcp at gmail dot com if you’d like to chat more about nfp.
All the best!
I am a new convert to the Catholic faith. Having grown up in a Protestant church that never really discussed contraception, it was never really a second thought in my mind when I started birth control in my early twenties. My husband is a cradle Catholic but also never heard much about contraception, in fact he didn’t know there was anything wrong with it. So in the beginning of our marriage, it was never a real discussion between us, it was just assumed that we would use contraception until we decided we wanted to have a baby. Now, I wouldn’t really consider myself a strict type A person by any means but I certainly love planning and I definitely have a “plan” for most things in my life. So we had our first child when we decided the time was right. During the first year of his life (this past year), God really transformed my walk with Him and I was led into the Catholic Church with a very conflicted but freeing journey. During this time, I was able to breastfeed my son for 11 months and my period had still not returned. I had felt the Holy Spirit really open my eyes to not using contraception when I started hearing about NFP from many of our close Catholic friends. We have been so blessed to be a part of a special marriage group with other couples that have been so resourceful and encouraging. We ended up pregnant with our second after the return of my first period and it was the most trusting thing we have ever done as a married couple! The relinquish of control from both of us, knowing we could definitely become pregnant again, took a lot of love and faith and honestly when those pink lines appeared a month later, I wasn’t all that surprised and we felt at peace about it (which was definitely a God thing!). I am now 20 weeks pregnant and we will be starting to learn more about NFP to get prepared. It’s a lifestyle I never thought I’d have, in fact just the idea of being Catholic would be hard for my early twenty-something-year-old mind to accept but I so look forward to where God will lead us. We just have to focus on keeping that trust now! Thanks for sharing your story!
how incredible! thank you for sharing.