It's NFP Awareness Week! This year I am sharing stories from women who learned NFP methods while single. Single women often get left out of discussions of Natural Family Planning, but there are great benefits to be reaped for them too. It's time to hear some of their stories!
1. Tell us a little about yourself.
I speak
three languages – Spanish, English, and Italian – because my mom is from Chile
and I studied abroad in Italy. I’m forever grateful to my mom for making sure
we were bilingual from the start – languages are one of my passions! In my
spare time, I love to cook and bake, work in my garden, spend time at the
beach, hike in the Oakland redwoods (or anywhere for that matter – we are
blessed with so many natural gems here in the Bay Area!), read, draw and paint,
hang out with friends, and most of all, horseback ride. I’ve recently become an
equestrian and I take English riding lessons here in the Oakland redwoods. There
is nothing more wonderful than being out there with the horses… Unless it’s
snuggling with my two adorable goddaughters of course!
2. How did you hear about NFP?
I’m I guess what you might call a “cradle Catholic,” in that I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic school all my life, so I do vaguely remember learning about NFP, at least as a concept, during middle school and high school. I was aware it was out there, but didn’t know the details, especially because I always assumed it was just for families or married couples, so I wrote it off in my mind as not applicable toward my current state of life.
Later, when I was already living and working here in the
Bay Area, a dear friend of mine introduced me to JPII’s Theology of the Body.
The more I read up on it, and the more I started reading the incredibly
beautiful ways that JPII talked about man and woman, the “feminine genius,” and
his reflections on the body in terms of the ordering of love and our existence
in connection with God and Love, the more I started seeing the connections
between Theology of the Body and NFP.
Around the same time, another very dear friend of mine was
starting her own family and pregnant with her second daughter, and she began
explaining to me the details about taking her temperature, charting, and how it
all helped her and her husband either conceive or avoid pregnancy in a natural
and faith-filled way. She suggested an app that helps record this information
and generates a visual chart, and so I was encouraged to begin charting myself!
3. How did you
pick a method?
At first, I didn’t really know what I was
doing other than waking up at 7:00am to faithfully record my temperature on
this app each morning – however, the app also has a handy “Knowledge Base”
section that answers all the basic questions about charting your cycle and what
it means. Through this, I was able to gain some basic knowledge about basal
body temperature, temperature shifts, the luteal and follicular phases,
hormones, etc.
I was fascinated! However, it wasn’t until a priest friend of
mine personally called me up one day, and said that there was a woman offering
Creighton Model classes at his parish, that I started getting serious about a
particular method. He was trying to specifically enlist as many young, single
women as he knew to take the classes with her, because he believed in its
importance before young women get married (or even if they never do!),
even as having a basic, positive health benefit. What a blessing that call was
(and what a wonderful priest!), because I enlisted for the classes, which were
private, one-on-one classes that helped teach the basic concepts of the
Creighton Method and also helped me chart through several cycles until I got
the hang of it. The Creighton Model does not utilize temperature, but rather a
very detailed charting of daily mucus, in order to understand a woman’s
fertility, cycle, and general health. It’s truly amazing how intricate,
integrated, and synchronized our bodies are, and how much they tell us! We only
have to learn and listen.
4. What has been your greatest
challenge?
They say that with knowledge comes great
responsibility, right? I would say my greatest challenge has been finding out
that there are perhaps some “irregular” or “not ideal” things about my cycle.
Ever since I began my period as a teenager, I have always had very heavy
bleeding and most times very painful cramping. In high school, I dealt with
this by taking evening primrose oil, a natural oil that is known to help
regulate your cycle and alleviate or even eliminate painful cramping. It did
for some years, but it has found its way back. Ever since I have begun
charting, I’ve noticed certain things like the appearance of mucus when a woman
typically wouldn’t have any, and other “red flags.” Charting prompted me to go
see a Catholic OB-GYN in the area who reads charts, and after having to get
some blood tests done (ick), she has been able to see some of these
irregularities as well as low levels of hormones, among other things. And
what’s amazing is that just by reading my charts and checking out my blood
tests, she discovered several other things that were “low” in my body.
Now, I’m
the type of person that magnifies every worst possible situation (I’m permanently
infertile! I have some crazy disease! I’ll never be able to have babies!), so
while it was quite a challenge, and even sometimes terrifying, to “find out”
about these issues and hear potentially “bad news” – at the same time, I have
to say that it has been also a positive thing, because not only do I now know
about these issues, but I can also work on fixing them by natural means,
like vitamin supplements or honing my diet to my body’s needs. And ladies,
we’re not just talking about focusing on my fertility – there are now some
general health items that have been uncovered that I can improve in my
body, so that it is working to its fullest potential all-around! And I wouldn’t
have known about them had I not started charting, and I am thankful to be
working on these issues before I meet someone. It’s like getting a head
start - How cool is that?!
5. What has been your favorite benefit?
How beautiful, how intricate, how perfectly engineered and wonderfully made is the female body… the human body! As a single woman, this appreciation and healthy love for my body I think contributes to my understanding of who I am, who God created me to be, and how he wants me to use my gifts. It’s part of that grand search for meaning, and it most certainly reflects the great Love our Lord has for each one of us.
Check out the previous posts in this series:
I've really been enjoying this series about NFP and single women. Thank you so much!
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