09/12/2025
Charting with a fertility awareness method is not just a way to avoid or achieve pregnancy, or even just a way to be healthier. It’s a way of life. It is fundamentally different from birth control, so we can’t just wait until marriage prep to teach about it in depth. Couples have been learning about birth control in the school of life since they were young. If we wait, fertility awareness doesn’t have a chance because the alternative is too easy and too popular.
The mindset of birth control is one that is “out of sight and out of mind.” The relative ease of taking a pill or placing a patch or implant influences one to forget what they are even using it for and continue on with their normal routine without the natural consequences of their actions - without much thought or commitment at all.
Using natural family planning is hard and requires a daily renewal of commitment to goals as the woman keeps up with her observations and communication with her husband. It requires maintaining focus on purpose - to value self control and s 3 x as self-gift, holding nothing back from your spouse; to keep in*******se as an expression of love demonstrated throughout the entire relationship.
The latter can be very hard and tends to be rewarding. But this is not necessarily intuitive. It has to be shared and educated multiple times so couples understand that they are making a worthwhile investment into themselves and each other for a lifetime. In fact, by the time they get engaged, it should just be being reinforced and not taught for the first time.
I ask engaged couples who are required to come to me for a Creighton Intro Session if they’ve heard of NFP and to what extent. Almost none have any depth of awareness of the practice. While the presentation does elicit some interest, I can tell that the information is way too foreign for them to trust in its effectiveness and in the health opportunities it can provide. They rarely move forward or pursue other methods I’ve educated them about.
Marriage prep is way too late to talk about NFP. Talk about fertility awareness to your teens even though they won’t be using it for family planning any time soon.
