On the Other Side of Fertility

by Ann Gundlach

Thirty-two years and eight months. That’s how long my husband, Greg, and I practiced natural family planning before I entered menopause.

To the world, I almost feel like I should be a museum exhibit or perhaps the subject of a viral post: Rare woman manages entire fertile years without the need of contraception! I’m definitely an anomaly in most circles. But among those who learn a fertility-awareness method, I’m not that much of an oddity. Having worked for an NFP organization for many years, I know there are thousands of women (actually, couples!) who have left the artificial and unnatural stuff behind with no regrets.

Wedding day, May 19, 1984

The naysayers will likely jump on that last phrase, “with no regrets.” Too often any positive message about a no-contraception approach is followed by rumblings that the real truth about living without contraceptives is not being told. My own seasoned advice to anyone considering leaving pills, patches, condoms, etc. behind is to be somewhat discriminating about which voices you listen to. Facebook and other social media groups are good to a degree. But like anything online, I’ve seen plenty of incorrect information shared, and my experience tells me there is more negativity among the online crowd than among NFP users in general.

For the record, everyone’s NFP experience is valid for them. My decades of working with NFP couples has shown me that a number of them do struggle with practicing it, some even mightily. But not everyone does.

Some couples equate navigating the postpartum time as on par with getting a root canal without pain medication. But for many other couples, it’s not anywhere near that difficult.

There are anxiety-ridden premenopausal couples who are afraid to trust that their fertility is waning. But not us. My fertility knowledge gave me the confidence to know that my signs had been pointing to being infertile for several years, despite still having periods. So much so that Greg and I did not follow any NFP rules for about the last five years before menopause.

And for every story I heard of NFP causing tension between spouses, I’ve heard many more stories of NFP drawing couples closer to each other and opening their hearts to the deeper sacramentality of their marriage.

IN IT TOGETHER

We did have a few things going for us that helped smooth our NFP journey. First, Greg and I learned our method before we were married and had several months’ time to get to know my cycles before putting it into practice. (Yes, we did this together. Can’t say enough about that.) We also did not have to learn my cycles while dealing with the residual effects of birth control hormones.

Second, we were helped by relatively “normal” cycles, which always eases the practice of NFP. But my cycles also weren’t textbook for many years. In my 20s and into my 30s, I tended to have cycles on the longer side (often closer to 40 days) with the mucus sign appearing right after my period ended. This meant longer times of abstinence during the months we had discerned to postpone pregnancy. While not fun for a young married couple, we had no trouble interpreting my less-than-perfect cycles. The knowledge we gained in our classes served us well.

Another win for us: The book “Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition” by Marilyn Shannon. After reading the repeated mention of the importance of Vitamin A (among other things) for healthy mucus production, I started eating raw baby carrots every day with my lunch. Voila! Dry days started appearing after my period, and my cycle lengths shortened to 32-33 days. Which meant less abstinence time! It was a small but pivotal lesson for me: What I ate and how I took care of myself affected my fertility cycles. I was also able to lessen some PMS symptoms and reduce monthly cramps through better nutrition.

I know now that I shouldn’t have been surprised that better nutrition brought better cycles for me. Our bodies are wonderfully designed by God, at once both amazingly strong and resilient and yet incredibly complicated and delicate.

I know now that I shouldn’t have been surprised that better nutrition brought better cycles for me. Our bodies are wonderfully designed by God, at once both amazingly strong and resilient and yet incredibly complicated and delicate. The female fertility cycle is an especially intricate interplay of hormones that all need to be at certain levels to produce a healthy cycle. Unhealthy eating patterns during college and relying too much on processed foods as a young wife and mother was not fueling my cells well enough, and my cycles showed it.

I credit this book for my commitment to exercise and (trying to get) enough sleep along with eating well and taking supplements that made sense for me. Greg valued these things for me as well, because a healthy Ann meant a healthy cycle, which meant a happy Greg....and a happy Ann. “Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition” also helped me determine that cycle changes as I approached 40 were actually due to an underactive thyroid and not signs of early premenopause. My cycles easily improved with a low dose of thyroid medication.

A PROPER ORIENTATION

Far beyond the physical benefits of NFP, I’m especially grateful that it oriented our marriage in the right direction. We chose it at the beginning only out of obedience to Catholic Church teaching, but when we learned more about why the Church was against contraception, we freely committed to it.

At our wedding Mass, we certainly meant what we said each time we responded “I do” during the exchange of vows. But becoming familiar later with St. John Paul II’s theology of the body gave us a better understanding that we were in a covenant not just with ourselves, but with God, and called to share in His free, total, faithful and fruitful love.

This is why marriage is a sacrament, with the form of the sacrament being our public consent in church. But a light bulb went off for us when we learned the matter of our sacrament involved the desire to live together in unity, as well as the consummation of our marriage. And that if our acts of sexual intimacy did not reflect that free, total, faith and fruitful love, they would be something less than God called us to in marriage. In effect, NFP allowed us to say with our bodies what we said with our mouths at the altar. And we have experienced— and so needed!—the graces that have flowed from that alignment.

Did we ever struggle with the practice of NFP? Yes, of course we had our moments! Every couple does. There were nights one of us frustratingly moved to another room to sleep because....well, you know. There were also special days that, sadly, fell during the fertile time but we felt it better to postpone pregnancy. But we learned to vent and move on.

I can’t emphasize this enough: When we look back on those times now, they are so insignificant! Oh my goodness, yes, they were difficult at the time. But we have perspective now that we didn’t have then. We have faced challenges that pale in comparison to not always being able to be physically intimate when we wanted to: parenting challenges, job challenges, parents dying of cancer, etc.

And here’s the thing: Those little struggles with abstinence were priceless preparation for the bigger struggles that were to come. What we weren’t aware of at the time was that every cycle we worked through together after our proper discernment—no matter how clumsily or badly we fared—was a little victory that we won together. NFP was strengthening our marriage bond.

Loving this season of life

A NEW SWEETNESS

So here we find ourselves on the other side of fertility, that place that sometimes seemed frustratingly far off back in the day. Something that has surprised me: I don’t feel nearly as old at this age as I thought I would back when I was younger. But at the same time, I also feel the wisdom of God’s design. As my fertility declined, I knew my time for babies was over, as it should be. When I was young, I was sure I would be depressed to no longer be able to conceive when that time came. I was not. It felt right.

I’ve come to see with hindsight that my hormones could trick me in my younger days...Now cycle-free, I know many of those urges were more biologically-driven than emotional. I now know what it is like to more freely choose intimacy, and in my heart, it feels more of a true self-gift.

And another surprise for me: As a young-married woman, I assumed our intimate life would be somewhat routine and perhaps lackluster by this stage...but it is incredibly sweet and more fulfilling than ever. I’ve come to see with hindsight that my hormones could trick me in my younger days. They often had me blindly believing that my sexual longings were all about my love for Greg (which is when I would fall into resentment of the Church’s teachings). Now cycle-free, I know many of those urges were more biologically-driven than emotional. I now know what it is like to more freely choose intimacy, and in my heart, it feels more of a true self-gift. There is certainly something to be said for the intimacy of youth, but I’ll take what we have now any time. Our intimate moments are wrapped up in so many memories of a lovingly, committed shared life that I feel like we are finally beginning to realize what it really means to make love.

As a menopausal woman who has never taken or even seen a contraceptive with my own eyes, I may be an aberration to some, but our experience is that an NFP-based marriage has been a tremendous blessing. The Catholic Church’s teaching, while not always easy, has proven to be the better path for us.