Ep. 165: Using a Fertility Awareness Method on your honeymoon??

Weddings are the start of so many new, wonderful things -- and it's also the first time you and your spouse have the possibility of having a baby! There's so much to consider. This episode explores some of the main questions related to using a natural birth control system on your honeymoon! 

• Will a fertility awareness method actually work for us on our honeymoon? 
• How far before our wedding should we begin learning one? 
• What if my cycle is different the month we get married? 
• Will the stress of the wedding impact our ability to use a form of natural family planning? 
• Should I take a pregnancy test on my honeymoon?
• How can I successfully use the Creighton Model system during our honeymoon?

Other episodes you may like: 

• Ep. 108: Choosing Natural Family Planning
• Ep. 106: Creighton vs. NaProTechnology - What are they?
• Ep. 118: Is Abstinence really necessary for NFP

NOTE: This episode may be appropriate for most audiences, but does discuss the topic of marital intimacy and the term sex is used. 

Transcript

Caitlin (00:25)
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. As a certified fertility care practitioner who works with clients who want to naturally avoid pregnancy or try to conceive one, I get to work with lot of clients who are interested in learning the Creighton model for their upcoming weddings and honeymoons. So I love working with engaged couples. This is also how I began learning the Creighton model system for myself. at the time, fiance and I were

trying to figure out how we wanted to plan our families and I was not interested in birth control, but I truly didn't know what options were available to me, especially if there were any totally naturally ones available. So I totally get what it's like to be looking for those options and want to bring that into marriage. So I love working with engaged couples.

As I'm working with them, we talk about all the things they're preparing for within marriage. are apartments and houses, whether or not to get a dog. And then the deeper stuff, like being intimate with your new spouse and understanding the true purpose and gift of sex within marriage. So there's a lot of new to come. But the thing that clients are most often fearful about is whether or not their method of natural family planning will actually

work. Even clients who have worked with me for 3-6 months before their wedding have their doubts as they approach the big day. I get it. This is where the rubber really hits the road in a totally new way. Do we trust this system? Do we have all the education we need? For the first time in our lives, we have the potential to get pregnant. And this matters.

Even though the Creighton model, which is what we teach at Wove Natural Fertility Care, even though it's 99.5 % effective at avoiding pregnancy, couples are apprehensive about that first cycle, specifically because the wedding cycle can be a bit… different. Let's call it wonky. The wedding cycle never goes like we expect it to.

For many couples, this is the first time they may choose to be together, physically intimate together. So they're nervous. How do I know if this is going go well or not? How do I know if we're going to be able to successfully avoid pregnancy and they don't want a wonky cycle? Sometimes we're just overanalyzing it out of nervousness. But other times, there really are noticeable changes to things that have always seemed

pretty consistent. And this can be really terrifying to those new users of any natural family planning method, especially if the difference happens to be something like a longer cycle. Okay, so ⁓ my goodness, put yourself in that place. What does this mean? Did we get pregnant the very first cycle that we're married? Because I've definitely received those texts from clients before.

Thankfully, Creighton does not rely on normalcy in order to have accuracy. And what I mean is, you can have different cycles every month and still successfully use Creighton. Even more than that, we expect you to have different cycles every month. Very few women have exactly the same period, exactly the same fertile window, exactly the same day of ovulation from cycle to cycle.

This is not really a shocker to us and it won't throw off your use of Creighton. This was actually built into how the system was designed. We know it's not going to be the same. And so when they created the Creighton system, they kept that in mind. And because we know you're going to have major events that cause stress and a wedding is most definitely one of them.

We've built this in. Because stress does, in fact, affect our cycles. Specifically, will delay the release of the egg from the ovary, which is process called ovulation. So this is going to make your cycle look much longer than it is normally. Yikes. That's very scary. An unusually long cycle, your first month of marriage? Like I said earlier, that is terrifying. But guess what? That only leads to even more stress.

So if you find yourself in this situation, should you take a pregnancy test? And I'll tell you, over the years, I've received texts or messages from clients who are on their honeymoon wondering whether or not they should take a pregnancy test because the cycle is longer than they anticipated. Well, my answer is, sure. Taking a pregnancy test, of course, can come with a lot of emotions. I mean, it is a big deal in many ways.

But ultimately, a pregnancy test is also a tool. A pregnancy test gives us very helpful information. It just happens to be monumental information. But if I'm being honest, most of the times you take a pregnancy test in your life, they're going to be negative. That's kind of just how it is. So it will really only be a few times when you'll see those two pink lines. So they can often be used to confirm that you're not

pregnant, instead of only being used to confirm whether or not you are. And really, this can relieve a lot of stress.

So even when I go back to thinking about those clients who are wondering if they should take a pregnancy test or not, when I look at their chart and I see that there is no way that they could have conceived, there is just no physiological possibility of pregnancy, I'll usually still recommend that they take one because seeing that negative test will give them a sense of relief that even my assurances never will. So.

Take the pregnancy test, no problem. But before then, know that you can very effectively avoid pregnancy even during that first crazy, wonky wedding and honeymoon cycle. Knowing ahead of time that your cycle may be different and longer than normal is the first key. The second is to be confident enough in your use of the system that you know how to simply follow the instructions because the third key is to

Simply follow the instructions. Creighton instructions never change. Once you learn them, you've got them. So what you would normally do to avoid a pregnancy is exactly what you will continue to do when you are avoiding pregnancy in an unusual cycle. You don't have to know what makes it unusual. You just have to keep to the same routine, the same process that never changes.

And honestly, brings so much peace to the whole thing. Knowing that you don't have to change everything, you can just keep doing the same exact thing that you've always learned and it'll turn out okay. Whew, that's a big relief. And I hope that you do feel encouraged because you can absolutely successfully use a natural family planning system like Creighton during your wedding cycle, during your honeymoon.

even if it is, and it likely will be dramatically different. The first step is to learn the system, long before the wedding bells ring. If you're getting married in the next 6 months, now is the best time to get started. Or even if you're dating and seriously anticipating marriage, go ahead and start learning a system like Creighton. You can use it for family planning, of course, but you can also use it for health and wellness long before then.

There's really never a time that's too early to start learning this sort of thing, especially if you're an adult. So the more experienced you are, the more confident and comfortable that you'll be using it after marriage as well. And while you're here, go check out some of the previous episodes for engaged and married couples. We have so many designed specifically for newly married couples or those who are engaged in anticipating that wedding day.

We have our conversation starters and client stories from a couple's perspective. Maybe you're wondering how to recommend this to your fiance or how to have conversations about these kind of difficult topics related to family planning after you get married. We have lots of resources to help make this as smooth of a transition as possible for you. As always, thanks for listening here as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.