It was a typical Monday night bedtime routine. I was attempting to lead the kids through their bedtime prayers while my husband was retrieving our oldest from her Monday night activity. Per usual, I was wiped out from a day that became busier than it needed to be and was consequently short on patience, thinking of all the things I still needed to finish before the day was over. So while my other three littles were busy with their typical bedtime antics, I was hustling throu

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. We've talked before about healing after miscarriage and have shared husbands' experiences of loss. We also gave suggestions on how to support a friend after a miscarriage . Today, let's talk about what NOT to say to a friend or family member who is experiencing a pregnancy loss. 1. "How can I help?" You might be saying, excuse me what? How is this not supportive?! Let me explain. The person saying this really has their

This is an excerpt I wrote back in December 2022: “This comes to you after a lot of tears. And I mean a lot. Phone calls, frustration, losing my cool at times. Sometimes suffering and bearing the weight of difficulties is just a lot. Through tears, I’ve been given a lot. In the past few months I’ve made more emergency room visits than I have in my entire life with conditions that just aren’t appropriate to say in a blog. I’ve watched results come back with numbers deceasing,

The hardest time of the year is here...cold and flu season...get all the tissues, electrolytes, soup, but be careful when reaching for...

If you're looking for the right "fit" Natural Family Planning method... here's a bunch of information all in one place about Creighton Model System to help you make the best decision for YOU! What does the term "Creighton Model System" (CrMS) or "Creighton Model Fertility Care " mean? CrMS is a method of Natural Family Planning. Different methods use different signs, symptoms and/or devices to help you track and understand your times of fertility and infertility. At a very ba

Estrogen Dominance is a bit of a catch phrase in the world of women's health and fertility right now. This is because many women suffer from symptoms of Estrogen Dominance, and/or they have been diagnosed with it. In her previous blog on Estrogen Dominance , Daria discussed what Estrogen Dominance is and how to navigate it so I highly suggest you read that blog as well. Today, I want to dive further into Estrogen Dominance and chat about environmental estrogens. No, estrogen

I started to share my story a couple weeks ago. I want to share more how I started teaching Creighton as a Registered Nurse. After I started teaching the introduction to NFP, I started reading more about the different methods . I loved that the Creighton model is based in so much research and that it works with doctors to help women through a variety of health concerns, not just planning and avoiding pregnancy . My husband and I started talking about how we would afford tra

Let’s take a trip down memory lane, to the time of my first follow-up after attending the Creighton Model Introductory Session. This is when Introductory Sessions and Follow-up Sessions were conducted strictly in-person, in that wild time of life known as “pre-Covid”. My husband and I showed up at our FertilityCare Practitioner’s home with our two weeks’ worth of hard-charting effort. He was as annoyingly calm and confident as he always is while I had butterflies in my sto

Have you ever had a profound calling from God you could not ignore? I have been blessed enough, this has happened to me many times in my...

This is a question I get all so often, most especially in the Catholic world. In case you aren’t familiar, normally when people ask me if Natural Family Planning can be used with a ‘ contraceptive mindset ’ or ‘contraceptively,’ what they’re really asking is if NFP can be used with bad intentions. Or, if NFP can be used faithfully by a Catholic to avoid a pregnancy. Sometimes I get asked by people with a half raised skeptical eyebrow, others with a curiosity of how NFP actual

In the world of reproductive health and family planning, the landscape is constantly evolving with new developments. One such development...

Anxiety is one of the most common problems I see when I work with couples, especially in women. Daria previously discussed how anxiety can affect charting and gave tips on how to overcome those struggles. Today, I want to share my story and talk about the link between anxiety, depression, and hormones. I was standing in a K-Mart (that tells you how long ago this was) when I suddenly got light-headed and started having tunnel vision. A little while later I was being transport

Pills in a cup I'm a little granola crunchy. Ok. I lie. I'm a lot of granola crunchy . Western medicine has failed me so many times that I could dedicate an entire website to it. But Western medicine is the reason my son is alive and I'm a HUGE fan of NaPRO Technology , so I'm not anti-Western medicine. I just tend towards going a natural route first. I completely understand why women turn to dietary changes (for the record I am 100% on board with that) and supplements to cu

Starting to observe and chart can be overwhelming. It is can feel impossible to keep charting especially when life gets busy or something...

It's no secret that when using any type of NFP, a period of abstinence is used during the fertile time of a woman’s cycle if the couple...

On Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, the priest will often ask the mothers or fathers in the congregation to stand for a special blessing. Blessings are, of course, great, but I want to speak to those who feel like they can’t stand up or who stand and feel a pang of grief as they do. The ones who long for biological motherhood or fatherhood. The ones whose children are already in Heaven. The ones whose families are split between earth and eternity. For many, hearing phrases like

Before starting this blog, I want to wish you a very happy Independence Day to you and your family. As I was reflecting on what a July 4th blog post would look like, it struck me that, as Americans, we understand and embrace a culture of independence. It's written in the core of our country and drives everything from bucking political systems to striving for individuality in our clothing, technology, and work. After further reflection, I really started to understand how Ferti

Dryness. The lack of any discharge. Not a single bit of anything. It is just the desert down there... I think you get what I am talking about. Being dry or seeing a lack of cervical mucus can be a good thing or sometimes a sign of an underlying issues. There are certain times in the cycle where we want to see no discharge and there are other times where we really need to have it present. So let's talk dryness! When Should You Be Dry? Having no discharge at all should/can occ

Using natural methods of fertility regulation (aka, "NFP", e.g., "Creighton") makes marriages stronger. You've probably even heard some people go so far as to say it's one way to "divorce proof" your marriage. That's a pretty extreme statement but statistically couples that use NFP do have a significantly lower divorce rate than the general population . It should follow then, that if you're using NFP, your marriage should be thriving, right? Dandy? Amazing? Passionate? Bette

Difficult conversations are that: they are difficult. A conversation about infertility, in its reality, can be very difficult. The road...