For the past month, Jes and I have been taking a Natural Family Planning class at St. Agnes Hospital.
There’s lots of talk about vaginas and cervixes and mucus and menstruation and cycles and hormones. That aside, it’s an amazing thing to go through with someone you love and trust as much as I love and trust Jes. Seriously. The things that you can live your whole, entire life not knowing about your body (or a woman’s body) will shock you. NFP (which also coincidentally stands for Natural, Free and Partnership.) was suggested to us by Father Peter while we were engaged in pre-cana. It’s the officially-sanctioned “birth control” method of the Catholic Church so he kinda had to bring it up. Who knew that it would be so interesting? Or free?
Care to not jack your wife up on hormones as if you were Frank Perdue?
I’ll tell you this for free…
Everyone knows that a woman’s body has a monthly routine. If not, they should catch up. Some of the natural science behind the cycle may not be so well known to the average person (or woman!). Once per month the pituitary gland secretes estrogen into the woman’s system prompting the release of an egg from the ovary. This egg has 24(!) hours to travel the inches separating the ovary from the uterus, and get fertilized by her man’s sperm, otherwise it will die and be passed from the body in a method we are all familiar with. A short time after the release of the egg, the body begins to prepare for the possibility of pregnancy and releases progesterone. The progesterone initiates a distinct rise in the basal body temperature. Because this very distinct point in time is critical to determining when a woman becomes fertile and for how long she will be fertile, monitoring the basal body temperature becomes imperative.
Let’s talk Mucus…
Along with charting the temperature to determine ovulation, it’s a good idea to also monitor the lubricative mucus secreted by the cervix. Since the egg can only live a relatively short period of time without being fertilized, the cervix aids nature in it’s chances of creating another person. While the ovary is busy producing the egg, the cervix begins to literally froth with a dense, clear mucus which will shelter and nourish sperm from the harsh pH of the vagina for up to seven days. The cervix also begins to dilate slightly and raises so that it’s opening is pointing almost directly at the mouth of the vagina. The cervix does a lot of the work in making a baby happen. Analyzation of this mucus is also a requirement of the method, wiping it from a tissue with your fingers, noting the color, the consistency and, yes, the stretchiness of it. The more clear and the more stretchy, the closer you are to ovulation and the better the chances that intercourse will lead to conception.
Now WE have a routine…
This is why every morning Jes wakes up momentarily at 6:30 and places an electronic thermometer into her mouth and charts her temperature. At the end of the month, the chart makes it very obvious on what day that egg burst through the ovary wall and started it’s day-long trip down to the uterus. And at least 15 times a month we have a chance to be truly intimate – no libido-compromising hormone additives, no latex, just me and my lovely bride.
And her cervical mucus.
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