Natural Family Planning

Married love differs from any other love in the world. By its nature, the love of husband and wife is so complete, so ordered to a lifetime of communion with God and each other, that it is open to creating a new human being they will love and care for together.
 
http://www.usccb.org/laity/marriage/MarriedLove.pdf
 
NFP is a way of following God’s plan for achieving and/or avoiding pregnancy. It consists of ways to achieve or to avoid pregnancy for a just reason using the physical means that God has built into human nature.
 
The NFP requirement for the Diocese of Austin is an intro to NFP, however, you are encouraged to choose a method to learn and contact the instructors for further study. Many classes are now availble online. Please visit the following website for more information on virtual introduction classes:
http://www.austinfcc.org/services/couples/. 

Couple to Couple League- www.ccli.org
The Art of Natural Family Planning® with CCL Natural Family Planning is fertility awareness, the knowledge of a couple's fertility. It is a means of reading a woman's signs of fertility and infertility. The Couple to Couple League teaches three basic signs of fertility — temperature, mucus and cervix — and how to apply this knowledge through the Sympto-Thermal Method (STM) of NFP, which can be used both to achieve and to avoid or postpone pregnancy.
 
Billings Ovulation Method- www.boma-usa.org 
Couples using the Billings Ovulation Method track the woman's natural and unique signs of fertility and infertility each day. Based on the primary observation of sensation, four simple rules are applied within the woman's cycle (the first three rules are used before ovulation and the fourth rule is applied once the fertile phase is over) based on a couple's desire to achieve or postpone pregnancy.
 

The CrMS teaches women to observe certain biological signs to monitor their own gynecological health, and to identify times of fertility and infertility. These biological signs include cervical mucus and bleeding patterns, and can be observed and analyzed in all types of menstrual cycles. These signs are charted daily to give a picture of the woman's individual cycle. Doctors can use the fertility charts which couples are taught to keep as the basis for further investigations if needed.
 
*Cost for Introductory NFP classes and full course instruction vary and are separate.