What is the longest that you have known of a childless couple to use NFP to avoid pregnancy? What is the average length of time that childless couples of your acquaintance used NFP to avoid pregnancy?
As always, feel free to comment anonymously.
How long did you seriously use NFP to avoid pregnancy while childless? What is the longest that you know of among your friends/acquaintances?
We use it, my youngest turns 7 soon so it’s worked for us for years. We use Billings and are careful to follow the rules.
We use it, but don’t know anyone else who does. We’ve been married for three years and so far no pregnancies.
Once we had an older couple w/no children learn NFP to prevent pregnancy. I was always confused by that–they never did have kids at all. But I always figured it’s not my place to be getting in people’s faces about their reasons. Maybe there was some health concern; a pregnancy would have been dangerous.
We postponed pregnancy for a little over 18 months. And then waited another 3 years while we tried to conceive.
I seriously learned about NFP to prevent pregnancy after our first two children were born (due to extreme financial hardship we knew God was calling us to wait for more) and we went for 5 years with no pregnancies.
I know that doesn’t answer your questions specifically, but we were never childless once we were married and don’t know if any of our childless friends are practicing NFP or not.
We’ve been married/using NFP (CCL STM) to prevent pregnancy for almost 3 years. My sister and her husband (who are the only others I know use it) have also been married almost 3 years and are about 3 months along with their first pregnancy. (For the record, it wasn’t a surprise; so I guess they used NFP for about 2.5 years.)
It was about 8 months for us that we used NFP to prevent before starting TTC.
I’m loving seeing all of these beautiful answers – they truly illustrate what NFP is all about – discernment prayerfully in the presence of God.
I’ve known some couples who have stayed childless through NFP. I guess it prevented them from having kids for about a year or so. NFP is still a hard challenge for many but it is feasible.
My parents used nfp and had my brother and I, three years apart. They were 33 when they had their last child and used nfp until my mom needed a hysterectomy when she was 45 (I don’t think she had fully finished menopause yet).
Oh – and average time? Most couples we know who used nfp got pregnant within the first year of marriage. We conceived our first two years into marriage; there were a few couples we knew using nfp who didn’t get pregnant until later than that but definitely not the majority.