Natural family planning “under the guidance of the Holy Spirit”
Finola Glassmoyer, a parishioner of Church of the Nativity Parish in Menlo Park, is a certified teacher of the Billings method of natural family planning. She and her husband, Gary, have been married for 16 years and are parents to two teenage sons, – both conceived through Natural family planning.
“Artificial contraception was not an option in our marriage,” Glassmoyer told Catholic San Francisco. She noted that her non-Catholic husband “was supportive that NFP was the only acceptable means to space pregnancies for me, and so it became a way of life.”
“I always believed that to deliberately artificially contracept was to make a decision that went against Church teaching,” Glassmoyer said. “I just knew in my heart that the Church’s teaching was wise and prudent and if the pope spoke definitively about an aspect of procreation then he did so under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
Glassmoyer, a nurse with a specialty in obstetrics and gynecology, is the daughter of a physician. “It helped that I grew up in a family where my father was a family practice doctor, NFP only,” she said. “That probably played a part in forming my beliefs on the subject.”
Glassmoyer pointed out that “NFP-only physicians nowadays are few and you have to travel in the Bay Area to find one.”
Natural family planning refers to forms of birth regulation which, in conformity with Catholic teaching, do not involve use of any artificial means of contraception.
Here is a more extensive definition of NFP from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ NFP website: NFP is an umbrella term for certain methods used to achieve and avoid pregnancies. These methods are based on observation of the naturally occurring signs and symptoms of the fertile and infertile phases of a woman’s menstrual cycle. Couples using NFP to avoid pregnancy abstain from intercourse and genital contact during the fertile phase of the woman’s cycle. No drugs, devices, or surgical procedures are used to avoid pregnancy.
Three NFP methods are available to couples. The oldest is the Billings Ovulation Method. The Creighton Method, like the Billings, is based on mucus observations. The third model, the Sympto-Thermal Method, combines mucus observations with daily temperature taking.
Glassmoyer admits that NFP takes some patience: “Practicing NFP required some effort and self-discipline on our parts, but we knew that waiting is temporary and we accepted it.”
She noted that, in her experience, “NFP users are typically more open to life than non-NFP users and often have large families.” She counts herself among those who she says “are more at one with nature and more eager to embrace life and view (children) as God blessing their marriage.”
Glassmoyer, who is an NFP teacher recommended by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, thanks Gloria Gillogley, a pioneer in NFP instruction in the archdiocese, for getting her started as a natural family planning teacher. “Gloria’s instruction was very thorough and her enthusiasm inspired me to want to spread this message to other couples,” she said.
Additional training in the Billings method and interfacing with other teachers as well as “priests and doctors who are all promoters of NFP” led her to “realize, sadly, that NFP is the best well-kept secret there is.”
NFP is “poorly understood,” Glassmoyer said “and often confused with the ‘rhythm method’ or ‘calendar method’ which was an old method based on every woman having a 28-day cycle and, of course, that is not the case. It was what gave way to ‘What do you call people who practice the rhythm method? Parents.’”
NFP instructors do not have to have a medical background, Glassmoyer said, though sometimes people from the field find it appealing. “A teacher training is all that is required and certification by teaching a few couples within a six-month period after training.” She said physicians learn little about NFP in medical school: “I remember after the birth of my first child the doctor asked me ‘How does natural family planning work?’”
Pat and Deacon Bill Turrentine of St. Rita Parish in Fairfax have been married for 31 years and are certified NFP teachers. They are the parents of five sons, ages 29 to 15.
“When we were married, we did not understand that the Church had a formal – and binding – teaching against the use of contraception and in favor of openness to life,” the couple told Catholic San Francisco. “When we discovered ‘Humanae Vitae’, Pope Paul VI’s letter that reaffirmed and explained the Church’s continuous tradition regarding married sexuality, it seemed like a great burden, a real way of the Cross. To our surprise, however, when we embarked on this way of the Cross, we found that it leads to new life.
“From our new perspective as users of natural family planning,” Deacon Turrentine said, “we realized that there is something exploitative about contraception and something liberating about the law of love that God has written in our hearts and made known to us through the Church. This is a difficult teaching, but it leads to a deeper love between husband and wife and to a deeper relationship with God.”
The Turrentines read “Humanae Vitae” in 1979 and immediately realized they needed to learn NFP. They chose the Billings method.
“It was a struggle at first, and our first son planned by God was somewhat of a surprise to us, born in September 1980,” Deacon Turrentine said.
The Turrentines then changed to the Sympto-Thermal method. The new method made a huge difference in their ability to interpret the signs of fertility, Deacon Turrentine said.
“With no more surprises – except that they were all boys – we have been blessed with four more sons,” he said.
The Turrentines found that NFP improved their communication over the years and helped them form deeper relationships with God.
“NFP was such a blessing to us, we decided to become teachers through the Couple to Couple League (CCL) in 1985 and have been teaching classes ever since,” Deacon Turrentine said. “CCL is a wonderful organization of volunteer teaching couples and promoters. We need more teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area.”
The Turrentines can be reached through the Couple to Couple League at www.ccli.org.
The Archdiocese of San Francisco supports natural family planning as the preferred method of regulating birth and recommends its use both for couples who need to delay a pregnancy as well as those trying to become pregnant, said Deacon John Norris, director of pastoral ministry for the archdiocese.
“While we do not have qualified instructors on our staff or available to us as volunteers, all of our Marriage Preparation programs promote the use of NFP and refer people to the Archdiocesan Office of Marriage and Family Life, where a list of available programs is available,” he said.
Deacon Norris noted that interested couples may also visit the website of the Couple to Couple League for the names of professionals in the Bay Area who offer these classes.
By Tom Burke
From October 2, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
NFP resources
TEACHERS
• Billings Ovulation Method
Susan McConneloug, (415) 459-3860, Susan@vitalityandfertility.com; Finola Glassmoyer, RN, (650) 365-3049, love2pray@gmail.com
• Creighton Model
Gloria Gillogley, NFPP; (650) 345-9076. Spanish and English Classes: Dolores Moreno, CFCP, (408) 947-2847, DoloresMoreno@dochs.org, Jenny S. Perez, CFCP, (408) 947-2847, JennyPerez@dochs.org
WEBSITES
• www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/nfp/index.shtml. U.S. bishops’ site.
• www.boma-usa.com/ Billings instructors nationwide are listed on this site.
• www.woomb.org/index.html. Information on the Billings method, translated into many languages.
• www.naprotechnology.com/index.html. Information on the Creighton method. This method is used at NaProTechnology, a program of the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Nebraska.
• www.nfpprog.com/how_nfp_works/symptothermal.htm. Information on the Sympto-Thermal method.
• www.canfp.org/ California Association of Natural Family Planning.
• www.nfpcharting.com/. A site where the woman can chart her daily observations.
