PCOS Archives

Tips for the Engaged and Charting

We are an engaged couple preparing for marriage. My fiancé and I are Catholic and talked a lot about our beliefs when we were first dating. One of those was Natural Family Planning (NFP). When we first got engaged, I made an appointment with a doctor who upheld Catholic teachings in her practice — including…

What You Don’t Know can Kill You

March is Blood Clot Awareness Month, an opportunity for valuable information about the risky condition to get into the hands of those who need it most. So how much have you heard about it in the media? More important, how many teenage girls and young women do you think are hearing about the dangers of…

Cleveland Professionals Get the FACTS

On Saturday, February 23, more than 80 area doctors, medical students and passionate laypeople gathered at the Hilton DoubleTree Hotel just outside Cleveland, Ohio. The issue at hand was women’s health, but not the way society at large tends to think of it. This conference wasn’t about increasing popular access to contraceptives or abortion. Quite…

Ditching the Pill …and Other Contraceptives

An excerpt from Marilyn M. Shannon’s book, Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition. **** Congratulations on your decision to discontinue birth control pills or other hormonal contraceptives! You have taken a giant step toward better health. As hormone specialist Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., has written, you cannot achieve optimum hormonal balance while you are on the Pill, because hormones…

Infertility 101: The Basics All Couples Should Know

From the Family Foundations archives. An excerpt from The Infertility Companion for Catholics: Spiritual and Practical Support for Couples, by Carmen Santamaria and Angelique Ruhi-Lopez, reprinted with permission from Ave Maria Press. **** What causes infertility? About a third of the time, infertility can be traced to a cause within the woman. In another third…

Shorter, Lighter and Pain-free Periods

Fun fact: A natural, healthy period should not be long, heavy or painful. You read that correctly: five days at most, only moderate flow, with no noticeable cramping. But when you think of having your period, what comes to mind? If you’re like most women who experience these negative symptoms (along with an array of…

NFP Uncensored: PCOS

NFP Uncensored is a series of candid accounts of the way NFP informs every aspect of life. You can follow the posts by searching for “NFP Uncensored” here in the Living the Love blog (use the search bar on the right-hand side of this page), or by searching #NFPUncensored on social media. Lying on a restaurant bathroom…

20 Reasons Why Our Members Chose NFP

We asked our members why they chose NFP. Here’s just a sampling of their answers: 1. “My wife did years ago because she didn’t want to take any more medications. She wants her health and wants to do things naturally.” – E.G. 2. “My husband was raised Catholic and I was baptized in the faith…

Isaac and Kaylene’s Love Story

Real couples really do use NFP, and we asked them to tell us their NFP story. We will be sharing them here on the blog — the good parts and the struggles. Each of these couples is writing their own love story, and have chosen to do so by following God’s plan for marriage. Here…

NFP Uncensored: Engaged and Charting

NFP Uncensored is a series of candid accounts of the way NFP informs every aspect of life. You can follow the posts by searching for “NFP Uncensored” here in the Living the Love blog (use the search bar on the righthand side of this page), or by searching #NFPUncensored on social media. Isn’t it romantic…