Creighton to Achieve Pregnancy

I'll start with a disclaimer. I understand I'm treading on potentially insensitive and dangerous territory here with the Catholic infertility blogger group. And I'm well aware that I'm not considered infertile by common standards (we've only been trying for six months.) And I know well by reading the stories of some wonderful women that Creighton has helped them diagnose possible health conditions.

That said, I'd like to offer my perspective and what I learned or did not learn from Creighton and NFP. As I mentioned a few posts back, my husband and I had to learn NFP to get married at our parish. We were alternately learning the method and being scolded for not abstaining before the wedding. Feel free to judge. The method of teaching was geared toward learning when to have sex to AVOID pregnancy. Using NFP and charting to diagnose gynecological issues or ACHIEVE pregnancy was not mentioned. Because of our one year moratorium on trying to get pregnant, I ignored my Creighton booklet. There was fun to be had during that year! In addition, I didn't have anything unusual with my cycles. No breakthrough spotting. Regular cycles. Mucus was sometimes better than other months, but it looked pretty good to me. So, no worries on my part.

After conception attempt #1 failed, I started reading that booklet in earnest. I came across something important.

As a general rule when a couple utilizes the days of Peak fertility, the chances they will achieve a pregnancy are extremely high. A published survey of 50 pregnancies indicates that 76.0 percent of couples (of normal fertility) [my italics] became pregnant in the very first cycle [book bolded] in which they utilized the days of fertility. While the days of fertility which are listed in the basic method instructions have been developed to provide a method which is highly reliable to avoid pregnancy, some of the instructions are less effective [my italics] when actually used to achieve a pregnancy.

My issue with this section is what is "normal fertility?" Who the heck are these people? Where is the reference to the published study? The confusion continues...

"Use days of greatest quantity and quality and first two days afterward" This instruction has been developed upon a common sense [my italics] assertion that there would be the days of highest fertility during the course of the menstrual cycle. However, it should be made clear that, at the present time, there is not an organized set of data which specifically proves this instruction [my italics].

Should I ever have had faith in Creighton to help me get pregnant? Should my instructor have emphasized that this is not really what Creighton and charting is for? Did I just not do enough research on my own? My now pregnant best girlfriend... I refer to her as best girlfriend because I consider my hubby my best friend. :) She suggested an obsessive use of ovu.lation predictor kits and Pre-Seed lub.ricant. I need to feel confident in something!