Thursday, March 20, 2014

Celebration of Marriage During Worldwide FertilityCare Week - March 23-29, 2014


 Friends of Fertility Care ENews Philadelphia

This year's theme for Worldwide FertilityCare Week, March 23-29, 2014, "Build a strong, healthy, life-giving, faith-filled marriage," celebrates the profound effect the Creighton Model FertilityCare System [CrMS] has on marriage. Couples using the CrMS communicate regularly about their fertility and pregnancy-related intentions.  Necessarily, they experience not only greater sexual freedom but deeper unity and intimacy as well.

 As we celebrate Worldwide FertilityCare Week, what a better way to understand the theme of  "building a strong, faith-filled marriage," than to hear a personal story of a marriage built on the Creighton Model FertilityCare System.

 Helene & John's Personal story

My husband and I started using the Creighton Model FertilityCare System [CrMS]  before we were married to help diagnose the premenstrual symptoms that I had been experiencing for many years, such as painful cramping [which sometimes required the use of Tylenol #3 and sick days from work], brown bleeding, and depression.  We were both involved in the method. I would do the observations and my husband would record them on the chart.  The more we participated in this endeavor, the more we grew together. The involvement allowed us to live chastely while developing a more intimate and spiritual relationship.  After some cycles of tutelage by Barbara Rose, FertilityCare practitioner, charting and confirmation by blood work, it was determined that my progesterone levels were below the normal range.  This meant that when we would consummate our marriage and if we conceived a child, there was a high risk of miscarriage and pre-term labor by which we could lose a child.

Closer to our wedding date in May of 2005, I began oral progesterone therapy during the ten days surrounding my peak fertility days, which helped to alleviate the symptoms I had been experiencing over time as well as ensure that a pregnancy could be sustained.  Our plan was to try to have children as soon as possible.  Within three months of taking the oral progesterone, we were successful in conceiving our first child!  We were also able to determine the pregnancy two weeks after conception by the charting that we used.  After further confirming the pregnancy with our obstetrician, Dr. Brigida de Guzman-Cam, I was placed on oil progesterone injections twice a week.  As the pregnancy progressed, so did my natural production of progesterone and I was able to stop the injections at about 24 weeks.

My husband and I were not sure what to expect when we began using the Creighton Model.  Needless to say, we are ecstactic with the success we have achieved by using this non-invasive method of fertility.  It has allowed us to grow as a family spiritually and literally!  Had we not been led to Dr. de Guzman and subsequently to Barbara Rose, we may not have found practitioners who understood of our desire to achieve safe and healthy fertility practices and our life as we know it today would not be possible.

March 2014 Update: We have welcomed a total so far of four healthy and active boys with the help of NaPro Technology. We are truly blessed to have been able to avoid miscarriage thanks to this natural method of family planning and authentic fertility care.


This is a perfect ending story for celebrating the Worldwide FertilityCare Week.   Helene & John also feel very strongly that this is why we believe there really needs to be a Gianna center in the Philadelphia region.


 The Friends of FertilityCare Philadelphia are a group of health care professionals and members of our community who wish to promote effective, integrated health care for women and couples. To that end, the Friends of FertilityCare are dedicated to making Creighton Model FertilityCare services and NaProTechnology known, respected and applied throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. The primary intention of the Friends of FertilityCare is to educate all people in the "good news" of Creighton Model FertilityCare System and NaProTechnology.  For more information on this group, use this link

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