Worth Working For
Interview With a Veteran NFP Instructor
by Simcha Fisher
in Marriage
on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 6:00 AM
Kathy Rivet has seen so many clients across her desk, she can read a chart better upside-down: she’s been teaching NFP for more than 30 years. As a Creighton Model Certified FertiltyCare Practitioner and Educator, she says some of her clients
“are the babies of clients from years ago. [One man] said that he remembered coming with his parents ... and playing with the toys in my office while they were being taught. When he became engaged he said it was a no-brainer: of course they would come and learn so they could have this in their marriage.”
But her encounters are not always so genial:
“The most difficult is when people think they know what I do, but they really don’t. It is hard to educate someone who already thinks they know something. It is even harder to educate someone who doesn’t know what they don’t know.”
Many people don’t know, for instance, that that most couples who practice NFP have more sex than those who don’t. Kathy says, “In my experience this is true ... I once had a couple come to learn the method because they said their sex life needed a recharge.”
When she first started out, she used to fret that one of her clients might have a surprise pregnancy because of some flaw in her teaching. Now, however, she feels at ease about her clients’ ability to postpone pregnancy using the Creighton model. What keeps her awake at night is her concern over the many couples who desperately want to conceive.
“Right now,” she says, her Creighton clients comprise “about 50 % who want to achieve [a pregnancy] and 50% who want to avoid. When I first began teaching 30 years ago, it was about 10% who wanted to achieve.” However, she says that the Creighton Model has been shown to be “even more effective to achieve pregnancy than IVF.”
When she first started teaching NFP, she had no books or materials, and even taught with homemade charts.
“I remember in the early days when we would see some of these biomarkers on the chart, like pre-menstrual spotting, brown bleeding, and limited cervical mucus, and did not know what they meant. Today ... we know what these things mean, and there are protocols to manage and treat the causes.
[Now there is] help for women suffering from severe PMS .... [We can identify] biomarkers that put women at risk for endometriosis and refer them for early diagnosis and treatment that preserves their fertility.”
She can also identify the biomarkers of women who are at risk for miscarriage, and help them to save their babies.
With the growing respect in the medical profession for NaProTechnology has come increased interest among secular people, who do not have the Church to guide them in their decisions about fertility:
“Many women have changed their [sexual] behavior when they see their fertility as a gift that they are squandering on a man who is not respectful or grateful of this gift. It makes women more independent, confident and they appreciate their fertility more.”
Over the decades, Kathy has seen changes in attitude among Catholics, as well:
“When Humane Vitae was first released, it was not understood, and there were many dissenters ... the thought was “how can we live with this teaching and not have 20 kids?” The Humanae Vitae generation is older now and many are past their reproductive years.
Today, couples see the teachings differently because they know there are viable options for them if they choose to follow their church’s teachings. [Church] documents are more available and taught without apologies as something beautiful and attainable. Something that is good for their marriage.”
Kathy’s profession puts her in a unique position: not only does she diagnose and help to treat her clients’ medical conditions, but she must be a neutral and patient witness to their emotional and ethical struggles. She says,
“People’s emotions are real and I feel privileged if they are comfortable enough with me to share them ... My approach is to give the couple a safe and supportive atmosphere to share their feelings in.”
She remembers teaching a couple who, at a follow-up appointment, sheepishly brought out a chart that had been torn apart in frustration, and then carefully taped back together.
“The important point here,” she says, “was that they taped the chart back together and came in for the follow-up. Anything that is worthwhile is worth working for.”
—Simcha Fisher is a mother of eight who writes from her home in New Hampshire. She blogs at I Have to Sit Down.
Kathy Rivet can be reached at KRivet [at] sjhnh [dot] org
Resources:
NFP in general:
For Creighton model specifically, Kathy recommends attending an introductory session. For a practitioner in your area, see FertilityCare.org. Long distance training is also available.
Church teaching on NFP and other life issues:
Humanae Vitae (1968 Papal Encyclical)
“Donum Vitae” (from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith)
Interested in becoming a practitioner?
Kathy calls it “a great profession that blends science, medicine, evangelization, teaching, counseling and marketing”—with flexible hours. See AAFCP.org.
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