Ep. 223: Developing a Prayerful Family Planning Mentality, with Laura Ducote

Do you pray about your family planning intentions? What are the moments when you feel drawn to offer up prayer to God? Is it when you really hope you *aren't* pregnant? Or when you truly pray that you *are*? Or can prayer offer more to us than just an opportunity to put in a "special request"? In today's episode, fellow FCP Laura Ducote and Caitlin talk about the role of prayer and discernment in natural family planning and how formative it can be for you, your marriage, and your children. Developing a prayerful family planning mentality doesn't happen instantly, but we talk through some things you can do today to begin welcoming God into this area of your life.

GUEST BIO: Laura Ducote is a Family Nurse Practitioner with training in NaProTechnology and is currently a FertilityCare Practitioner at Woven Natural Fertility Care. 

NOTE: This episode talks about discernment in family planning and intimacy, so it does include wording related to those topics. 

SHOW NOTES:

**Pre-order Woven Well: A Christian Woman's Guide for Reproductive Health, Fertility, and Wholeness here: https://www.wovenfertility.com/pre-order-woven-well

Ep. 38: Prayer Guide for the Female Body

Ep. 29: Should we think theologically about fertility? with Dr. Cameron Jorgenson

Ep. 213: Stewarding Your Cycles & Fertility as a Gift with Laura Ducote, FCP, FNP

Transcript

Caitlin Estes (00:25)

Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. As always, so grateful to have a friend of the podcast and fellow fertility care practitioner at Woven Natural Fertility Care with us, Laura Ducote. Laura. So glad to have you here.

Laura Ducote (00:38)

Thanks, Caitlin. It's a pleasure to be here. 

Caitlin Estes (00:41)

I enjoy our conversations because we're always very real. It's always off the cuff. And one of the things that I've been wanting to talk about is prayer as it relates to family planning. what is the role of prayer? And I think it's going to be a worthwhile episode to tackle together because I think it may not always be what people expect it to be, you know? And maybe that actually starts from the fact that people may not understand what natural family planning is first. Because prayer in natural family planning may take on a different role than using contraception or sterilization or something else. So maybe we should actually start there.

Laura Ducote (01:27)

I mean, I think it kind of speaks in the name a little bit of just that you're able to look at the natural rhythms of the female cycle and then be able to essentially plan your family around those times in the cycle that have fertile windows and infertile windows, depending upon, the discernment in prayer of where do you feel called in this season of family planning? Are you in a season of avoiding pregnancy or are you in a season of achieving pregnancy?

 Caitlin Estes (01:57)

yes. I think that many people get confused because it's so different than a contraceptive mentality. And so they may not necessarily know how to think about it in a different way. And I think there are also a lot of misconceptions around natural family planning in general first.

 You know, we're using our body's reproductive biomarkers to be able to identify a very specific window of fertility and then make decisions from there. But there are these misconceptions out there. We either think that natural family planning doesn't really work anyway, so it's not much help. Or sometimes people even think that it's sinful to do anything to prevent a pregnancy. I would say that there are issues with both of those.

 Certainly the first one, we know that there are methods of natural family planning that are incredibly accurate, like the Creighton model system, which is what we teach. But the other assumption is harder to treat as black and white because there is that discernment piece in planning a family. And you're right that that's where the prayer comes into it. When we're trying to decide, we actually get to make a decision.

 Whereas if you're using contraception, there's not really a decision to be made. The reproductive system has been shut down. And so you are assuming that any sort of intimacy would not lead to pregnancy. Here, you're able to know that window of fertility and then you're making a decision together as a couple. Are you going to be together during this time and potentially have a child or not? And so you have to be on the same page. So yeah.

 Prayer being a part of that, I think a lot of times we think it's just praying for the result that we want. know, like if you're avoiding pregnancy, Lord, please don't let us get pregnant. You know, please don't let that happen, you know, or the opposite when you're trying to conceive, Lord, please, please, please let this be fruitful and let us to conceive. So we kind of limit it to that sometimes.

 Laura Ducote (03:44)

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's where, to me, natural family planning is just, it's such an incredible gift because it opens us up to an amount of surrender and trust in our prayer life, I think, where, like, we are not saying, will over your will, Lord, but it really is truly like, your will be done. But I'm going to take the information that you have given me through these amazing instructors, through biology, through whatever means we've come to this knowledge. And I'm going to take this knowledge because you've given me an amazing intellect and all of these incredible resources. And none of those are bad things to have. mean, more knowledge is never a bad thing. It's just how we choose to use it.

 And so if in a place of responsible parenthood, we're being called to use that knowledge to avoid pregnancy, and that's what we've received in prayer, that's what we have discerned as a couple, and we feel unified in that. I think that's the other piece of discernment is that whenever he's speaking to a husband and wife, like there are two parts of that discernment. And whenever there's not unity between the spouses, that usually means we need to take it to prayer a little bit longer. But whenever there is unity between the spouses of yes, I really do feel specifically at peace with this decision. And my husband feels the same way. That's usually a pretty decent indicator that the Lord is speaking to both of us in the same way. You know, he can sometimes be moving one heart a little bit quicker than another or things like that. And then there's, of course, the piece of are we both truly praying about it? You know, that's an underlying factor of that also. So I mean, there's so many pieces that we could get into when it comes to discernment, but I just think it's such a gift that we can always say, Lord, this is what we think we've received in prayer. This is what we think you're calling us to. We're going to use the information that we have to plan our family according to this discernment.

 But we know that you are the author of life and you could potentially intervene at any moment. so really, you know, those moments of intimacy with your spouse, I, for us, that's been an area that we just, we just know there can be so much that the enemy can do there. And so it's a place that we have been very intentional from the start of our marriage to be praying, you know, very specifically before every time we are together, like from wedding night on. And so one of our prayers is always just that if it is not what we think, that he will, you know, he will make our hearts open to whatever he chooses to do with that time of unity for us, you know, that there's always grace to be had there, whether a child is conceived or not. But, you know, if it's a time of infertility that we're not expecting to be pregnant, and that is something that he potentially allows, you know, of course, those times are pretty rare. But then we just have this disposition that, okay, Lord, you know, like, we know that if you've allowed something, that it's for our good, the good of this child, like, you don't make mistakes. Like, you are all that is good. And so even if we're in a place where it feels scary, or it's going to require a lot of responsibility from us or things like that, we just have a kind of understanding, but at least between the two of us that it's just, you know, it's all within his hands, no matter really what happens.

 Caitlin Estes (07:38)

Yeah. The fact that so often when it comes to family planning, we think that the responsibility is on us. And yes, we do have a responsibility, but we are not the ultimate only creator of life. God is the creator of life. And so the fact that we get to partner with God, to be able to bring life into this world is truly an incredible gift. And so it also takes a little bit of the pressure off of our shoulders. Like it's not only up to us, we are open to working with God who is the creator of life. So there is a difference here between this openness to life, which means that we have agency, we can make decisions, God is inviting us to participate in this decision-making process because he loves us and he values our perspective and opinion and our desires and and he wants to partner with us to do that. And there's a difference between that and just well, God's going to do what God's going to do and we don't have any say in it anyway, so there's nothing we can do. That's in both in both scenarios. God's still the creator of life, but there is an important distinction there between the two.

 Laura Ducote (09:07)

Exactly.

 Caitlin Estes (09:13)

God does want to invite us into the process and we know that because of how he designed biology. We can look at how he designed the male and female reproductive systems and the fact that we can identify that fertile time when a husband and wife can come together and that we do have a way to participate there.

 Laura Ducote (09:20)

Yes, yes,

 Caitlin Estes (09:36)

And what a gift. He didn't have to do that. He could have said, new life is going to happen whenever I want it to, and it's going to happen instantaneously and the people aren't going to have any sort of a say, but that's not the heart of our God. Our God loves us and wants to be in deep trusting relationship with us. And so we can trust him with this area of our life, not in a sense of, well, that means we don't have any say but that we can come to him, we can discern, we can be open, we can be prayerful. And so that big picture perspective really informs how we approach that discernment process, how we approach prayer individually. So let's talk a little bit about what that prayer can look like on an individual basis. I mentioned a minute ago that a lot of times when we think of prayer for family planning, we think of ‘Lord, please don't let it happen’ or ‘Lord, please, please, please let it happen.’ I think both of those prayers are acceptable. know, any prayer to God is welcome. yes, yes, yes, he already knows it's in our heart. So it's OK to say it out loud. But what what could prayer also look like? What are other options for prayer within family planning?

 Laura Ducote (10:39)

Yeah, he wants to really know what's going on. He does. Not, he already does.

 The first one that comes to mind for me too is also if we are in a season of being open to conception, if we're in a season of potentially even like really trying, you know, like I feel like there's a difference a little bit, but you know, in the Creighton model, we say, you know, it's really like, you know, if you're using infertile day, you are in a achieving pregnancy category. But just the thought of my child, like knowing those days and knowing that it is quite likely that we could conceive if we use those days, for us has always meant that, Lord, if we conceive a child, which we know is quite possible in using one of these days, like there is somewhat of a responsibility that we can feel in knowing that we're using days like this time together could result in a child being conceived is, you know, Lord, like we want this little child to know that they have been loved and wanted from the moment of their conception. Like, please, Lord, like allow this moment of their conception if it is your will in this time for them to feel like, you know, that they were created in love because that's really and truly like that is the reality for all of us. Like that we were actually created in love because the father loves us. Like the Trinity is surrounding us in a moment of love at our conception, regardless of the scenario. But like we as parents, we want that to be even extended further as like, you know, conceiving in love from our union as well, like that's the disposition. But I also think that the time in prayer even prior to can really be like I was mentioning before, like an individual discernment, like not a joint prayer. But in knowing that our cycles work one cycle at a time, I tend to find that us essentially praying about the next month prior to getting into the fertile window is usually best, know, like maybe at the end of the last cycle, you know, when the next cycle is beginning, you know, something like that of like a, okay, Lord, like this was our discernment for last month. Is this still what you want for us, you know, coming together about talking about those things? But also, just because like in the heat of the moment, once you get into the fertile window, if you are not totally resolved in an avoiding season of pregnancy, you may not stick to that discernment.

 Caitlin Estes (13:37)

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It's really good encouragement things to think about in your prayer life as you approach it and you know I want to say too that our individual prayer lives are going to be as individual as we are as people. So they're going to look different and certainly the examples that we give and the recommendations that we make are not like this blanket expectation for all the listeners or anything like that but we're just sharing some thoughts and some experiences that we think could be helpful as you're thinking about this in a new way. So you know you and your spouse listener you may not specifically choose to have a prayer time together right before you are intimate together. That's okay you may have that general prayer that begins to become a part of your prayer life like you're talking about on a monthly basis. Just getting to the place where you're actually thinking about it and praying about it in general may be a brand new thing for you. So learning that we can take this to the Lord and that we can also receive direction from the Lord as it relates to this. bringing that up, having it be a regular thing, it doesn't mean it has to be on your mind every single day of the month, every single time. It's not this stressful thing. It's more of a release that we have. We have knowledge and we have trust. So we understand what's going on in the cycle at different points like you're talking about. We get to make informed decisions and we can trust that the God who is the creator of all life can be trusted with the final outcome and that it will be for our good no matter which direction

 It goes. So keeping all of that in mind as we approach prayer and discernment, I think is really helpful. Whatever that may look like. Last little bit, we've talked a little bit about how husbands and wives together are having to discern this because it's not just up to one or the other. When we think about as a couple how to make this decision, I think it takes intentionality.

 I think we have to actually be talking about this. And sometimes that can be awkward, especially if a couple is coming from a background of using contraception and now switching over to natural family planning. Any thoughts or encouragement there when it comes to discerning together as a couple?

 Laura Ducote (16:09)

Yeah, there's a lot I could say, but I...

 Caitlin Estes (16:14)

I know, I'm sitting here thinking, this needs to be two episodes, but keep going.

 Laura Ducote (16:18)

But I do think that in the in the culture that we live in like growing up those sorts of things like it felt very much like God isn't in the bedroom, you know, like that doesn't that doesn't even feel right. That feels weird. That takes away the sexiness of it. Whatever you want to but like I just want to even just speak to the concept of him being in this part of your life like very, very intimately, like just the thought that he is the one that created this type of union to continue the human race. And so he absolutely wants to be invited in like the Holy Spirit working through you and your spouse in this moment of intimacy is so beautiful, regardless of what happens from a fertility or conception standpoint. There is so much grace to be had in this moment when the, and even if it's just baby steps of allowing him into this part of our lives. And so I just think that, you know, if we really are wanting to add this into prayer, like just whatever your usual prayer life looks like right now, just having a little thing that can get added on to say, Lord, like help me in this area or like allow me to hear you regarding this decision too. Like if it's just not a thing that you have thought about asking him about before.

 Caitlin Estes (17:55)

Yeah, I love That openness, honesty with God. Like, Lord, I'm trying to think about this in a prayerful way for the first time ever. And I don't know what that looks like. And it feels weird to even say this. So this is going to be my first prayer. Okay. Just that it's weird. That's a great place to start. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It just needs to be real. That's all that the Lord is looking for. So

 Laura Ducote (18:15)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

 Caitlin Estes (18:26)

Okay, we're gonna have to definitely do another one related to this because this I feel like just was enough to scratch the surface. But I really appreciate you coming on and chatting about this.

 Laura Ducote (18:39)

Yes, very thankful to be sharing with everyone today.

 Caitlin Estes (18:43)

Listeners, one good thing is there are whole sections of my new book dedicated to questions about birth control, natural family planning, communication with your spouse and discernment. So if you're looking for practical guidance paired with a faithful foundation and real stories from other couples who have walked this journey, now is the perfect time to pre-order it. You're still eligible for all the pre-order bonuses and goodies, but remember these are only available leading up to book publication which is in early July, so ordering now means that you can actually get all the extra fun stuff. So if that's important to you, make sure to check out the link in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.