Ep. 133: 4 Tips for Success with Creighton Model Charting

It's normal to feel nervous before trying something new, and when that new thing is a fertility appreciation method like Creighton Model System, it can feel like a very big deal. How can you be successful with Creighton? What's the key to successful use of this fertility awareness based method? I've thought over my years as a Certified FertilityCare Practitioner teaching the Creighton System to share 4 tips that I see my most successful and confident learners practice. These are not rocket science, but they are effective -- and that's what counts. Enjoy the episode!

NOTE: This episode is appropriate for all audiences.

Episodes about Creighton Model System:
Fertility Method of Choice: Creighton
Can I really use Creighton myself??
Creighton vs. NaProTechnology: What's the difference?
Choosing a Natural Family Planning Method

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Transcript

Caitlin: 0:06

Welcome to the Woven Well Podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Estes. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master of divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. If this is your first time joining us or you're relatively new to the show, I'm a certified for fertility care practitioner who teaches the Creighton Model system. And today we're going to be learning about four tips that can help anyone be successful with learning. Now, you may already be familiar with terms like fertility awareness methods or natural family planning. And if so, then you're in the right area when it comes to thinking about Creighton. Creighton is a fertility appreciation method that utilizes cervical mucus to identify where you are in your cycle, whether you're fertile or infertile, and even gives you signs related to underlying reproductive health concerns. So when you're using Creighton, you can also work with OBGYN's trained in NaPro technology, which is a field of reproductive science that actually uses your Creighton charting to help diagnose and treat your particular concerns. So it's pretty great and we've talked about it quite a bit over the years. So I'll be sure to link a few episodes for you in the show notes if you're interested in learning more about Creighton itself. But one of the questions I get over and over again over the years is, how can I be the most successful with Creighton? What does it take to be successful? Do you have any special tips? And so I've been thinking about that a little bit, and so I've come up with four tips that can help you truly be successful with Creighton. Now, I first want to say that I'm a big believer in the fact that anyone can use Creighton. It is a very accessible option whether you are avoiding pregnancy, trying to conceive, or you're working on identifying underlying health issues. So you can do it. If you're willing to learn it and practice it, then you very well can use it successfully already. But I've worked with hundreds of clients over the years and I've found that there are a few things that can sometimes make that whole process much, much easier. So it's not their intellect or the amount of free time they have or their financial status, it's instead few basic things that anyone can utilize in learning the Creighton system. So these are the ones I'm going to share with you today. Number one, commit to the bit . So this is a term sometimes used by comedians or actors when they need to basically stay in character in order to make the most impact for the joke or the storyline. Sometimes it can be awkward or just a really challenging situation. And if they didn't keep going in that scene, then they would never get the laugh or land the scene or whatever it is that they need to do to make the most impact. So I like it because the phrase is both easy to remember and it really gets that message across because when you get started with Creighton, it's going to a new experience. Most likely you've never observed your cervical mucus before. And even if you have, we're going to be asking you to do it in a very specific and unique way. So commit to the bit except that this is something new. And just go all in. Everybody has certain expectations or assumptions that they have when they come into anything new, but do your best to identify what those are and just sort of set them to the side and instead, trust your practitioner in the learning process. Because I can guarantee you, I want you to be successful just as much as you do, and my job is to actually walk with you along the learning process and help you get to a place where you are knowledgeable and confident and able to sustain your use of the Creighton system throughout your reproductive life. So trust that process. Those clients who are successful and the ones that are very quickly successful are those who just decide to go ahead and jump in fully. But if you are hesitant to do what your practitioner suggests or even to believe that it's going to work for you, then you are more likely to struggle but unnecessarily. So remember, commit to the bit. Believe that what's going to come out on the other side is going to be worth it even if you feel uncertain at the start. Alright , tip number two, be honest with your practitioner. So we are on your side. We are here to help. You do not need to come in any session having to prove yourself or wow us with your knowledge and ability, okay? Just be yourself, be honest with what you're experiencing. We expect you to show up to that first session, by the way, knowing nothing. So that's okay. People always want to make sure that I know that they don't know anything about it. Yeah, I don't expect you to, and that's okay. You know, we want to teach you a little bit more and more every time we meet. We want to help you as you learn and as you practice. So especially I never want you to feel like you have to hide when you're struggling. If you find some aspect of Creighton, especially challenging, I want to know about it. It's not because then I'll know, oh, well she can't do it. Or man, she's really struggling and she's going to be a hard student to teach. No, not at all. But instead, because everyone struggles with some aspect or another with Creighton, everyone struggles with some aspect or another of any new thing that they learn. So it's my job to help you be successful anyway, to work with you through the struggles and to make it easier in the process. So if I know what that struggle is, then we can get straight to it and you can feel so much more comfortable in the process. So feel free to always share that with me. I want to help you brainstorm ideas and flesh out ways to make it easier. And even check in on how did those things go? Did they work great? If they didn't, then I want to help you come up with other things that we can do instead. Again, my job is to help your learning of the Creighton system be as easy as possible. So if you hide all that from me because you're afraid of doing it wrong or getting it wrong, then neither of us benefits. We don't want that. I'm teaching because I love to teach. I'm here to help because I want to help. So please don't ever convince yourself that you should understand everything the first time, or remember exactly what I said the week before. Like, ask your questions, share the struggles, trust that I'm on your side and I want to help you succeed. Alright , tip number three, attend your education sessions. I told you these would be easy, but really attend your education sessions. The Creighton system is designed to be learned in a specific way and in a specific timeline. So I am never throwing out the suggestion of meeting again, but maybe you don't need to. The only time I would do that is if I'm asking you if you feel like another session would be helpful for you or not. But there is a structured way that we go about learning the Creighton system and there's a reason why. So we schedule four initial education sessions that are designed to slowly and thoroughly teach you the Creighton system. There's also going to be light reading and homework assignments that are designed to help you digest new information. So please do the reading, do the homework. These are not for a grade. They're to help you understand the material. And then during these first sessions especially, we're going to be building on knowledge as we go. So never feel like you have to know everything in the first session or the second one. We are going to be building more and more information as we go. This is also why attending all the sessions is really important, because if we stop halfway through, you may think you know Creighton, but you actually only know a piece of it. But even after you learn all the basics in those first education sessions, you're not suddenly thrown in the deep end on your own, okay? So as you continue to use Creighton over time, it is very natural for more questions or scenarios to come up, and you're going to need support with those two . That's okay. That's built into the learning structure. So we'll have you go an entire cycle on your own and see how did it go, what questions came up, what caught you off guard? How can I help? And we'll go through all that. And if you're feeling great, awesome. We'll check in again maybe three months later. So each time I'm not only answering your questions and looking at your chart, but I'm also evaluating how likely it is that you're going to be successful using the Creighton system long term . And if there are things that could help you be more successful, that's what I'm going to focus on in that session with you. So it's sort of like a checks and balances type of system to make sure you're not unintentionally forgetting something or misusing any piece of the puzzle that you've learned along the way. So I've got your back, I'm here to help you, you know? Now if you stop attending sessions at any point, there's not really anything I can do to help you. This is different from when you complete the learning process and you are a successful Creighton user, okay? We want you to be independent for the rest of your reproductive life, but in the beginning, as you're learning, there's nothing I can do if you stop that process before it's completed. Now, I can almost guarantee you that your success rate's going to significantly decrease, but I'm never going to push you to attend a session if you don't want it. You know, you have to want it. So if I get an email from you saying, actually, I think I feel pretty good with Creighton, I'll let you know if I need you, then I'm still going to suggest that we meet. I'm going to share why, but I'm never going to push you. I'm always going to leave it up to you. If you want to be very successful with your use of the Creighton system, simply be sure to show up to the education sessions. We'll get you there. Finally, tip number four for being successful with Creighton. And it's actually super practical. Always do your charting at the end of the day. So I don't have a scientific study to show you how influential this one step is, but I have years of experience teaching that I can confidently tell you. Charting at the end of the day is make or break it when it comes to absolute highest effectiveness. So if you're one of the couples using Creighton because of its 99.5% effectiveness for avoiding pregnancy, then please don't do something like get wishy-washy with consistent charting. That alone is enough to decimate that effectiveness rating because Creighton is designed to have your charting done at the end of the day, plus, it's only going to contribute to the confusion and frustration that you could possibly feel when you don't know what's going on. Now , of course, this is different than being mindful or conscientious about what you've seen throughout the day. Maybe you have a note on your phone or a sticky note at your desk, that's great, but don't confuse that kind of temporary support during the day with accurate creighton charting. So instead, every single day, take the time before you go to bed to update your chart. It will pay off, okay? Not only will it be accurate, which is very important, but you'll also feel more confident, knowledgeable, and you'll have the ability to make decisions about whether or not to be intimate with your spouse that day, depending on whatever your pregnancy intentions are. Now, daily charting is a foundational component of the Creighton system for a reason. Is worth doing it with consistency. I mean, you're already putting in the effort to do Creighton. You might as well get the benefit of its use too right now. Those are the four tips, and they're very simple. Notice that I never once said anything about having a particular type of cycle or goal or health concern. I didn't even mention working with a medical professional. That's because you can do any of those things. You can be in any of those categories and still confidently and successfully use the Creighton system. Creighton provides an incredible amount of information. In fact, I think I'm convinced that it gives you the most insight more than any other natural method, but it's not all that complicated when you learn it. So it does take accurate observations and charting. It takes teamwork with your spouse, and certainly you want to have the motivation to do it. But these four tips that I just gave you, they're actually a normal part of the learning process. So I teach these things to every single Creighton learner. So it's not some sort of secret knowledge, but I am sharing them separately because I feel like these four things really do make or break your overall experience. But the design of Creighton learning was very intentional. So back in the late seventies, early eighties when it was being invented and heavily studied, they looked at the best way to teach women what was most effective, what helped them be successful, and then the design and timeline and content of the sessions was a direct result of that study. So if you want to be successful with Creighton, you don't have to have any sort of secret tips or anything fancy. If you commit yourself to learning Creighton and working with your practitioner and following the instructions, then you can do Creighton. And that is great news. Now, if you are interested in using Creighton, like if that's you, you're like, I haven't done it yet, but I'm interested in doing it, then attend one of our upcoming introductory sessions. This does not commit you to keep going or start the education process. Instead, this gives you a really thorough overview of your anatomy and physiology, but also what the Creighton system is, how it works with that physiology, how to get started and what's involved in the learning process. So you can really go in with your eyes wide open and you know what the process looks like. You can be successful. I will help you along the way. Okay? So I would love for you to join that. Make sure to check out the show notes for more information on how to register. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.