u/Majestic-Use-2529

TTA1 and I'm trying to figure out what our method of birthcontrol is going to be moving forward, as it will have to be long term, with us being young and still having a lot of fertile years left.

Context: Me (31F) and my husband (31M) have 5 kiddos now (currently 2 weeks PP with my 5th) and we homeschool. My plan had always been to have 4 kids, but then was convicted several years ago to not get a vasectomy and eventually my husband got on board and was/is all-in with not getting one. But now I'm reconsidering. I'm wondering if it was just a conviction for the time so that God could give us our 5th baby. I'm not fully sure whether I'm okay with closing the door to more future children, but at the same time I really don't feel like I could do a good job of homeschooling while continuing to have babies, nor do I fee I could manage 6+ different grade levels at once, so I would really like to be done with having babies for good. But then there's still that little part of me that doesn't want to permanently close that door forever.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has successfully used the TCOYF FAM method long term (like 10+years?) for avoiding?

Also wondering how FAM has affected your marriage? I honestly hate the idea of having to abstain right when I want to have sex the most lol. And then only having a short window of time where we're safe. During my recent pregnancy I feel like my husband and I have finally gotten into a good rhythm and I was actually really enjoying sex for the first time (history of vaginismus and pelvic floor issues so sex has not always been enjoyable for me), so I'm sad to think that we wouldn't have the freedom to have sex as often as we would like to, and that it would only ever happen when I'm not as into it.. especially if we go with FAM as our method for long term. 😕 Do you find this method is worth the sacrifice? Do you ever wish you'd gone the vasectomy route?

So I'm currently 2 weeks postpartum with my 5th baby and looking into FAM (TTA - not having sex yet obvi, but will be TTA1 when we do). Been reading through TCOYF, on the advice of many of you here, and it seems fairly doable, but I'm concerned about how it works while postpartum and EBF. With my other 4 babies I got my period back at 6 weeks postpartum, immediately after the postpartum bleeding stops, so I assume that'll be the case again with this one. I've always EBF all through the night and day, whenever baby wants to nurse, and I always nurse my babies to sleep throughout the night and for naps as well, and still have always gotten my period regularly.

Conceived the last 3 babies unplanned. In hindsight I was using the Rhythm method thinking it was NFP, cause wow there's a lot I didn't know! 😅 My 3rd was conceived at about 18 months PP while still breastfeeding, my 4th was conceived at 9months PP while breastfeeding, and my 5th was conceived at 22 months PP but was no longer breastfeeding by this point.

I'm concerned because the author of TCOYF seems to believe that you can't ovulate while EBF, but then why would I consistently get my period all throughout my years of breastfeeding? All my conceptions were after we introduced solid foods, so I guess not EBF by that point, but I was still breastfeeding, just not exclusively.

If it's true what she says, and that all this time it hasn't been true menstruation, but a regular anovulatory bleeding, then how does this work with FAM? (Yes, I will be reading the appendix that talks about this, but seeing as she's never had babies, I'm curious if anyone has real life experience with this?) How would you ever know whether you're ovulating or not? How could I trust whether any day is safe or not? Have you ever been EBF and still gotten a regular period AND ovulation?