The culture is broken. Your expectations may be skewed. But God designed your feminine sexuality to flourish in marriage if it is honored and nurtured appropriately.
This show is for Catholic women who want to know how to enjoy sex in marriage. This show helps you learn how to create a positive view of sexuality and your body in line with Catholic teaching and ALSO gain practical knowledge, tips, and scripts. If you want to know more about what it means to care for your unique, God-designed sexuality as women --so that you can thrive in your sex life in marriage and help change the culture--join in these honest, woman-centered conversations hosted by Sarah Bartel, moral theologian and Catholic sex + marriage coach.
“Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure: The Creator himself ... established that in the genitive function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment.” -Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2362
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Haley Yeager is a Creighton Model FertiliCare NFP instructor and the host of the Truth and Fertility Podcast. Sarah asked her what she would say to a young engaged Catholic woman who doesn't think she'll need to learn NFP because she wants to have kids right away.
Listen along to learn:
1. You might not get pregnant as quickly as you hope, and NFP is great for helping couples conceive. In fact, 76% of couples with normal fertility conceive on their first cycle using CreightonModel FertiliCare, and by the sixth cycle, that rate goes to 98%. Couples with infertility have a 20-40% chance of conceiving, the same rate as a round of IVF. ( https://tcmef.org/achieving-pregnancy)
2. Learning to track your cycles together gives your husband a window into the cyclical life he'll be living once he's married to a woman and closely united with her.
3. Learning to understand your body with cycle charting empowers you with a body literacy that can help you address underlying root causes of reproductive health challenges.
Aug 24-18, join 5 Catholic women's health experts to learn about intimacy, nutrition, hormone health care (inc. HRT questions), and exercise as your body changes according to God's good design.
🔥 Find out more here: https://healthandhormones.org/perimenopause-toolkit
Want to learn 10 Truths for Good Sex for Catholic Wives?
Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)
Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.
Speaker
I am so thankful to have a great guest today. I'm talking with Haley Jaeger. She is a Creighton Model FertileCare practitioner and the host of the Truth and Fertility podcast. Welcome, Haley.
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker
Haley Let's get right into it.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker
I just have such a heart for engaged women and newlyweds. I have my Wedding Night and Beyond course, and I just have mentored and taught many engaged women over the years, and I love them so much. So what would you tell the engaged Catholic woman who feels like, "Oh, I don't really need to learn NFP. We won't need that. I won't need it"? What would you tell her? Say we're sitting down to coffee with her and she just said that.
Speaker 2
Yes. Oh, my gosh, such a good question, and it's one I love to answer because I have opinions. So, and this is a common thing that I'll hear too, and it comes from such a good heart because so many young couples especially that are getting engaged and married, they, they are wanting to have children right away, and that's a- Aw beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing. It is. That, that was my husband and I too. We wanted to have children right away. Aw. And so but there's this thought that, "Well, if I want to have children right away, I don't need this whole NFP thing because we're not going to avoid, so what's, what's the purpose of that?" And so my thought here is that there is, there's this misunderstanding of the true nature of what natural family planning is in that, so first of all, it is for, yes, avoiding pregnancy, but it's also for achieving pregnancy.
Speaker
Yes.
Speaker 2
The achieving pregnancy part of this is so underrated. It is so under-looked at because some, for some women it is very easy for them to get pregnant, praise be to God, but for others it can be a little bit more difficult. And so for knowing your body so well, to know when you're ovulating, to know when those most favorable days to come together to conceive a child, that's an important thing to know as well- Mm especially when you do wanna have children right away. So that, there's that. Like, it is not just for avoiding pregnancy, and so we need to be very clear on it is also as, just as much it is, as it is for avoiding, it is for achieving.
Speaker
And Haley- Yeah do you recall, I think I've seen a statistic, I can look it up and put it in the links, but that,, the Fertilaid Creighton method has been actually studied in its effectiveness for conception, and it is more effective than IVF at conceiving, at helping couples have children.
Speaker 2
Yes, absolutely. So, IVF claims about a 30% effectiveness rate to have a baby in your arms, a live baby in your arms. With the Creighton model, well, first of all, with the Creighton model, for couples that are not struggling with infertility, it's up to, like, 95% to, to achieve pregnancy. I mean, it is very, very high to achieve pregnancy, but that's just because when your body works the way that it should, it does the things that it should do. Mm-hmm. And if you're having sex, the natural consequence of that is parenthood. So-
Speaker
Yeah, if you're ovulating. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Mm-hmm. But for couples that are struggling with infertility, specifically on the side of the woman, the Creighton Model is very closely tied with what we call NaPro technology. Yes. That's short for natural procreative technology. And so it is a health science, a women's health science that really investigates the root cause of why are they struggling with infertility. And instead of doing a bypass therapy like IVF would be, and not actually healing the root cause, but trying to go past it, what NaPro technology does is it actually goes in to heal the root cause of why she's struggling with infertility so that she can get pregnant naturally, and hopefully just, to help her have a healthy body for even f- consecutive children as well.
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2
And
Speaker
so- And I just, I wanna chime in and say that- Yes nFP, specifically, Creighton Model did help us conceive, one of our children. Good for you. 'Cause we have,. well, I had secondary infertility twice. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And we're a little bit on the low fertile side, so I'm super thankful we were able to have five children. But- Yeah You know, several of those children were conceived with a lot of intention. Yeah, and symptothermal helped us achieve another of our pregnancies earlier on before I switched and learned Creighton. But yeah, it is such a beautiful tool to have to help understand when you're ovulating, and then time intercourse accordingly.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, so I, to go back to the statistic, I believe they say up to an 80% effectiveness rate for women and for couples who are struggling with infertility when they go through the NaPro technology process. Wow. IVF is 30%, NaPro can be up to 80%. Right. So there's that, even just laying that out. But the second thing I would tell women for the woman, the engaged woman who is like, "We're gonna have kids right away. We- why do we need NFP?" NFP, or fertility awareness, allows you to become familiar and know your body so well and so intimately, and that is an incredibly empowering thing that I think we, we don't, necessarily appreciate until we get into it. And then all of a sudden we can see and read this language that our body gives us to help us understand when we're ovulating, when we're about to have our period, when we're post-ovulation. Like, even our, our libido and our sex drive is different throughout our cycle, and if we can see our cycle and know our cycle so well, it helps us to understand, "Why am I feeling this way? Why am I feeling this way? What is going on with my emotions?" Or, "Why am I seeing so much cervical fluid? Like, what, what is going on right now?" It helps you read a new language, and it's the language that your body gives you, and that's an incredibly empowering thing. And I was actually talking to a friend of mine recently who was kind of in that, in that mode. She went to Franciscan University of Steubenville, and she, you know, agrees with the whole church teaching on NFP, but went into marriage just thinking, "Well, we want to have children right away, so what's the point of learning this?" And unfortunately, they have had one miscarriage, if not more, and have just really struggled, conceiving. And again, this isn't supposed to be a scare tactic by any means, and it's, this is not going to happen to everybody. But I was talking with her and kind of talking her through this, and she is now learning how to chart her cycle because charting her cycle can also help her understand, are her hormones imbalanced? Mm. What is causing these miscarriages? What is causing this infertility? And she just told me, she's like, "I wish I had understood why it was so important for me to know this about my body before I entered marriage, and to even see a good doctor who can help me with these hormonal imbalances while I'm single even, or just before I get married, so I can enter marriage knowing my body so well, knowing my body's needs, knowing what- if I need to be on any supplements or- I need hormone support- Mm-hmm knowing that that is an option and that you can get that while you're single, while you're engaged, when you're newly married, so that you're not caught off guard," right? And- Mm and of course, children are a gift. We cannot force a child- Right into our marriage. But helping your body be as healthy as possible can be a really helpful way to set yourself up for that, right, and for, to receive that gift from the Lord. So I just think for any woman, no matter what your family planning intention is going to be at the beginning of your marriage, learn how to chart your cycle. If you're single listening to this, learn how to chart your cycle. If you're engaged or married, no matter where you are in your marriage, if you don't know how to chart your cycle, learn how to chart it. So I teach the Creighton Method. I'm also becoming trained to teach FEMM. Ooh. I've taught Symptothermal in the past too, so I kind of have my hand in a bunch of different methods. But figure out a method that works for you, that you like, and go with it, because you will learn so much, so much about your body.
Speaker
That body literacy you're talking about- Yes really is such a gift, and it's not just for the wife. It's a gift for the husband also- Yeah because as my husband Nathan has said many times when we're mentoring engaged couples or giving talks about marriage, um,- A husband, a man doesn't nec- like, he lives a cyclical life in some sense. Like, you know, we go through the cycle of a week and understand that, natural difference between weekend and work week or whatnot. But a woman lives a cyclical life so profoundly in her very person, and then when you become married and your lives are joined as one, he will be living a cyclical life because he's married to you in this new way, and it's so good for him to understand that as well. I learned through NFP, you know, through tracking my cycles, I learned, wow, I feel, like, superpowers of creativity and energy as I'm ovulating. And that's when I can really, get a lot done. I'll be popping with ideas, and I've learned, write down the ideas then? Because I won't necessarily be popping with ideas and feeling like I can do anything a week or two after that.
Speaker 2
Right.
Speaker
And then it's okay to tone it down, to, like, rest and support myself and care for myself more as I head into, the end of the cycle. And, you know, that I'm going to need more time for relaxation and being more gentle then. And, tracking our cycles together was s- just one of the smartest things we ever did in our engaged time when, we took a course together in NFP. Mm-hmm., It was a symptothermal method,, taught through a nurse at a Catholic hospital back, way back in the late 1990s. I had a actual physical glass thermometer that I shook down, if you can even imagine.
Speaker 2
Yep. Yep.
Speaker
But then we did,, learn Creighton later, and then I've since learned FEMM as well. But for, for us in our marriage, it really served us well because there would be, a couple days where I would feel like the whole world is so wrong and everything is so irritating, and why is everyone and everything so annoying? And then my new husband would ever so gently suggest we go look at my chart and see, is perhaps my period coming soon? Oh. And lo and behold, it was, and that helped me understand, oh, it's not that reality sucks right now. It's just that I'm feeling that, that premenstrual tension, and it will pass. And maybe don't make any major decisions based on how I'm feeling right now.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. It's so, so good when the husband is involved too. When I'm teaching a marriage prep class and,, couples that are engaged, that is actually a requirement that, the man has to be the one charting. Whether they want to continue that on in their marriage or not, when they are in my class as an engaged couple, that is a requirement because the man needs to know just as much about this as the woman does, so.
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, I think it's so important, Haley, that you're highlighting, it is important to know this for our own body literacy and also because you can't assume your fertility is going to just be right there, popping for you- Mm-hmm right as you expect and want it to. I mean, the numbers show us that fertility rates, The ability to conceive is rapidly declining in our industrialized world, whether it's, you know, the environmental toxins that we're all living in or the stress of modern life. For whatever reason, like sperm counts are down and ovulation rates are down. So just don't assume sweet engaged couple that you'll be able to conceive right away.- For many of you it will, but for more of you than, than you think, it might not, so let's optimize this. What about for, just understanding her own health and wellbeing, Hayley? Do you have thoughts about that?
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. And that's actually kind of my story in that, and I'll give the abridged version. But I was put on the pill at 16 for irregular- Oh cycles. But, I was only on it for a couple months because the, the side effects were atrocious. Mm-hmm. And fast-forward two years later, I'm 18 years old, still have these irregular cycles- And at this point is when I learned, oh, there's this other option. So I actually learned how to chart in the Creighton Method at 18 years old. I'm not married. I'm not wanting to have babies anytime soon. I'm just trying to figure out why do I have these irregular cycles. And through learning how to chart, seeing a really good doctor that wasn't going to prescribe me the pill, they actually taught me how to chart, and they did blood work. They did an ultrasound. With that, I was actually diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, so PCOS.
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2
And so I had this diagnosis at 18, and because of that, I was able to make a lot of lifestyle changes. At this time, figure out what medications and diets and things like that worked for me so that I actually started ovulating. And lo and behold, I met my husband when I was 20 years old, and we got married when I was 21. And we did wanna have- Wow children right away. And so had I not done that work to get my body healthy, to work with a good doctor, who I still see to this day, by the way-
Speaker
Wow
Speaker 2
to work with this good, good doctor who was actually practicing NAPRO technology, wanting to heal the root of my PCOS and figuring out what is gonna work best for my bo- my body. Also, this whole time, I'm charting my cycle, so I could see what different medications, how they were affecting my cycle, different diets, different foods I was eating, even working out. How was I ovulating? How was that affecting my cycle? And I finally got to a point where I actually was ovulating. And because I did that work as a single woman, I have the three children I have today- Oh because I did that early. And praise be to God, like He put it in my path. And so I've just become so passionate in teaching young adult women, whether you're single or engaged or newly married, it is so important that you're learning how to read your body, you're learning to chart your cycle. Of course, to achieve or avoid pregnancy down the, down the road, but even just to To make sure you have a healthy body, right? I have a doctor friend that I, that I do a lot of work with. Her name is Dr. Marguerite Duane. She's- Oh, I know her. Yes. Oh, I know, she's wonderful. She is the co-founder of, Facts About Fertility. Check her out. She's, she's brilliant. Yeah. And she told me one time that when she's working with clients who are struggling with infertility, she actually tells them, "My goal isn't to get you a baby. My goal is to help make your body healthy, and a healthy body can make a baby." Like, a healthy body can do what a healthy body is meant to do. And so it is all about how do we get our hormones balanced? Because it not only affects our reproductive system, it affects our brain health and mental health. It affects our bone density. It affects- Yes so many other things in our body, and so it's for our overall health and wellbeing. And then of course, down the road when you are married and you are discussing family planning intentions, that of course goes hand-in-hand with everything else.
Speaker
Yeah. I just want to make sure women know you are a beloved daughter of God. Yes. And your own wellbeing and wholeness and health, that matters not just as a means to an end to, you know, have a baby or, or whatnot, but because you matter and you are important, and God loves you, and He wants you He wants you to be whole and thriving. So yeah, this can be such a great tool for that. And,, women are just not ovulating as much, as we used to.
Speaker 2
We can talk about that. Like, PCOS- That's a whole podcast in and of itself.
Speaker
Yeah. I got a PCOS- Yeah diagnosis just,, about a year ago. Mm-hmm. And I was like, "Wow, this would've been really helpful information to know maybe- Right you know, like 30 years ago or so before, before I got married." And that's probably actually what explains our lower fertility. Mm-hmm., And I'm just, like, again, wow, so thankful we had our five children, and no miscarriages, Yeah despite having PCOS. But yeah, learning to chart can help you see, like, are you ovulating or not? And if not, yeah, there's so many things you can do to boost your health and nurture yourself so that you can create the space so that ovulation's more likely to happen.
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, Haley, where can people find you if they wanna work with you more- Oh hear your voice more?
Speaker 2
If you wanna hear my voice more- Yeah You can find me at Truth and Fertility Podcast. So I, I do run my own podcast, which Sarah was actually, we just did our second interview. She's been on the podcast already. And I just interviewed her again, so that'll be coming out here in the next couple weeks. But yeah, you can find the podcast. I also post reels of the podcast on Instagram, so that would be @truthandfertilityproject. And then my website, if you want to sign up for an intro session for the Creighton Model,, I should have an intro session sometime in September coming up. 2026, and so that you can find at truthandfertility.com. So those are kind of the main places to find me.
Speaker
Great. Ooh, I'm curious about your name. Can you ex- just as we close
Speaker 2
tell that- Truth and Fertility?
Speaker
Yeah,
Speaker 2
how you- The Truth and Fertility name? Yes. I have a very high standard for what is truth. Yeah. And of course, like I think just being a Catholic, that, that comes with the territory, but I really wanted the freedom to be able to talk about, I mean, of course, fertility, that is my, that's my realm, right? Being an NFP instructor, being in the, being in the NaPro and restorative medicine space. That is what I really wanna talk about, but I, but There's so many, there's so many weeds that people, say, and- Yeah I wanna be able to help people try to sort through the weeds and the truth. Like, what is true and what is not, because we're given so much conflicting information. And so yeah, my goal is to have, people and experts in their field on the podcast to be able to talk about the actual truth of these things, about your fertility, about the female body, about, yeah, just really helping women understand the truth about who God made them to be. Because again, we, we just, we hear so much conflicting information, and I want it to be a place where women can, can listen to this and know, "Okay, what, what she is saying is true." Um, so that, that's kinda where the Truth and Fertility, came about. And then I added the word project on there more recently, because I started doing so many different things, like of course teaching Creighton, and then having the podcast. Yeah. And I'm also doing speaking as well. That, that information is on my website too. So I speak to high schoolers, young adults, college students, all about this, this information. And so there was like a bunch of kind of things Mm-hmm and so it really just is a project. It's a project to teach women the truth about their bodies.
Speaker
Beautiful. Thank you so much for serving in this way. It's so needed- Thank you and, how wonderful to bring the truth about fertility and our bodies out there more and more. Haley Yeager, Truth and Fertility. Thank you so much. Thank you. God bless you all.
