The problem with NFP.

In a letter in the April 23 issue of Commonweal, Pamela Pilch gave a glowing account of her experience with Natural Family Planning (NFP). Could the fact that she and her husband used contraception for the first eight years of their marriage have anything to do with it? Would she care to share my experience?

A naive, virgin couple--ages twentyone and twenty-three--marry in the church. They have their first child ten months later. Her doctor outlines the basics of family planning. A second child is born seventeen months later; a third in thirteen months. When the mother goes to purchase literature explaining the method more fully, she is told she must get a note from her pastor authorizing the Catholic bookstore to sell it to her. Three babies make it a problem to keep accurate temperature records; litmus tests are a failure--even limiting sex to two days a month fails, and she has six children after eight years of marriage! After that, twin beds. After seven years of very little sex, there is a seventh child but the marriage is seriously damaged. Eventually, there is a divorce.

I don't blame the divorce entirely on our poor sexual relationship. And we both love our children very much. However, our sex life was very limited, fraught with stress, and therefore, not very satisfying. There was always the fear of another pregnancy and the extra physical and financial strain on the family. NFP works well for some, but we are not all alike physically and it does not work for all. Leslie Woodcock Tentler's article ("A Bitter Pill," April 23) tells the story well. I hope Pilch doesn't consider Tentler's piece "negative, dismissive, or knee-jerk." It is just telling us how it was and is.

JACQUELINE RAFFERTY

Seattle, Wash.