In Good Times and Better Times

The wedding invitations were sent and RSVP’s were all received. My wedding dress, which was designed and sewn by a dear friend, was finished. The many hours I spent sewing my wedding veil was well worth it as my eyes were satisfied with the final product. The last minute dress fittings and confirmations of the cake, rehearsal hall, florist and photographer were filled with excitement. I was ready for the most memorable day of my life, my wedding — May 30, 2003. My fiancée, Sean, and I felt truly prepared to receive the Sacrament of Marriage in our hearts. Seven months before the wedding we took the Natural Family Planning course offered by Couple to Couple League. I felt so confident having completed seven charts before the big day!

However, little did I know that God had another plan for Sean and me. Caution: The following story is not for those with a weak stomach! The day before our wedding rehearsal Sean had to rush me to the emergency room. We had dined on pizza together and an hour following dinner I had found myself in the bathroom with fluids coming out of both ends. I did not think that “talent” was possible, but nature proved me wrong. In this process, so many fluids had left my body that when I came out of the bathroom I turned blue and collapsed. Sean picked me up and rushed me to the emergency room as I struggled to keep from passing out. I remember praying in my head during the car ride, “Dear God, help me hang on.” At the emergency room, I was immediately put on IV’s and a series of tests were conducted. During this time, Sean never left my side. The vomiting ceased; however, the diarrhea did not. So every 10 minutes I was selflessly carried into the hospital bathroom by Sean. Understanding my embarrassment and desire for modesty, he tried his best to create privacy for me by carrying me into the bathroom and then closing the bathroom door as much as the IV cords would allow. We stayed in the emergency room all night — I in the hospital bed and Sean in the cold, hard chair next to me. He never slept a wink that night, as he passed the time praying for me and attending my every request. I was released from the hospital the following morning with the diagnosis of stomach flu.

While at home, I was still extremely weak and could not eat anything. I tried drinking fluids, but again my body could not keep anything in and my back hurt. This was supposed to be the day of our wedding rehearsal, but due to my condition we had to cancel the rehearsal and at noon, the day before our wedding, we heavy-heartedly made the decision to cancel the wedding. I knew I was in no shape to walk down the aisle. My heart sank as I sadly sat in my bed thinking about our wedding day being cancelled. Once again, Sean never left my side (notice a theme here). He encouraged me to drink fluids and tried desperately to uplift my low disposition through countless jokes. I tried desperately to find meaning in the whole situation, as I did not understand why the most holy day of my life felt like it was stripped from me. However, God, in His love, did not make me wait too long thereafter to understand why the events occurred as they did.

That same day, my body got weaker and weaker and Sean rushed me to the emergency room for the second time. The doctors ran more tests and finally concluded that I was suffering from C. diff. [Clostridium difficile is a bacteria found in the digestive tract. This bacteria can multiply out of control when an antibiotic is taken.] The physicians started me on other antibiotics right away to counteract the growth of the C. diff. The doctors also discovered that the back pain I had during this time was due to a kidney stone.

The kidney stone is the key to the story and to my experience with a physician who did not understand NFP. Now, I will to take you back in time to the week before our emergency room visits, as this information helps put the pieces of the puzzle together. The previous week I had gone to the University’s Student Health Center due to an excruciating pain in my lower back. The doctor at Student Health was very short with me and uninterested in any information that I could supply him with to help diagnose my condition. He carelessly diagnosed me with a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) and a ruptured ovarian cyst. Frustrated with this diagnosis, I informed him that I was not sexually active and, therefore, maybe not as likely to acquire a UTI. Also, I had no previous history of UTI’s. I can only infer that he just assumed that I was sexually active because it was a university health clinic and they practically force unnatural means of contraception on students. I also informed him that I was keeping track of my cycles through NFP and that I was not at a time of ovulation in my cycle. He looked me straight in the eye and sharply stated, “We do not do the rhythm method here because it is not effective.” I confidently responded, “This is not the rhythm method. It is the Sympto-Thermal Method, which is 99% effective and ...” The doctor just cut me off and stated again, “Well, I believe that you have a ruptured ovarian cyst and a UTI.” He prescribed me an antibiotic for the supposed UTI. When I left that appointment, I felt so angry at the doctor’s pompous manner and unwillingness to listen to important information that could have aided my diagnosis.

To sum up this story, I had a kidney stone that was misdiagnosed as a UTI and a ruptured ovarian cyst. The doctor prescribed me an antibiotic for what he thought was a UTI. The antibiotic caused me to develop C. diff, which put me in the emergency room twice and led to the cancellation of the wedding. This situation is the catalyst for this story. I want to invite all health care professionals to not dismiss the important scientific and medical information that the practice of NFP can offer regarding a woman’s health. If the doctor had only been open to the information that I had charted for over seven months, I really believe a proper diagnosis could have been made.

I also wrote this article to provide validity to NFP couples in their interactions with their healthcare providers. I encourage other NFP couples to have confidence in their charting, knowing that through scientific bodily observations we often have valuable knowledge about what is occurring in our own bodies.

For those of you wondering if we got married, the answer is yes. My husband and I were married the day I got out of the hospital in a private ceremony, as we did not want to reschedule the entire ceremony and reception. I was too weak to put on my wedding dress, so a black skirt and white blouse did the trick. I probably looked like I was going to a funeral as opposed to my own wedding! Sean even had to stop at the dry cleaners on the way to the church to pick up a clean white shirt. How chaotic it all seemed! We exchanged our wedding vows and laugh to this day as Sean married me “in sickness” and not “in health.”

Despite financial loss from the cancelled wedding, through God’s grace and creative hand we were able to “salvage” some of our wedding investments to fulfill an even greater plan. Finally, the meaning of this traumatic experience became clear to me. First, although we did not use the wedding reception hall on our scheduled wedding day, the hotel allowed us to postpone the use of the hall. We decided to donate the hall to our church and they used it to host a speaker — popular Theology of the Body lecturer Christopher West. So, it delights us to think that because our small wedding was cancelled, over 200 individuals and couples were able to hear a wonderful presentation about marriage and Natural Family Planning.

The wedding cake was frozen and three months after our private wedding ceremony my husband and I decided to have a “Help Us Eat the Cake Party” at our house. We invited our friends and family to help celebrate our marriage. This was a relaxing and informal celebration filled with an abundance of love and children. My smart husband set up a “Slip and Slide” in the yard and the kids played for hours while the adults were able to just relax. This casual reception made a warm, lasting memory in our minds. Lastly, at the reception we were able to announce to our friends and family that we were pregnant! God, once again in His love, blessed our marriage relationship and allowed us to conceive 1½ months after we were married. This pregnancy is not only accredited to God, but to our use of NFP.

Through these experiences I realized that the NFP classes we took before our wedding brought us to a deeper appreciation for each other. This is the reason that Sean unselfishly carried me to the bathroom in the emergency room and never left my side. He was already living out our wedding vows even before we had the chance to exchange them in the wedding ceremony. I believe NFP helps teach couples to cherish each other through the good times and the bad. In the world of reality where things do not go as planned and flexibility is key, NFP promotes the deep seed of love and concern for each other that can help to waiver any misfortune. We want to deeply thank the Couple to Couple League and our NFP instructors, Mark and Patty Conway, for helping us to plant our seed of love through the use of NFP.

— Katie Williams and her husband Sean welcomed their first child, Augustine Paul, on Easter Sunday 2004. While Katie is working on her dissertation for a doctoral degree in counseling psychology, she reports that she is quite happy being a stay-at-home mom. Sean works in hospital administration.