Tough Stuff: Birth Control

I told you we were going to tackle some hard subjects.  I'll stay true to my promise even though I'm nervous about it.  This fun, challenging, awkward topic is for all the dating, engaged, married couples out there and those who ever wish to be.  When you're dating there's lots of talk about saving sex for marriage.  When you're married there's lots of talk about when you're going to have kids and how you're going to raise them.  One thing that is rarely talked about is birth control.  If you're thinking, "Ok, what is there to talk about?" then you're in good company.  When I was considering marriage, my choice of birth control was a minor concern compared to everything else.  I would go on the pill, obviously.  Not even a question. After all, birth control is one of the greatest things that's ever happened for women right?

By the way, my husband and I did save sex for marriage.  Easy? Not really.  Doable?  Absolutely, with self-control, patience, boundaries, and the Lord.  Did our relationship or our marriage suffer for it? Not even a little bit, quite the opposite.  This is somewhat off topic - but just to give you context for my story and a little boost of encouragement for the daters or prospective daters.

Ok - back to birth control.    Few people know this, but Matt and I now practice Natural Family Planning (a.k.a "NFP").  This is the part where those who do know this about me have laughed and said, "Ok...well, good luck with that."  This is because the common belief about NFP is that it doesn't work and you will inevitably experience an unplanned pregnancy.  After having practiced NFP for over a year now with no oopsie babies, I can confidently say that NFP does work. NFP (specifically the Sympto-Thermal Method) has a 99% effectiveness rate with perfect use.  This is the same effectiveness rate as the perfect use of the pill.  "Perfect use" means that you must follow the rules, which is a bit harder with NFP than your typical method and I'll get to that later.

No, we are not Catholic.  We are bible-believing Protestant Christians.  And, as I'll share with you, our faith has only a partial impact on this decision that we've made.  I believe birth control is an issue that everyone should do their own research and informed decision making on.

We started NFP last August despite the fact that I was about to start an intense two-year program for Occupational Therapy Assisting.  A baby would put a serious wrench in our plans.  Yet we felt so certain of our decision that we did it, despite how crazy it seemed to others and even to ourselves.  Next blog I'll share more about how we came to our decision.