We are strong advocates of Natural Family Planning (NFP).
What is NFP?
NFP is, simply, based on reading the woman's fertility cycle and knowing whether she is fertile or infertile. Therefore, it can definitely help you either postpone pregnancy or achieve pregnancy. If you use NFP correctly, it is over 99% effective. With NFP, we got pregnant the first time we tried for all of our children! Does that not seem like a big deal? Well, it shouldn’t be, but it is. Why, you ask? Because hormonal birth control is very dangerous.
Dangerous… really?
This is serious, and terrible, stuff. Hormonal birth control threatens both the woman and the baby.
Woman: It wreaks havoc on a woman’s body and her future fertility! When a woman ceases hormonal birth control, she is plagued with miscarriages, premature births, and/or infertility! [Not that hormonal birth control is the only reason or cause of these things.] And don’t think that the odds are against you; almost all of our friends have suffered from at least one of these
tragic side effects. Think about it – there were nowhere near this many miscarriages, premies or infertile couples back before oral contraceptives came on the scene. (We do not want to place blame or instill guilt in anyone; we just want to impart knowledge and help people stop taking hormonal birth control!)
Baby: Hormonal birth control can act as abortifacients, killing the week-old life that has been created by the Creator. So if you are using hormonal birth control, there is a chance that you have had several chemical abortions. We are firm pro-life advocates and against ALL abortions, whether surgical or chemical. Which is why when we found out that hormonal birth control may act as an abortifacient, we stopped using it immediately! We actually learned about all this from a
book, which we give away for free or download for free. We would be more than happy to mail anyone a copy! This was the first step on our path to discovering NFP.
Benefits
As if the dangers weren’t enough to keep people from dappling with birth control, here are some other reasons why we stand by NFP:
- Financial impact: It is cheap! Mother Teresa and her nuns taught it to the poorest of the poor in India, and it worked, of course! Teaching people to use NFP is astronomically cheaper than throwing condoms at them.
- Environmental impact: We absolutely love the fact that we are no longer shoving artificial hormones into my body. It is so much healthier. It is funny how I use to be so concerned about what I ate and put into my body via diet, yet contradicting myself by using hormonal birth control. I wanted to be "natural," but how unnatural is taking artificial hormones! Let's avoid chemicals and use "green" cleaners, while dumping chemicals straight into my body with birth control! Just as some people don't eat meat because they don't want to kill an animal's life, but they flippantly use hormonal birth control and risk killing a human life.
- Health impact: There are so many side effects to hormonal birth control, just google it. [Surely enough, there is a huge link between hormonal birth control and breast cancer, among other cancers. Ricky created a flyer compiling some information about this for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Check it out, and pass it out!]
- Moral impact: Don’t have to worry about risking murder!! NFP is about loving life!
- Marital impact: NFP ramifications for your marriage = HUGE. This might be why couples that practice NFP have a divorce rate of 1%!
- Spiritual impact: NFP will definitely contribute to becoming more Christlike. NFP teaches you how to love like Jesus: permanently, obediently, knowledgably, self-giving, and life-giving. All five of these traits were exemplified by Jesus during the Passion. You will begin to see the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life. It increases my respect for God, His creation, life, fertility, my spouse, and my body. It is all about embracing His will, His way, His order. Overall: our love is better, our sex is better, and our relationship with God is better.
NFP is a way to really appreciate why our fertility is a gift to be understood and not a disease to be eliminated.
Our Story
Just thinking about birth control was unsettling. It didn’t sit well with me, mainly, because of health reasons. Who wants to put artificial hormones in your body? This was before I had any clue as to the potential abortions that hormonal birth control can cause. But, I didn’t know there was an alternative. I mean, we knew there were barrier methods, i.e. condoms and such, but their efficacy rates didn’t cut it. So, I felt trapped. While we were engaged, I got an IUD, the Mirena. Obviously, my doctor did conveniently forgo telling me anything about the Mirena and how it worked. It psychologically bothered me so much that I didn’t even want to talk to anyone about it (the IUD, birth control…). Sadly, no one had ever sat down with me and explained to me my options and the truth behind it all. The lies. The greed. Selfishness. Death.
Fast forward 15 months into our marriage when I came across Randy Alcorn’s book
Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? I wanted to know some facts, some evidence, some science, the hidden truth. Quickly, I ordered it and devoured it. We stopped coitus when I started reading it because we were not willing to risk killing a baby until we had it all figured out and a new game plan. We tried the barrier method -- very unappealing! Alcorn briefly mentioned looking into NFP as an alternative to birth control. I was curious. After researching NFP, we found a local teaching couple (although you can do a homestudy course) through the
Couple-to-Couple League (CCL). Thus, our NFP journey began…
A few other remarks:
- NFP is not considered to be birth control. See here.
- NFP is not the Calendar/Rhythm Method, but is based on science (Sympto-Thermal Method).
- You can click on the link below if you are interested in practicing NFP:
