Natural Family Planning... It's a beautiful thing.

I realize that I have not really posted anything about this and I think it's time I should. For anyone that doesn't know Natural Family Planning is a method that helps women understand the way that their body works so that they can recognize signs of fertility and therefore make decisions accurately for family planning. This is not the rhythm method... oh, no it is not! It is scientifically based and it recognizes that all women are different and so are their cycles. It's kind of a beautiful thing.

When I first heard about NFP I just did not understand because I at the time did not know my body. All around me I saw girls using all different kinds of contraceptives with really no regard to what is happening inside of them. You see women are not fertile 24/7. In fact they really only have a window of hours to days when they can have sex and actually conceive a child. It amazes me that at one point I didn't know this and it continues to amaze me how many men and women still don't know this.

People have told me that birth control pills are just easier. You just take a pill and you are "good to go." Well, it probably would be easier to just pop a pill everyday and assume that the magical pill will take care of everything. But there is so much more to all of it. I'm not just talking about the actual act of conceiving a baby. I'm talking about morality.

My handsome husband and myself.

I have very concrete, straight forward, no-exceptions-to-the-rule beliefs that may not be... popular. I believe in love. I believe that giving yourself to someone in a sexual way binds you to them emotionally forever. I don't think that is something that can be undone. I believe that sex belongs in marriage and in marriage alone because it is the complete gift of yourself. Now, if you are completely giving yourself to your spouse then you don't need to "protect" yourself from anything. Your spouse is not taking anything from you, he/she is completely giving himself to you, too. All giving, no taking. I'm not trying to be preachy, but this is what I ardently believe. And to be clear, I don't believe that people that contracept are damned to hell. I just don't believe that is how it is meant to be.

So as you can see BC and other forms of contraceptives were never an option for me and my sweet husband. However, we really did not know what our first year or so of marriage would look like financially with him still being a student, and it was not ideal for us to get pregnant right away. Plus, we had trouble figuring out where to put the dog kennel in our tiny one bedroom apartment. I think trying to fit a crib in would cause us to burst at the seams! ha ha! So we learned how to use NFP. We really want to have kids some day but up until now we have used NFP to avoid pregnancy successfully. And people said it couldn't be done!

The great news is that because we both know how my body works with regards to fertility when we are ready to start having children it will not take too long to achieve a pregnancy with NFP. Hopefully!

I realize I am far from eloquent and not the best with getting my point across so if anyone has any interest in learning about NFP you can always check out iusenfp.com. It was co-started by a close friend of mine and has some excellent information. It's pretty phenom! I am also a fan of 1flesh. It has some pretty awesome stories about NFP but it's main focus is the negative side of contraceptives. And PS these are both secular sites. If you want something more religiously based Read Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. It's so freaking awesome I could hardly wrap my mind around it! Or you can visit this site. Or you can talk to me! Just remember... not eloquent over here! ha

Spread the love, ya'll!