Natural Family Planning has its challenges.

I’ve shared the story of our journey to Natural Family Planning (NFP) and made a really big deal about the benefits of NFP for marriage.  I’ve shared an informational video, explained what Natural Family Planning is in my own words, and talked about how technology can work with such a natural method of planning a family.  I’ve even encouraged an artsy-fartsy Protestant woman to share her own thoughts on NFP.

Do I love Natural Family Planning?  Yep, guilty as charged.

But I also understand why NFP is practiced by less than 5% of couples in their child-bearing years.  If Natural Family Planning were the easy choice, everyone would use it, right?

Well, probably not, but I recognize the challenges of using NFP because we live with them every day.  Engaged Marriage is a place for no-B.S. information on topics that effect your marriage, and your family planning choices are certainly a big issue.

And so, in the interest of fairness and full disclosure, I present to you the top five challenges of using Natural Family Planning.

The Challenges of Practicing Natural Family Planning

1. NFP is Misunderstood by Others

Trust me when I tell you that this is a big one.  It can be very frustrating to be pigeonholed as some mindless, Pope-worshiping, chauvinist, old-fashioned father of 20 children whenever someone hears that you practice Natural Family Planning.

Fortunately, with so much good information being spread online and through new communities, some of the die-hard myths about NFP are finally starting to be broken down and replaced by the truth.  Here are a few examples in case you were curious:

• NFP is NOT the damn Rhythm Method!
• NFP is not just a “Catholic thing”
• NFP is just as effective as any form of artificial birth control
• NFP empowers women and lets them take charge of their fertility (i.e., the Pill is not a provider of liberation despite all those slick television commercials)

2. NFP is Not Encouraged by Most Doctors

The sad reality is that most OB-GYNs in practice today either don’t understand Natural Family Planning or simply dismiss it as a viable birth control option for their patients.  The reasons for this are a matter of opinion, but I have a few.

There is no money in “selling” NFP since it is a free method of family planning.  By contrast, birth control pills are a HUGE industry (have you seen all the contraceptive commercials during an NFL game?) with many well-paid pharmaceutical reps knocking down the door of every doctor’s office in the country.

NFP is also not standardized enough to give an assembly-line approach to patient care.  It’s easy for a doctor to write (well-sponsored) prescriptions for birth control pills all day long and never give a second thought to the individual needs of each patient.  Well, NFP requires attention to each patient’s fertility cycle and some time to educate them on how to do it.  That takes both time and interest, and remember that doesn’t pay the bills!

There are also doctors out there who are simply ignorant about the effectiveness of NFP and never take it seriously.  My wife’s doctor (who is Catholic, by the way) laughed at us when we told him that we were using NFP.  Rather than switch docs, we decided to show him it works…and three purposely-planned pregnancies later, he shows us a little respect.

3. NFP Requires a Daily Commitment

When you hear about how you actually practice NFP, you find out that you have to take your temperature each morning before you get out of bed to get an accurate basal body temperature.  This actually doesn’t apply to some methods of Natural Family Planning, but all methods do require some fertility awareness during most days of a woman’s cycle.

Frankly, when I hear people use this as a reason not to practice NFP, I have to chuckle.  Most birth control pills must be taken each day (unless you get a shot of some sort), and barrier methods (like condoms) require you to have a contraceptive on-hand at all times.  Taking your temperature is just not that big of a deal.

4. Those Darn Periods of Abstinence!

Now THIS is a legitimate challenge of practicing Natural Family Planning!

When you use NFP, you simply don’t have sex on the days when your wife is fertile (if you wish to avoid pregnancy).  This can be tough, and I have to admit that it was my one big objection to fully embracing NFP…until we actually gave it a try.

If you can’t control your sexual urges for a week or so at a time, you can’t use Natural Family Planning.  However, if you do have control over your body and free will, you may find these periods of abstinence as enhancements to your communication, intimacy and overall sex life.  We’ve been pleasantly surprised by the impact that they’ve had on our marriage.

5. Special Occasions Don’t Always Happen at the “Right” Time…

It’s New Year’s Eve, you have a hotel room with NO kids, you’ve just enjoyed an awesome night of drinking and dancing, and you are both very interested in a fantastic night of sex.  Sounds great, huh?

Well, if you practice NFP and it just so happens that your wife ovulated the day before, you’ll know that this is going to be a night requiring strong willpower if you don’t want to get pregnant.  It could also be a night where you decide that maybe God does want you to welcome a new life into your family.

Either way, it’s these special occasions that will test you and your intentions when you practice Natural Family Planning.  Some people don’t have the willpower or the mutual respect to make it through these situations.  Even though they’re rare, they will happen and you have to find strength in each other to make the choice you’ll be happy with in the morning.

Are These Your Reasons, Too?

I’ve stated it many times, but let me make it clear that my posts about Natural Family Planning are not intended as tools of mass conversion (yeah, I know I’m not that influential).  Instead, I just hope to shed some light on a very misunderstood topic and let everyone know about their options since we struggled so much in our own family planning decisions for years.

I hope you have found it helpful to hear about the lesser-discussed “difficult” side of practicing NFP.

Now, I’m really curious to hear from all of you:

If you do practice NFP, how have you dealt with these challenges?

If you don’t use Natural Family Planning, what has held you back from giving it a try?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Natural Family Planning: 5 Good Reasons You Haven’t Tried It

Tags: Family Planning, Fertility, Natural Family Planning, Sex, Spirituality

Related posts:

1. What is Natural Family Planning?
2. Natural Family Planning Informational Video
3. How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?

I’m going to assume the answer is yes.  After all, on the surface, sex is a simple act of “Insert Tab A into Slot B.”  And if you listen to the incessant messages thrown at us by our sex-obsessed culture, there’s not a lot more to it.

Sure, the Internet is full of information about sexual techniques and supposed “secrets” to amazing sex.  There’s certainly no shortage of advice out there on how to get the woman of your dreams into bed and drive your man crazy in the sack.

However, these messages always leave out the real secret to an incredible sex life.

Sure Sex is Fun…

Sex is one of the most physically enjoyable activities that we can experience, and God designed it that way for our benefit.  After all, God wants us to have great sex!

The key though is to not limit your thoughts on sex to the obvious physical pleasure that it provides.  That’s certainly how our society treats sex, and it’s easy to see this limited view all around us.  Just look at any funny movie, popular magazine cover or any mainstream “relationship” website.

Every headline will center around one general idea: Sex is simply an activity and a form of recreation.

It’s all about how many times we have sex, how many different people we can hook up with and how intense we can make our next orgasm.  And this focus is not limited to some free-lovin’ approach to single life.

The vast majority of mainstream sex resources for married couples also approach the topic from the standpoint of making the act happen more often and with better technique.  I think we’d all agree that having sex with our spouse more often and in a physically satisfying way is great, but is that all there is to it?

…But It’s So Much More Than That

So are you ready for the big secret that never makes it into the headlines of Cosmo or the plot lines of a Judd Apatow flick?

Sex is not just an activity, it’s the most intimate form of communication.

Take a moment to read that line again and think about how it applies to your marriage and your sex life.

Do you treat your intimate time with your spouse as a time to communicate?  Do you feel what your partner is feeling when you make love?  Does sex reinforce the deep connection between you and allow you to express your love in a way that only the sexual union between a husband and wife provides?

Embrace The Gift

When you approach sex as the deepest form of communication with your spouse, it takes away the limits that our culture has placed on this Gift from God.  Sex is not reserved for “perfect” days when you are both “in the right mood.”  Instead, sex can be a perfect way to connect and express your feelings, even if they are feelings of stress, uncertainty or even disappointment.

Sex is not just for fun.  When we relegate it to another form of simple recreation, it falls back into the mix with other “fun things” and behind “important duties” such as chores, work, or a good night’s sleep.  Sex is much more important to your marriage than a load of laundry, and it should be treated with the awe and respect that it deserves as an amazing means to unity and closeness in your relationship.

Break free of the limits that our society likes to put on sex.  Tell your spouse how you’re feeling and receive their response openly, gratefully and with passion.

But remember that you don’t have to use words to have an incredible conversation…

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: The Best Kept Secret About Mind-Blowing Sex

Tags: Communication, Romance, Sex

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1. Attention Ladies: Your Husband Cannot Read Your Mind!
2. What’s the Secret to a Happy Marriage?
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If you have had trouble conceiving a baby or just want to understand your fertility cycle better, you may have heard of the Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor.  My wife and I bought one last fall with the intent of using it initially to help us get pregnant and then later as an additional tool in our practice of Natural Family Planning.

Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for a long-term review, we were blessed to conceive our third child the first month that we used the fertility monitor.  However, we learned all about it, gained some experience using it, and I even made my first YouTube video to show the world what comes in the box when you buy a Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor!

How Does the Fertility Monitor Work?

In the most basic sense, the monitor uses urine samples to identify days of High Fertility and Peak Fertility.  Obviously, if you have sex on those days, especially the one or two Peak Fertility days, your chances of achieving pregnancy are greatly improved.

There are only a limited number of days during the menstrual cycle when sex can lead to pregnancy.  Conception is most likely to occur if you have intercourse on the day the ovaries release a new egg, which is called ovulation, or during the days leading up to it.  The fertility monitor tracks a woman’s level of estrogen and LH to predict when ovulation is approaching and indicate the day it has occurred (the Peak Fertility day).

The Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor prompts you on the days you need to take a urine sample.  This will be a total of ten tests per cycle for more “typical” cycle lengths, or it will be twenty tests for long or irregular cycles. When you start using the monitor, you’ll set a testing time window that needs to be maintained, though you can test up to three hours before or after the time you specify.  When you turn it on, the fertility monitor will tell you whether you need to test that day or not.

In general, the manufacturer recommends that the monitor be used by women with menstrual cycles lasting 21-42 days.  As you test for several cycles, the monitor begins to “learn” about your menstrual patterns, and the testing days will be better defined.

What’s in the Box?

The answer to this question is not much!  Here’s a short video I made to show what the monitor looks like and what you get when you buy one.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our Experiences With the Monitor

When we started thinking about buying a monitor, I did a lot of research and was convinced that the Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor was the single best ovulation tracker on the market.  We also spent a lot of time learning how it worked, which was aided by the understanding we’ve gained of fertility cycles through our practice of Natural Family Planning.

Like I said, we only used the monitor for one month before Bethany became pregnant (she’s due in July!).  As luck would have it, she had a crazy-long cycle that month of over 50 days, and we hit the max of 20 tests before she ever ovulated.  Of course, we knew what was going on since we were also using the sympto-thermal methods of NFP (which helps prove the point that NFP is not only for those with nice, regular cycles).

With this super-long cycle, the monitor basically stopped testing and would have waited until we told it her period had started.  It would have then started over testing the next cycle with the “knowledge” of her long menstrual cycle taken into consideration.

Of course, that next cycle is several months away at this point since we successfully conceived a baby.  However, even based on our limited first-hand experience, I can tell you that the fertility monitor was very easy to use, and I am confident that it is effective in identifying the days of high fertility and communicating this simply to couples hoping to achieve pregnancy.

And that’s what it’s all about when choosing a fertility monitor.

We plan to use ours again after the baby arrives and Bethany’s hormones calm down.  We are hopeful that it will become an additional tool in our practice of Natural Family Planning moving forward, and we plan to learn more about this approach by studying up on the Marquette Model of NFP, which includes the Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor in its methods.

Where Can You Buy One (and Learn More)?

We did a lot of research on fertility monitors, and I can tell you that you will find the best price and most dependable service by simply buying your monitor through good ole Amazon.  This is not a cheap investment in fertility awareness, and I would encourage you to stick with a trusted resource.  Amazon also periodically runs sales on the Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor.

Please note: When you buy a monitor, it does not come with the testing sticks that you’ll need.  And you’ll have to continue buying testing sticks as long as you are using the monitor.

Fortunately, Amazon offers a combination package where you get both the monitor and test sticks to get you started at a slightly reduced price.

When you visit the Amazon page for the Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor, you’ll also find customer reviews and additional information on the product.  I always find this additional peer feedback to be helpful when considering such an important purchase.

If you do decide to buy a fertility monitor or testing sticks, I’d really appreciate it if you used the links above.  For referring you to their site, I get a (very) small commission from Amazon and your price is unaffected.  Thanks in advance for your continued support of Engaged Marriage!

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Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor: A Review Based On Our Experiences

Tags: Family Planning, Fertility, Natural Family Planning, Product Review

Related posts:

1. Marriage, Sex and Family Planning
2. What is Natural Family Planning?
3. Natural Family Planning Informational Video

I want to clarify that my goal is to raise awareness of Natural Family Planning.  While I’d love for everyone to try it, I know that’s not realistic and it is never my aim.  I simply want there to be a general understanding of NFP as a viable option to artificial birth control.

If you missed it, I’ve previously written posts discussing what Natural Family Planning is and how it benefits marriage.

I was also proud to host an incredible post by Katheen Quiring of Project M called “An Educated, Artsy-Fartsy Protestant’s Thoughts on Natural Family Planning” and I guest posted on her site to answer some frequently asked questions about NFP.

However, I have never discussed our story as it relates to Natural Family Planning.

Before I begin, I want to say that our story includes a lot of religious influence, especially early on.  However, if that’s not your thing, I’d encourage you to go ahead and read with an open mind. And keep an eye out for a future post where I explain why NFP is relevant for a wide variety of lifestyles (non-religious included).

But for now, this is our story.

Our Long Path To Natural Family Planning Starts On the Pill

My wife Bethany grew up in the Catholic Church (I did not, not even close actually. But I joined in my college years). She knew as a teen that the church taught that birth control was wrong, but didn’t know why or what to do about it. As a young teenager, even though she wasn’t yet sexually active, Bethany went on the Pill to regulate her irregular and painful menstrual cycles.

When we got married, we continued to use artificial contraception to make sure we did not get pregnant for the first 3 ½ years of our marriage. At this point, we understood that the Pill could act as an abortifacient, so we actually tried to avoid any kind of pregnancy by using condoms as “extra protection.” Yeah, we were doubling-up on our birth control methods.

During this time, we were “uncomfortable” using our methods of birth control because we knew that the Church didn’t approve.  However, we didn’t understand the reasons why and everyone we knew used contraceptives. We were honestly unaware of any alternatives for planning our family. So, we decided to go ahead and continue using artificial birth control.

A Fateful Homily in Rural Illinois

Several years into our marriage, we went on a camping trip and visited the local Catholic church one Sunday morning.  It was here that we heard a serious homily (think fire and brimstone) about contraception that made us seriously question the moral consequences of the Pill. The homily explained the gravity of the sin of using birth control in very certain terms to the point that we questioned even receiving Holy Communion that Sunday.

At this time, we didn’t fully understand all of the reasons why the Church taught that contraception was wrong, but our experience in church that morning certainly made us want to seek out advice. We decided to talk to our priest when we returned home.

Father Doesn’t Know Best

Frankly, our priest at the time did not offer much help. He told us that since we weren’t using the Pill primarily as a means to not get pregnant, we were okay. After all, Bethany presumably would still have painful periods should she stop taking it.

We still didn’t feel like we were doing the right thing (as it turns out, his advice was way off-base). Through our own research, we were beginning to better understand the Church’s teachings on why contraception was wrong, but we still had no other alternatives.

Engineer Meet Teacher: Planners Delight

Happily, at this point, we decided that we wanted to start a family. In hindsight, this sure seems a lot like a call from God on our lives, though we didn’t see it that way at the time.

We are planners (that’s the engineer and teacher part) that like to research things, so we went looking for effective ways to achieve pregnancy in an effort to help us better time our baby’s birth.  We found some information on the latest methods of fertility care on the Internet and in particular something called “Natural Family Planning” or NFP.

From there, we were able to learn enough to help us get pregnant within the first month or two of trying.

Natural Family Planning, Officially

After our son was born, we then took an official NFP class to learn how to avoid pregnancy using the same scientific knowledge. Now that we knew NFP existed, it was effective, and we fully understood the Church’s teachings, there was no going back.

Although the published studies say that it is 97-99% effective, it still took a lot of trust in each other and in God to use Natural Family Planning when we wanted to avoid pregnancy. However, the benefits in our marriage are where we’ve really seen NFP impact our lives.

My Feelings on Why Natural Family Planning Matters For Us

Once we started practicing Natural Family Planning,we quickly realized that its benefits went way beyond family planning.  Outside of the bedroom, our communication is more open, the bond between us is incredible, and we have developed an appreciation of true intimacy that we didn’t realize was there before.  I’d encourage you to click that last link for more on these aspects.

Of course, Natural Family Planning has a big role in the bedroom as well.  For me, the difference in our actual lovemaking when we were using contraceptives and now that we use NFP is profound.  Every time we engage in sex, we are truly saying “I trust you” and “I trust God.”

There are no barriers between us whether they be chemical, physical or emotional.  When I make love to Bethany, we are experiencing everything that God hopes for us, and we have nothing to feel ashamed about and nothing to hold us back.  Sex has become an incredible gift from God, and we praise him every time we share his gift with each other.

Simply put, our use of Natural Family Planning and our realization that God wants us to have great sex are the best things that have happened to our marriage.

What’s the Takeaway Here?

Again, I don’t expect you to read our story and immediately go seek out a class on NFP.  However, I hope that the next time you hear the term Natural Family Planning, you remember our story, our struggle and our passion for the impact that this counter-cultural means of planning a family has had on our lives.

And I hope it doesn’t take another young couple years of confusion and uncomfortableness to discover that there are safe, natural and effective means of family planning.  If you meet one and they have questions, please send them my way.

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Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Natural Family Planning: Our Journey from Cultural to Natural

Tags: Family Planning, Fertility, My Story, Natural Family Planning, Sex, Spirituality

Related posts:

1. What is Natural Family Planning?
2. Natural Family Planning Informational Video
3. How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?

I am an educated, fancy-pants, trendy individual. I have two completely useless liberal-arts degrees to prove it. So of course, like other liberal-arts-educated and trendy individuals, I am drawn to the word “natural.” It makes us organic-eating tree-huggers think of healthy bodies, uncorrupted oceans and virginal rainforests.

But like other fancy-pants, artistic types, I’m less enthusiastic about the word “planning.” It makes us think of boring charts, legal documents and architectural blueprints. Who wants to plan? I prefer the idea of being able to spontaneously decide, “I would like to eat a bagel today,” or “I want to have a baby.” So I’ve always had mixed feelings about “natural family planning.” The first part makes me go “Yay!” and the last part makes me go “Boooooo.”

I’ve also never known much about natural family planning. I always just had this vague idea that it was this Catholic thing that was supposed to prevent unwanted pregnancies but didn’t work very well. That is, I believed this until I came across Engaged Marriage.

My Mind Opens

Not only was I incredibly impressed by the blog overall, but I was also intrigued by its informative coverage of NFP. It didn’t take long before I was thinking to myself, “I really need to rethink some of my opinions on natural family planning.” After reading everything Dustin had written on the subject, I began to go beyond his blog to do other internet searches and learn more. And I was continually impressed by what I learned. I started to feel that everyone needed to be exposed to this really cool but highly misunderstood phenomenon.

So I had Dustin tell me and my readers more about NFP. I grilled him with my most pressing questions about NFP, and even asked a couple of my friends for their questions, too.

Dustin kindly answered all my questions, and let me post them on my blog. I was incredibly pleased with everything he had to say. Here are a couple of my responses and reactions to what I learned from him.

(As a note, though, in case you are new to my writing, I am currently trying to get pregnant, so I’m not switching to NFP at the moment).

Some Candid Reactions to This NFP Thing

1. At first I was surprised (and a little skeptical) to hear that NFP has about a 99% success rate, but when I learned more about it I understood why it was so reliable. And I became a lot less scared of it. See, one reason I had never really considered NFP was because my menstrual cycles are so irregular. Like reeeeally irregular – completely unpredictable. My instinctive response was, “It sounds cool, but it won’t work for me because I’m a freak.” I thought it was only for “normal,” 28-day women. But not only did Dustin explain to me that it works for irregular cycles too, because it tracks your fertility through your bodily signs rather than by a calendar, but he explained that his wife was just as irregular as I am. And NFP worked for them! Phew! Maybe it can work for me, too.

And, anyways, I’ve come to learn that the Pill isn’t nearly as reliable as people think it is. We’re always told that the Pill is 99% effective. What we don’t hear is that the given number is only true if the woman taking it never makes any mistakes, and doesn’t take anything that interferes with its effectiveness.

I swear to you, I personally know three women who have gotten pregnant while on the Pill. I’m not sure if they missed a pill or took it too late one day or whatever, but they definitely have babies when they did not intend to have them. The point is, people make mistakes, and as a result the Pill often fails, too. The fact that NFP isn’t 100% effective shouldn’t make us any more nervous than the Pill does, because it also isn’t 100%. They’re very comparable. NFP is only ineffective if its practitioners don’t do it right . . . which is the same problem as with the Pill!

2. I’m not a Catholic, and I’m not sure how strongly I feel about the possibly-abortifacient nature of the Pill (I probably should feel stronger about it because I’m pro-life), but I am still pretty convinced, now, that NFP is the best birth control option out there.

Dustin pointed out that there are two other problems with the Pill, besides the commonly-identified religious ones. But I think they’re both very relevant to all spiritual people.

The first is health: I, like most Christians, believe that our bodies are our temples, and that we are responsible for taking the best care of them we can. If the Pill compromises our health, we should reconsider its merit.

The second is the environment: I believe God made us stewards of this earth, and we are responsible for its health, too. Polluting our water with artificial hormones (which in turn influences our health) and filling our landfills with condoms does not sound like responsible stewardship, especially if there are known alternatives like NFP.

A third reason I am beginning to protest against the Pill, though, is its cost. Again, this has to do with stewardship. God made me responsible for taking care of my material resources. And you’re telling me that there is an absolutely FREE method of birth control out there, but I’ve been paying for potentially-harmful pills to do the same thing for the last four years of my life? Man! How irresponsible of me! I could have been using that cash to make the world a better place. Think of all the money that we could all save if we stopped taking the Pill!

3. I thought Dustin made an excellent point when he said that the reason people don’t hear about NFP is because there’s no money in it. What a good friggin’ point! All of a sudden, the Pill has a sinister side to it that I never before acknowledged. Of course doctors and pharmacists are going to push the Pill: it’s profitable! NFP will never be profitable because there’s nothing to sell. Of course the people on top are not going to waste their time explaining to you that you could get the same thing for free.

If I had no other reason, I think I would still want to promote NFP at this point just to stick it to the Man. Down with Big Pharma! Down with greedy, corporate America! Viva la revolución! Who’s with me? Sorry, that was my liberal-arts education getting the best of me again.

4. Since learning about NFP from Dustin and others, I have had to start changing the question from “Why not take the Pill?” to “Why take the Pill?” And I am coming up short of good answers.

I think Brian Killian, from Nuptial Mystery, says it well when he says this: “Contraception was invented for a single purpose, to maximize the possibility of indulgence while minimizing the consequences.” How true. The Pill is essentially just designed as an easy way out. (You Catholic readers have probably heard all of this stuff already. But most of us Gen Y evangelicals have never given it a moment’s thought before).

So, then, why use the Pill? Because I want to be able to indulge every urge we have, whenever we want, without having to think about it? That sounds lazy and selfish. If I go off the Pill, that just means I have to start paying attention to my body, and communicating with my husband about my body, and deciding together with him what we want in life. If I stop using the Pill, my husband and I will have to talk about whether fulfilling a particular urge at a particular moment will bring us closer to getting the things we both want in life. These all sound like good things, not bad things. Why have I been avoiding them for the last four years?

Lastly: I’ve come to see that NFP actually allows you to be more spontaneous with your procreative choices. You can decide to go for it at any time, because NFP is easily reversible. With the Pill, on the other hand, you often have to wait several months to get the hormones out of your system. I wanted to use the Pill because I thought it gave me more control over my reproduction, but I have learned that it actually gives me less control. OK, this isn’t true for everybody: some lucky buggers [*ahem* - Dustin and his wife] can still get pregnant the second they go off the Pill [*sigh*]; but for the rest of us, saying No to the Pill from the get-go looks more like a blessing.

Am I Sold on Natural Family Planning?

OK, I have to admit, there are some really nice things about being on the Pill. The most important one for me is what it did for my skin. I am a rather vain person, and I have struggled with acne since I was eleven. So I was thrilled that Diane-35, which I used for both my acne and for contraceptive purposes, made it a lot better. Since going off of it, my skin has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. This makes me very sad. Honestly, I cry about it regularly. But like I said – it’s a matter of vanity, and I don’t think I ought to compromise my health and my integrity for my looks. But dang, it’s hard.

Second, as I’ve already mentioned, I’ve always had crazy-irregular menstrual cycles. The Pill made it so much more regular. It was nice to be able to expect my period just by looking at how many pills I had left in the pack. But if it takes chemicals and foreign hormones to get that regularity, I don’t think it’s worth it. I’ll just have to learn about my body better so I can better identify the signs of oncoming menstruation, and be prepared for it at all times.

Ultimately, though, I think the bad things about the Pill outweigh the good, and the opposite is true for NFP. Someday, when I’m trying to not have kids again, I am going to very seriously consider NFP. Thanks, Dustin, for teaching me about it!

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Thank you for being a subscriber!

Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: An Educated, Artsy-Fartsy Protestant’s Thoughts on Natural Family Planning

Tags: Family Planning, Fertility, Guest Post, Natural Family Planning, Sex

Related posts:

1. What is Natural Family Planning?
2. Natural Family Planning Informational Video
3. Got Questions About Natural Family Planning? My Guest Post at Project M