Reflections on Respect My Fertilitah!
You may want to file this one under "too much information". Just so you know, I did clear all of this with Kathi before I posted. If there are any other married couples who are dealing with this issue, we hope that this will be an encouragement to you.When Kathi and I got married, it was almost assumed (by me anyway) that she would be going on the Pill. And, that's what she did. There were some initial questions and concerns, but I more or less ignored those and we went ahead with birth control. Well, ever since we started, Kathi has never felt at ease with taking it. There's always been that lingering doubt in the back of her mind of whether the Pill is abortive or not and whether there is a any substantial cancer risk.
Recently, they issued a complete recall on the off-brand contraceptive that she had been taking. We never really found out why, which doesn't help our confidence in the pharmaceutical industry. Anyway, she had to take the brand-name pill instead. For some reason that caused a whole other level of difficulties. This new pill has made her very susceptible to migraines and just generally makes her crazy. She knew that she had to stop!
Well, I wasn't so supportive at first. I was very reluctant to even think about the possibility of going off the Pill. What's sad is that it simply came down to selfishness. The Pill is the easy answer. I don't have to worry about babies coming in and interrupting my life! But, as I saw more and more how it was affecting her, I knew that we had to do something.
So, we recently decided to go off the Pill completely. We're going to give Natural Family Planning a go and see what happens. Basically, this is a highly developed method to track a women's fertility using temperature, cervical mucus, other bodily symptoms. You can also buy devices that will measure the various hormones to determine when you're ovulating. Apparently, if done well, it can be very effective. Or, I could be a father within a year...I guess we'll see.
We simply feel relieved to be doing this. I'm not saying that the Pill is inherently wrong (although there is still no conclusive evidence saying that it's not abortive), but my attitude towards it was. It meant a selfish, responsibility-free sex life. My heart was not honoring to the Lord or to my wife. But, now that we're going through with it, it's definitely scary. We're not exactly in a position in life where having a child would be good. But, we're going to give this Natural Family Planning method a whirl and leave the rest in God's hands.
posted by Kevin C @ 10:23 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
It's probably lacking decorum for me to choose to respond to this postof all the posts there are to choose from when we haven't been in contact for a long while...but hey what's a little lack of decorum among friends...eh? But family Cram I really think you guys might be on to something with this. The youngest Bain is a medical student and the more I learn about the origins of Birth control it's uses and it's limitations the more uneasy it makes me...as a means of at our convenience "birth control". My sister's friend is a Ph.D. cancer researcher at OSU and she's predicting a wave of new breast cancer outbreaks among our mother's generation because of prolonged decades long usage of high dosages of the pill. And health concerns aside, the theological considerations are more important. in Genesis 1:28 where we're told to "be fruitful"...that's a Dominical command, coming straight from the mouth of God. I think most of us evangelical folk take seriously the sanctity of marriage---the idea that God made woman for man and vice versa and we are willing to be countercultural in our desire to protect the sanctity of marriage as something unique and different than other cultural expressions of love & sexuality, but how unique is it if we spend our time in a courtship process that looks different than our cultural peers, only to turn around after marriage and treat marriage like it's highest end is intimate loving feelings and convenient sex. In that case what distinguishes it from gay marriage or polygamy or any smorgasboard of relationship combinations in which people can have intimately loving feelings that manifest themselves sexually? What does that say about God if we trust in Him for everything including the timing for childbearing and the financing to support children. I don't know if I would or will ever be bold enough to preach from the pulpit or categorically say that people should not use birth control---there are a lot of nuances and complexities surrounding the issue, but I will say for most of us protestant folk and even conservative protestant folk because it's so common place---all of our friends use birthcontrol--- we don't often stop to really think about the ethical and theological consequences of just following suit.
In short I strongly support you guys in this endeavor no matter how many people give you funny looks or think this is ill advised. I think you're taking a great step of faith. P.S. one of my former roommates recently made the same decision. And there are all kinds of resources out there for Natural Family Planning. She would be happy, probably more than happy to hook you up with book recommendations, support groups, internet chat sites about Natural Family Planning.
If you're interested shoot me an email guys---marciana.bain@ptsem.edu.
Grace and Peace,
-Marcy
I stumbled onto your blog as I was looking at what people were searching for when they came to MY blog. I'm a Natural Family Planning teacher and talking about fertility is something I'm very comfortable with. I hope you come to really embrace this as the marriage building thing it really is!
And feel free to drop me a line at nancy @ nancysbrandt . com if you have any questions.
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