Time to embrace your fertility ladies, it's NFP week!

[FakePigtails]

In honor of the occasion, I propose we share our favorite pro-NFP/anti-BC quotables, and snark at things like

(more posters at http://old.usccb.org/prolife/issues/nfp ... ives.shtml)

It's God's vision, y'all! And what's with this faithfully yours? Am I unfaithfully not my husband's thanks to the pills that we've BOTH agreed are best for us at this time?

I don't even know where to start on quotables. "Fertility is not a disease" is a good one. I don't think it's a disease, I just have no use for it right now. My brain that's being used to get me through the rest of my education gets the priority now.

Also all the condescending implications that I don't know what I'm doing, physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc etc by taking my pills :roll:

Lastly, in the spirit of the occasion, I have just yelled at my husband for using me since obviously he doesn't want all of me and just wants me for the sex.

[meda]

Since I am in the middle of an IUI cycle, let me give this a big

Ain't nothin natural about the meda household's family planning.

[GeoBQn]

I frequently see some variation of, "Thanks to NFP, I know that my husband loves ALL of me, including my fertility." I've got PCOS. Should I just release my husband into the wild so that he can find a more fertile specimen?

"There are plenty of options out there without resorting to the pill! A doctor should find what's REALLY causing your period problems without just throwing the Pill at you!" Yes, my reproductive endocrinologist was totally "throwing the Pill at me" when I had to do a full-bladder ultrasound, get tons of vials of blood taken, and had to do a glucose-tolerance test.

[Minerva]

I don't get it, why would using NFP be indicative of your husband not just wanting for the sex? I'm pretty sure I know how to tell whether my partner wants me for more than just sex, and it's not by which method of contraception we're using.

I feel like I should do something special for this week. I've got my period, so it's not like we can light-heartedly engage in all kinds of sex with a 99.9% chance of NOT getting me pregnant within a year. I have developed a bad habit of missing pills lately...maybe I'll pull an NFP and get pregnant.

(That last thing was a joke btw.)

[ilovetchotchkes]

Since I am in the middle of an IUI cycle, let me give this a big

Ain't nothin natural about the meda household's family planning.

*hugs* wish you luck!!! hope this one is successful!!!! (took 2 years for Tchotchke toddler, and was a week away from starting the injectable drugs )

NFP, i don't get. Its "sister" method "FAM" is a lot more sane. "use barrier methods when you're fertile"- I use FAM not to NOT get pregnant , but to merely chart what the hell is going on with my body. My cycles are mysteriously clockwork regular, i've found oddly enough despite that, I don't ovulate regularly. Now, this isn't an excuse to be stupid and NEVER use BC, but a tool on my side when i'm trying to GET knocked up. It helped when I was going through fertility stuff. - I merely use it as a tool to be more aware of what my body is doing, which is a good thing.

What I don't get is with the exception of 2-3 people NOBODY who is Catholic that I know actually USES NFP, and I have a HUGE Catholic family, went to Catholic high school, and college, so pretty much most of my peers from high school and college are Catholics..... Nobody uses it for real. Everyone takes the class in order to get married in the RCC, and then everyone just goes on the pill.....

[libmomj]

I practiced NFP/FAM for 10+ years -- my body and the pill don't play well together. My husband and I used NFP with barrier backup during fertile times, knowing that pregnancy was still a possibility (we weren't actively trying to conceive, but were open to children). I became pregnant twice due to NFP failure/slight changes in my usually very regular cycle. When we were certain we didn't want anymore children, we switched to more reliable birth control methods.

I'd imagine that pressuring women to use NFP for religious reasons actually results in some anti-choicers secretly seeking abortion.

[PennySycamore]

My periods used to like clockwork, too except for the month every 18 months where it would be precisely 2 weeks late. It wasn't so regular to the extent of one woman I met you knew that her periods would occur at 8 AM exactly 28 days apart either. (That really is like clockwork!) Despite the regularity and the clear signs I was ovulating, I still had one notable failure of NFP and that was with my premie, Katherine. Most of the time, we've used barrier methods.

I've never quite thought it was fair to demand that couple use NFP since it's not unheard of for women to be more easily aroused when they are the most fertile.

[infooverload]

What irks me about these NFP people is they do not consider each individual situation. For example what if a couple knows one member is sick and could have a 50%/50% chance of passing on the illness to a potential child. The more responsible thing would be to not just leave the situation up to natural family planning. After all a rational caring person doesn't want to intentionally concieve a child they know is going to be sick.

[luckystone]

I kind of want to track my cycles and ovulation time just out of interest - I suspect it's quite regular and would make it easy to get/not get pregnant, depending on I want. But then I'd have to go off the pill and use condoms and that would be lame. The main reason is because my periods are more painful and longer off the pill as well.

[marmalade]

My thyroid taking a 50% plummet in 6 months' time made my cycles wonky since last February and non-existant since the end of April. I'm only a week on a small dose of T-3 since I can't take more T-4. I have no idea where I am in my cycles, or if I'll ever have one again. I'm on the low end of average, but if I don't get another one, I'm right at 50 when I hit menopause.

At any rate, if my husband didn't go to bad at 7 and get up about the time I go to bed and work the 6th day, we could go at it like rabbits these days. Oh well, the headship feels as if he needs to bring in as much $$$$ as possible what with me not working - other than the "official" student teaching - for the next year and a half of grad school.

[Maul the Koala]

I'm barely ovulating, if I'm ovulating at all. Ugh. It is so bloody hard to track.

That being said sometimes you can shoot a live round instead of blanks so I'm getting an IUD in just in case. NFP is too risky. Oh and the husband loving your fertility part? They can fuck right off. I found out I'll need assistance if I want to have children. So I guess I shouldn't be loved then.

[MrsKay]

I have to use FAM because the Pill hates me now, for some reason. I am now dying of endo pain as I await my period... any day now would be good... If some NFP/BCP hater preached to me right now, I'd be sorely tempted to shove my ovaries down their throat and then strangle them with my fallopian tubes.

[Boltingmadonna]

Oh lordy. I hate NFP propaganda with a stabby fury. I think fertility awareness is a wonderful thing and every young woman should have it. But the point of it is to help you make good choices for yourself. Like, in my case, using barrier methods during fertile times. Here's a little-known fact that NFP advocates prefer not to talk about, because it entirely messes up their system: many women (including me) not infrequently ovulate TWICE in the same cycle. If this happens, you are screwed, because you've already abstained during your fertile time, you now assume you're good to go until the next cycle, you have sex--and boom, even if you realize that you're having another fertile time, it's too late. The sperm are swimming. Two of my pregnancies make no sense unless I ovulated twice.

Also, the notion that breastfeeding will help space your pregnancies: works for some, not for others. I breastfed like a mutha, every couple of hours day and night, and the longest I ever went without getting my period back was six weeks.

My biggest complaint about NFP advocates: they assure you that you'll have wonderful sex with your now-considerate and faithful husband, and it will be just a few tiny days of self-control. But if you ask them, "So, how often do you have sex with this method?" they're all like "Oh that is far too PERSONAL a question!" So you never get any honest answers. But apparently it's not too personal to tell me what to do with my sex life and make all kinds of impertinent comments about how my husband and I don't have a real marriage because we used birth control. I think this method works wonderfully for women who don't like sex very much anyway, and for men who are secretly gay. Others may have problems.

[Lady_M]

Today is one of those days where fundie/NFP makes me want to open up a can of whoop-ass...

Because, you know, it would have been fucking AWESOME for me to get pregnant in the middle of school when my husband lost his job and we had no income for several months and I was trying to pass a licensure exam and get a job.

And now I suppose it's my fault because I used birth control that my cycles are completely screwed up right now, I've been bleeding for 2+ weeks, my hormones are insane and I cry at just about anything. Actually, these people would probably say that this is some sort of punishment for me...because now that I want to be pregnant, I'm going to wind up going back on low-dose birth control for a month or two just to get things calmed down (hopefully).

Ugh. I'm trying not to take these people personally, but thanks to the damn hormones that's more difficult than usual.

[MonkeyMomma]

What I don't get is with the exception of 2-3 people NOBODY who is Catholic that I know actually USES NFP, and I have a HUGE Catholic family, went to Catholic high school, and college, so pretty much most of my peers from high school and college are Catholics..... Nobody uses it for real. Everyone takes the class in order to get married in the RCC, and then everyone just goes on the pill.....

Um, yeah. The Roman Catholic Church can't even get Roman Catholics to use NFP. An overwhelming majority of sexually experienced Catholic women between the ages of 15 and 44 have used some sort of non-church approved BC method. Furthermore, the majority of Catholics support access to birth control, even if they don't use it. The church should probs consider this teaching in light of the fact that they can't even convince Catholics of its worth ...

Personal anecdote: Yeah, the NFP talk was wrapped into the pre-Cana class we were required to take by the priest who married us. (I think he just wanted to get the big diocese-required class out of the way, and did more one-on-one debriefing with us.) It was awful. Think sixth grade biology (here's the egg, traveling down the fallopian tube ...). Thankfully, it was light on rhetoric. Obviously, we didn't sign up for the full six week course. ;)

[MonkeyMomma]

Hey! Check out this latest fuckery from 1flesh! Can't wait for FJers to shred it!

4NRyiyIKwG8

[Lady_M]

Hey! Check out this latest fuckery from 1flesh! Can't wait for FJers to shred it!

4NRyiyIKwG8

They title it "The pill and girl problems" :angry-banghead: . I find it interesting the way they infantilize women - you know "girl" problems, like it's something small and non-problematic. It's like I'm a child that needs someone to make a decision for me, not a woman and able to think for myself, thanks.

And it just makes me stabby how she says "and one pill is prescribed for a myriad of women's health problems" as though all drugs have just one use and only one use. Or that the video makes it sound like all hormonal birth control is exactly the same when various types of pills have different synthetic progestins and different doses of hormones. Not to mention all the studies that have taken place about these kinds of things.

Clearly these people know nothing about evidence-based practice in health care...

[kayray]

Well, the only kind of family planning I am interested in is in the kind of family that most certainly does not have any kids in it (my husband, and dogs and/or cats are okay though!). So yeah, I am not willing to risk pregnancy due to double ovulation, hormonal imbalances, the random odd cycle and so forth. And well, if I did get pregnant, it would be off to get an abortion (which I am sure will be even more offensive to these NFP advocates than birth control.) I'll stick to my copper IUD, thanks.

Somehow my husband loves ALL of me anyway. Well, maybe he does not love my sloppy cleaning habits (he goes over them most of the time, ha ha) but he seems pretty happy anyway even if I am not producing the babies.

[Minerva]

They title it "The pill and girl problems" :angry-banghead: . I find it interesting the way they infantilize women - you know "girl" problems, like it's something small and non-problematic. It's like I'm a child that needs someone to make a decision for me, not a woman and able to think for myself, thanks.

And it just makes me stabby how she says "and one pill is prescribed for a myriad of women's health problems" as though all drugs have just one use and only one use. Or that the video makes it sound like all hormonal birth control is exactly the same when various types of pills have different synthetic progestins and different doses of hormones. Not to mention all the studies that have taken place about these kinds of things.

Clearly these people know nothing about evidence-based practice in health care...

That pretty much sums it up.

[kayray]

Hey! Check out this latest fuckery from 1flesh! Can't wait for FJers to shred it!

4NRyiyIKwG8

Nothing like being condescending to get your point across.

Great use of "girl problems" rather than, you know, saying things like endometriosis or PCOS. Tee hee, "girl problems" are so dainty and cute!

[SweetTexasCrude]

Great use of "girl problems" rather than, you know, saying things like endometriosis or PCOS.

If you're having girl problems

I feel bad for you, son

I got 99 Problems

and the pill ain't one

[MonkeyMomma]

If you're having girl problems

I feel bad for you, son

I got 99 Problems

and the pill ain't one

Love, love, love.

[Angri-la]

Here is my favorite anti-BC one I can find on the interwebz. Opus Dei had some crazy pamphlets, but I threw them out when I went evangelical. I will forever find anything that tells women they should not be able to control their own bodies, including fertility, complete ridiculous. By the same token, I also find the idea that a woman is less of a woman, if she is not a mother, to be absurd.

[libmomj]

Nothing like being condescending to get your point across.

Great use of "girl problems" rather than, you know, saying things like endometriosis or PCOS. Tee hee, "girl problems" are so dainty and cute!

Well endometriosis and PCOS are medical problems with diagnostic criteria and treatment protocols, not very useful for shaming and keeping biology/sexuality in the dark. "Girl problems" are icky and taboo, and most likely in your pretty little head, don't ya know?

[Cannelle]

It chaps my hide when they say, "Your doctor should find out what's wrong with your periods and not just throw the birth control pill at it!"

In a lot of cases, that's like saying, "Your doctor should find out why your body is making abnormal white blood cells and not just throw chemotherapy at it!" or "Your doctor should find out why you're oozing green pus from that cut, and not just throw antibiotics at it!" Sometimes the pill IS the answer, but obviously these people just want to see women suffer, so I'm not sure why I'm bothering to bring this up.