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

[Minerva]

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.

That's so stupid! Doctors find out what's wrong with your uterus/ovaries/tubes, and then recommend the simplest and safest treatment, which is often the pill or the pill in conjunction with another treatment. The fact that these kids think they know better than doctors irks me.

And this:

It feels better naked, but it's actually better safer (and I did say safer, thank you very much. I'm not an idiot, I've been to high school and I therefore know what condoms' limitations are). Nobody just uses a condom for the sake of it, if a couple is using condoms it's for a purpose: to make their sex better in that it will be safer. Many couples don't have the luxury to decide between condom or no condom. When you're having a one-night stand, when you've missed a pill, when you can't use hormonal BC or an IUD for some reason, or when you're using FAM and you're ovulating, your choice is between condom or no sex. A lot of people are going to choose condom over no sex, because sex with a condom is still more fun than no sex.

tl;dr I have way more sex than even the married 1flesh writers thanks to condoms and birth control. So :banana-fingers:

[gravelmonkey]

Tehe! I'm the result of NFP too.

At church on Sunday, we prayed for "a successful NFP week." I wondered what they really meant - success measured by no pregnancies, so more people will use the method, or success measured by pregnancies (which is what the Catholic Church really wants). What bugs me the most about NFP is the one-size-fits-all solution. Of COURSE the Catholic Church (run completely by men) would think that all women would have identical cycles that never change.

[pikapika]

I bug my sister all the time that she is the result of NFP!

I am catholic and had to attend NFP introductory course before getting married. The course was terrible! super graphic images of cervix and other things. I cannot think how uncomfortable those 3 hours were for any young couple there committed to purity. My husband and I are older and had definitely not kept "pure" for each other haha.

[loveandwar]

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

4NRyiyIKwG8

GAH!!! If this girl were in my shoes (PMDD), she'd be BEGGING for BC. Migraines, cramps so bad that you can't get up, and bad mood swings aren't something I'm going to go through 2 weeks out of every month if I can help it!! I thank God for the person who figured out that BC can help other health problems!!

:angry-banghead:

[bananacat]

Am I the only woman who actually prefers condoms? The stereotypical after-sex vaginal smell is completely caused by semen, and I don't like it at all. Condoms also make some men last longer. If I ever want to get pregnant I guess I'll have to tolerate it, but I would prefer to use a condom even within marriage.

[lemurknits]

GAH!!! If this girl were in my shoes (PMDD), she'd be BEGGING for BC. Migraines, cramps so bad that you can't get up, and bad mood swings aren't something I'm going to go through 2 weeks out of every month if I can help it!! I thank God for the person who figured out that BC can help other health problems!!

:angry-banghead:

Don't forget vomiting, your intestines 'clearing out' and terrible acne. And I hope she has middleshmertz as well. Because ovulation pain is SO MUCH FUN/ :snooty:

[MrsKay]

Don't forget vomiting, your intestines 'clearing out' and terrible acne. And I hope she has middleshmertz as well. Because ovulation pain is SO MUCH FUN/ :snooty:

Ditto to all of that. The only way to get rid of my underlying problem is to rip out my "girl" parts. Somehow, I don't think the fundies would approve. Had I not used BCP in my teens, endo would have destroyed my reproductive system before I could have had ANY kids. If my 15 year old wants BCP, she knows she just has to ask and I'll make damn sure she gets them.

[YPestis]

My SO did a weekend retreat sponsored by the Catholic Church as requirement to be married in the church. It was pretty good until they ended the retreat with pamphlets on NFP. I nearly had an aneurysm when I read some of what they wrote.

Even more surprising, one of my SO's friend recently told us they were using NFP for the last couple of years and it worked very well for them. He were surprised when I told him it was not very effective and there were much better methods. For some reason, he thought it was as effective as artificial BC. I agree that NFP can prevent pregnancies, but the fail rate is much, much higher. It surprised me that a nonfundie couple would be duped into thinking that NFP was so effective. Of course, it's not the first time I've seen lapsed Catholics thinking that it works. I think that's the danger of listening to the church on things pertaining to reproduction. Many Catholics may not believe the underlying reasons for what the church advocates, but they still take much of what the church says at face value. It's quite scary, really.

[FakePigtails]

YPestis: pro-NFP people advertise it as being more effective than hormonal birth control. Of course, that stat relies on them comparing super-perfect NFP use with imperfect pill use :roll: The other thing with that, having used FAM for a time last year, is that if you mess up charting, you don't know that you're wrong, a don't know what you don't know type of thing. Or you realize you're not sure and don't have sex. For days and days. OTOH, if I forget a pill, well the pill's right there in its package on my bathroom counter for me to see, no question of whether I need to be extra careful or not.

On the subject of having tried FAM, I completely agree that it's great information to know which makes it frustrating that charting is so tied to NFP. Even with using condoms though and abstaining often during fertile times, it was very stressful waiting for my period, especially once my cycle got irregular (I'd been on the pill before which for me gives me some time of regularity when going off it). Then when I got close to starting graduate school it was just too much. Sure artificial hormones aren't completely healthy, but neither are monthly panic attacks (nor are pregnancies). [my Christian side] I just can't believe God called me to living like that when He gave me the abilities to be doing what I'm doing now [/that perspective]

What I'm trying to get to is that it seems like everyone I see into NFP are SAHMs and their husbands who don't really mind having their next kid earlier than they may have planned and in some cases want a bunch of kids one right after the other. Of course it's easy for them to say it's not a stressful method! It seems like none of them are truly willing to put themselves in other shoes to see why they've made the choices they have.

[Minerva]

Am I the only woman who actually prefers condoms? The stereotypical after-sex vaginal smell is completely caused by semen, and I don't like it at all. Condoms also make some men last longer. If I ever want to get pregnant I guess I'll have to tolerate it, but I would prefer to use a condom even within marriage.

No, I sort of prefer condoms, too. I use them to back up my mini-pill, but I used them even on the regular pill. They make the clean-up way easier. I notice no difference in sensation, and my partner barely notices the difference. I get the feeling that a lot of people's problems with condoms stem from the erection trouble they can cause, which my partner and I experienced, but we figured out how to get around it. I know couples who have been relying on condoms for years and are perfectly happy with it.

[Maul the Koala]

The people on 1flesh.org are tools.

[kb2]

My SO did a weekend retreat sponsored by the Catholic Church as requirement to be married in the church. It was pretty good until they ended the retreat with pamphlets on NFP. I nearly had an aneurysm when I read some of what they wrote.

Yeah, it seems weird that a system that relies so heavily on knowing a lot about your body is promoted with half-truths. Not that everyone who uses it lies, but I think to believe that everyone must do it because it is the only moral way you have to have a lot of cognitive dissonance.

[Beammeup]

Thank Good for Mirena :whistle:

lol by alexa@flotsam, on Flickr

[Trynn]

That video...angers me. What did she say at the end was supposed to be better than birth control? Nano technology? What on earth? /confused.

[Irishy]

That video...angers me. What did she say at the end was supposed to be better than birth control? Nano technology? What on earth? /confused.

It's NaPro technology. Natural procreation I think, popular here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthre ... 2055378087

[Anise]

Don't forget vomiting, your intestines 'clearing out' and terrible acne. And I hope she has middleshmertz as well. Because ovulation pain is SO MUCH FUN/ :snooty:

Wait, that's normal? Wow, I feel so much better about myself.

Also add going into shock and fainting to that list. :cry: