A Natural Planning Birth Story

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When Elijah was about 6 months old, I had a long time friend tell me some disturbing information about birth control pills. I spent quite a bit of time doing my own research and came to the same conclusions she did. It was then that I knew God had opened my eyes to this realization for a reason and I could no longer take the pill. 

When you've always been on the pill, you're not really concerned with what your body is doing. You just know that your chances of getting pregnant are very slim. I was always told that you don't ovulate when you take birth control pills. One of the things I learned is that's not 100%. In the event that you do ovulate (which is very likely) and an egg does get fertilized, the pill works to make sure that the baby cannot implant in the uterus and survive. I believe life begins at conception and taking a pill that would prevent that life from living was unacceptable.

We knew we wanted to have more kids, so doing something permanent was out of the question. Out of all the options we had, we chose to become educated on Natural Family Planning. We took classes at the local hospital and met with a nurse for the first few months. We were even able to get our insurance company to pay for it (minus our copay). I was in complete amazement of my body and my fertility! This was the first time I was being educated in depth on how my fertility cycle works. This may sound strange, but I was excited about it! 

I received a lot of opposition from people when I told them we were doing Natural Family Planning. Most people laughed and joked saying, "You know what they call people who do Natural Family Planning, right? They're called parents!" Those who didn't laugh at me, yelled at me. The nurse at my obgyn was the worst. I couldn't believe how many people were against a natural form of birth control! I was determined to prove them wrong.

It was a leap of faith to give Natural Family Planning a chance. What if I messed up and didn't chart properly? That was my main concern. We weren't ready to get pregnant again yet. If you've read my first two birth stories, then you know I'm pretty fertile. But, I felt educated enough to know what I was doing and trusted that this was the path God wanted us to take.

We did Natural Family Planning successfully for 3 1/2 years to avoid pregnancy. We then used it to get pregnant with baby #3, and did so in the first month we tried. I'd say it works just fine :)


Erin is a Colorado mommy who loves her family is taking an unusual path - even with four kiddos she and her husband are living debt free! She blogs at Life with the Radcliffs.