Just kidding…it does :)
To people reading this blog who might not know, NFP
(Natural Family Planning) is a way of being aware of one's fertility and using
the awesome cycle that God gave us to intentionally have a child, or to try to
avoid a child (with the openness to life, if God wills it, as center). NFP is often mocked by those that don’t use
it. People think it doesn’t work. Although, studies have shown time and time again
that NFP is as effective, if not more, than artificial birth control. However, to many, many people, Aaron and I
have probably given a ‘bad’ witness of NFP, because we have the blessing of
being with child ONCE again :) We will have three kids in three years. Our children are only 14 months apart. What a failure we were, only, after sometime,
I realized, we weren’t using NFP to avoid pregnancy when we got pregnant.
We weren’t using NFP to avoid pregnancy when we got pregnant
with this third child. I just thought I should let you know that. I have been trying to find the words, for
some time now, to explain how this gift of a third child came about, when we
have made it very clear we were going to try to wait a year (mostly because of
the two c sections and my hatred of pregnancy- love the result, hate the
process). To be honest, even though I
announced this pregnancy like this, I had written another blog, 2 weeks early
that was defensive and angry and answered people’s accusations before we were
accused.
We weren’t using NFP to avoid pregnancy when we got pregnant
with this third child. You see, I have
told many of you that I am still having a hard time ‘wrapping my head’ around having a third. I have ALWAYS wanted a
big family, but truthfully, it just ain’t smart to have three kids in three
years. And it really ain’t smart to have
three major surgeries in three years. I
cannot wait to hold this baby that I am blessed to carry in my body right now,
but truthfully, ‘timing’ would have worked out better in the fall. We had things planned. We planned a ‘we are out of
debt’ cruise with our really good friends. I REALLY wanted to
drink a few bud lights on St. Patrick’s day.
Although this child is not a mistake (why, in God’s name would anyone
call a child a ‘mistake'), the timing of this child was certainly unplanned
or less than ideal. But it wasn’t
because NFP failed at helping us avoid pregnancy.
You see, I read THIS ARTICLE this morning, and it made it
all clear to me. NFP has rules. You follow your signs, and you follow the
rules. I HATE the comparison, but if
you are taking artificial birth control, and you ‘forget’ to take a pill one
day, you broke the rule. And, with NFP,
if you ‘break the rules’ you can’t blame the process. Now, I am about to get a little, ‘TMI’ up in
here, but I think it is worth it, so I am going to proceed. If TMI, turns you off, you might want to skip
this next part. Aaron and I ‘broke the
rules’. We decided to um, “engage in
marital relations”, on a day when we knew that chances of fertility were VERY
low, but possible. I had looked at when I ovulated, and decided we were ‘probably
good’. BUT, the monitor clearly said, ‘low
chance of fertility’. The signs were
showing low chances of fertility. On
that night, we knew there was a ‘chance’ (albeit) small that we could conceive. And, we decided to proceed anyway, even after having a conversation about the
low signs of fertility. See, for a split
second, I let my brain forget that my family is CRAZY fertile, so a ‘low chance’
is a ‘high chance’ in our family. There
is no such thing as a low chance. To
some of you that might struggle with infertility, I get this might be difficult
to read, but if at any time during the window of fertility (the looongest
window possible) we choose to um, ‘engage in marital relations’ (not sure how
else to put that) we will get pregnant.
Our family’s history has shown me that.
And still, we decided that night to proceed.
And, God blessed us with a third child. And it wasn’t because NFP failed, it was because,
for that night, we decided we weren’t going to use NFP to avoid pregnancy. So, for those of you that might be thinking, ‘see,
that Catholic way just does not work’, it does work…we just decided to break
the rules. The cool thing about it is,
when you break the rules, you get a kid!
And although it has taken me sometime to wrap my head around it, I can
say with 100% certainty, when I get to look in the eyes of the kid who is
cookin’ inside of me, I just might think it was the best rule break I have ever
done!
So that I don’t bore you with too many things in one day, I
am going to label this Part 1, with Part 2 to follow. In part 2, I am going to tell you about a
conversation I had with my favorite other NFP couple blessed with crazy
fertility about how NFP really does ‘ruin the romance’. And, my response :) I am sure you will be waiting at the edge of
your seat!
In the meantime, if you know me, and you hears someone say something
about how we are expecting our third because we are too silly to use artificial
birth control and instead use that ineffective form of spacing called, ‘Natural
Family Planning’….can you clarify that when we got pregnancy with our third, it
wasn’t because of NFP, we weren’t using NFP that night :)
