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This is an email I sent to a close friend who started taking birth control pills, only to be freaked out by the emotional instability it was causing in her life, and making her wonder “is there any other way?”
My opinion in a nutshell… the pill (by “the pill” i mean any device which uses hormones/chemicals to disrupt or modify a woman’s natural body process) is frightening and dangerous in so many ways. i have known many women to have side effects….
1. mood problems IS a VERY common complaint- another girl at my church just got married, and she just got off of the pill for the same mood instability reasons you are describing, she was depressed and insomniac…they are now using natural family planning
2. potential for permanent damage to ability to conceive- some women have experienced permanent damage to their bodies and have trouble or are unable to conceive, have problems with infertility later in the future.
3. potential to abort or damage a conceived child- they tell you to stay off of the pill for 3 mths to 1 year before you attempt to conceive (hint, or you risk have a baby with minor or major birth defects). scary. (this could be part of the problem with some friends’ kids,who one is autistic and one is physically deformed and both were conceived while on birth control, although certainly not their parents’ fault). - the idea of birth control pills is to FORCE your body to have a period every month. if you were to conceive somehow anyway, the likelihood is either A the baby will survive but have bad effects or B the pill will still force the body to have a period (keeping the fertilized egg from implanting on the uterine wall), thus aborting the child without you ever knowing have you ever heard of an IUD baby? the metal IUD device malfunctions, the woman conceives, and the IUD becomes implanted somehwere in the baby’s body, most often the middle of the forehead, creating either abortion or a large circular scar across the forehead
4. your natural hormones DO affect you emotions, and thus, “messing” with your natural hormones messes with your emotions. this specifically includes the few days prior to ovulation, when your amorous hormones are aroused. this is usually our best time of the month with each other in an intimate way (me and benjamin), because I am much more interested than usual, and also experience greater pleasure both emotionally and physically from being intimate. on the pill, you don’t get this hormone, because it’s the one that prompts ovulation, and you don’t ovulate when you’re on the pill. i would be so sad to lose both the intimacy of this time of the month with Benjamin, and also the “happy” feelings and emotions of this time. it’s the opposite of PMS! The PRIMARY reason I personally cannot use artificual birth control is because of the possibility of birth defects or abortion of a conceived child. As a woman and as a Christian, I could not accept having caused either of these things.
Best two books for this: “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” (buy this if you can just get one) and “Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition” (great supplement on dealing with various female physical issues through nutrition).
There are some people who say they use natural familiy planning, but all they do is count days of their cycle to predict ovulation. This is not a very good plan, especially if your cycles are not exactly the same length every time. The book (Taking Charge…) explains that there are three ways that work together to help you estimate ovulation:
1. waking (basal) body temperature,
2. learning to identify the texture and variations of excretions from your private area (they change color/thickness/quantity etc during the month),
3. height of cervix (I don’t really use this, as I’ve not really figured it out yet, but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out), and
4. there are certain patterns of days you watch for.
The only thing particularly difficult about this method is taking your body temperature every morning at the same time and marking it down every day (you will need to purchase a basal thermometer - my favorite is the BD brand, other brands have various issues that frustrate me).
Now that we’ve been married 4 years, and I started this a year before we got married, I don’t take my temperature every day, only for the weeks when I need to. But for the first couple years I took it every day, until I got to know my cycle.
Basically, when you are approaching ovulation, you use a physical method of birth control, either a condom or diaphragm (we tried condoms but benjamin hated them, so now we use a diaphragm which works great). If your cycles are pretty regular, you should only have to use this for about a week. The rest of the month it’s free game, no birth control, just all spontaneity. My cycles are not regular, so there are times we have to use a diaphram longer than a week, but most women aren’t like that.
For me, it is WELL worth the minor hassle of having to go put in a diaphragm for a week or two, to have the freedom of knowing I will not harm or lose a potential child, have any negative side effects to my body, mood swings, or anything else.
Another friend of mine wanted to be natural, but felt she couldn’t be responsible enough to take her temperature every mornning, so she purchased a more expensive system that tests your first urine of the morning every day. It worked well for them, although they conceived Lavendar I believe because she skipped a day or two. You could try looking this up on the internet, I believe the device costs $200 or so, and the disposable one-time use testing strips must also be purchased regularly.
The other MAJOR highlight for me of natural family planning is I will know sooner than a pregnancy test could tell me if I am pregnant of not. This helps when I get stressed and don’t have my cycle for 2 or 3 months at a time, I know that I know that my body temperature is still low, so I can’t have ovulated, and I can’t be pregnant (because your body temperature raises when you ovulate, and stays high throughout your pregnancy). Also, if your high temperature continues past 18 days, you are pregnant. A pregnancy test couldn’t tell you antyhing that soon. For me for now, it’s nice to know that I’m NOT pregnant when I don’t want to be, even though it’s been 50 or 60 days since my last period.
My parents used this method their entire marriage, and it was my dad’s responsibility to wake up my mom at the designated time, put the thermometer in her mouth, and mark it on the chart the next mroning, because he was the more responsible and detailed one. They did that their whole marriage. I was planned this way, Tabitha (my first sister) was planned, Esther (my second sister) was an accident because she was conceived 2 mths after Tab was born, and my mom didn’t realize she could be fertile that soon after pregnancy, Priscilla (third sister) was an accident because my parents were fasting in prayer over whether to have more children, and didn’t know that fasting can alter your body temperature, so they thought it was safe and it wasn’t, and Mercy (fourth sister) was planned. My mom also said that for the three of us that were planned, my parents KNEW that my mom was fertile and they would conceive, she said it was so much fun to be intimate knowing they were creating a child at that moment. It takes a lot of the stress out of trying to get pregnant when you DO want to as well, because it’s not just hit or miss on when you have sex, you can know exactly what you’re doing.
Anyway….you should know me well enough to know that I would not force you or anyone else to my opinions on this subject. One of my sisters uses natural family planning, and the other uses the pill because she feels to irresponsible. However, she doesn’t take her pill very responsibly either, because you have to take that every day too, so I’m not sure which is worse!
Whatever you and your spouse choose TOGETHER to do, is your perogative, and I hope you make the best decision for yourseves and each other that you can. I just wanted to share my heart.