Using Natural Family Planning & Fertility Awareness As Birth Control

While Fertility Awareness (FA) for the purpose of contraception cannot be learned in one single post, my hope is to bring the method to your attention because it is:

  • natural
  • friendly to our environment
  • frugal
  • allows your sex life to become a private affair between you and your honey.

Guys don't run off, you may want to tell your lady about this. Two books I highly recommend, and I do recommend that you buy both of them are Toni Weschler's Taking Charge of Your Fertility and Katie Singer's The Garden of Fertility.

Please do not attempt to use Fertility Awareness for contraception 1) without reading and studying the books thoroughly and 2) until you have charted the woman's cycle faithfully for six months.

How Much Does Your Birth Control Cost?

Do you and your partner use prophylactics?  This product can be costly, especially if you cannot tolerate latex or prefer using lambskin.  Think of the production that goes into this product, the little packages littering the landfills.  And what about those times when you run out?  Oh no!  Do you pay for birth control pills?  Does your insurance provide birth control pills free of charge?   Do you use an internal method of contraception?   Unfortunately, hormonal contraception will have detrimental effects on a woman’s health in the long run; not to mention they are considered to be  abortifacients.

How Much Does Fertility Awareness cost?

Contraception with Fertility Awareness has the beginning cost of your Digital Basal Thermometer (under $10) and the books (under $40).

That’s it.

  • No costly appointments with your doctor
  • No driving to the drugstore for prescriptions
  • No monthly fees
  • No packages or equipment of which to dispose

Birth control becomes a private affair between you and your lover.

Fertility Awareness Is Not Your Grandma’s Rhythm Method

Back in the day, a woman was instructed to count a set number of days from the beginning of her cycle to find the “safe” day.  Many women ended up getting pregnant when they hadn't really planned on it, using the “rhythm” method. The problem with this method is that you are assuming today’s fertility will be the same as it has been in the past, not to mention that every woman is different; one month may be longer or shorter than the last, and our cycle can be affected by stress in our daily life.   With FA, you are aware of your fertility right now, today.

Fertility: Men vs. Women

Men are fertile 24/7/365.  This is such beautiful design; if men were fertile sometimes, like women, the chance for conception would drop significantly.

Women, on the other hand, release an egg which is available for fertilization for 24 hours. Sometimes due to double ovulation, she may be fertile 48 hours each cycle.  You might think, “If we could find that 24-48 hour period to abstain we'd be happy honeymooners for the rest of the month.”   Not so quick, if you were trying to achieve pregnancy, the chances would become astronomical if you didn't know how to determine that 24-48 hours.  So the woman has fertile mucous (clear egg white texture) which is present for several days prior to ovulation.  Sperm can live in fertile mucous up to five days!   This increases the woman’s fertility from 24 hours to several days each cycle.

The Beauty of Fertility Awareness

With knowledge, women become in sync with their bodies.  You know how PMS affects you, Fertility Awareness will help you to recognize why you feel more amorous!  Of course, it is because we were designed to procreate and during ovulation we (usually unconsciously) become more friendly toward our partner.

Fertility Awareness makes it easier to understand why men are in overdrive when it comes to their love lives.  They are driven because they are male, and must be fertile on demand.  It also helps to explain how many women (accidentally) get pregnant their first time;  young and in love, overcome with desire, hormones working overtime.   Of course we can control ourselves using our logical brain, but it helps to have some understanding of how our hormones can affect us.

A Brief Outline for Contraception Using Fertility Awareness

It is very important to follow the rules exactly when your goal is contraception.  There are three ways to track; using all three will give you optimum results.  You can achieve good results with two methods but you absolutely must take your temperature as well as use one other method of charting.

  1. The woman’s temperature is taken orally daily at or very near the same time, after she has been asleep for three hours minimum (do not get up to use the bathroom, brush your teeth, get a drink of water, etc. before taking your temperature.)
  2. The woman tracks her cervical fluid
  3. The position of the cervix is charted

A Few Other Rules You Should Know About

  • FA works best when you are in a committed relationship and both partners engage in the process of Fertility Awareness.
  • Ideally the husband takes the responsibility of charting his wife's temperature.
  • Both partners examine the chart to decide when it is safe to engage in relations.  If you are being more conservative and wish to avoid pregnancy at all costs, err on the side of caution.
  • You may choose to use prophylactics during ovulation, but as we know, condoms can fail, thus increasing your chances of pregnancy. Instead engage in other fun ways of interacting with one another.

FA requires the commitment of a few minutes a day, and asks you to abstain during the short period of fertility.  Remember the saying, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder?”  It works with sex, too.  While you are abstaining, flirt with your spouse, be loving and kind… anticipate the time you will soon be able to spend together, and when the abstinence period is over, have fun!

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3 thoughts on “Using Natural Family Planning & Fertility Awareness As Birth Control

  1. We used Taking Charge Of Your Fertility to get pregnant with my daughter. It was surprising to me how difficult it was to get pregnant after the many years I spent trying to avoid it! The book is really excellent and I’d highly recommend it for any woman, whether using it for birth control, trying to get pregnant, or just wanting to understand her body better.

    After my kids, I’ve gone to an IUD for birth control that’s 99.99% effective and lasts up to 10 years. I got it at my 6 week check up (no extra doctor’s appointment) and it was covered by my insurance both times. It’s not messy, I don’t have to think about anything, and for 10 years of protection, it’s very cost effective. Mine is the copper Paraguard without hormones.

    One thing I’d like to mention is that the daily-use pill isn’t considered an abortofacient. There is a pill, the “morning after pill” or emergency contraceptive, that could be considered such, but the birth control pill is not. The pill suppresses ovulation, and without ovulation, pregnancy can’t occur. There are other issues involved with their use (easy to forget one, less effective with antibiotics, less effective for women over 200 lb., potential problems from the hormones, etc.) but considering them abortofacients is incorrect.

    [Reply]

    Mrs. Accountability Reply:

    @The Saved Quarter, that is awesome to hear that you used TCOYF to have your daughter!

    Regarding your comment that the daily-use pill is not an abortifacient; it depends heavily on when you believe that conception occurs. If you believe that conception occurs at the moment the sperm enters the egg, then the daily-use pill is an abortifacient. Here is an explanation from Pharmacists For Life International:

    Q. I have heard some people say the pill has an abortifacient capacity. What does this word mean, and is it really true anyway?

    A. … ‘Conception’ refers to the moment at which the sperm penetrates and fertilizes the ovum to form a viable zygote. It does not refer to the process of implantation of the newly created human embryo, which is a separate event, occurring about 7-8 day’s after conception. A woman is pregnant because conception has occurred, not because implantation has occurred. This distinction is important. At the precise and unique moment of conception, a woman is ‘pregnant’ with “a new individual”. This is an accurate and informed medical description. … To stop conception occurring, that is, to stop sperm and ovum joining, is contraception. Condoms, diaphragms, spermicides, vasectomy and tubal ligation are accurately described as methods of contraception. Obviously any drug or device used after conception has occurred cannot be termed a contraceptive. … Obviously many people object to abortifacient drugs because they can cause a loss of human life. Not so many people object to methods of contraception (condoms, diaphragms, etc), because these methods prevent new human life being created. Hence, if scientists succeed in convincing people that human life begins after implantation, eventually most people will have no objection to the pill. They will have been tricked into believing that human life had not begun when the pill exerted its anti-implantation effect.

    Q. So how do you prove that the pill acts as an abortifacient?

    A. The answer to this question can be found by comparing the rate of break-through ovulation and the detected pregnancy rate. The ovulation rate has been reported to be about 27 ovulations in 100 women using the pill for one year. But the detected pregnancy rate is much lower at around 4 pregnancies per 100 women using the pill for one year.

    As you can see, there is a big difference between the number of women who ovulation (27) and the number of detected pregnancies (4). What has happened within the woman’s body to reduce the high ovulation rate to such a low number of detected pregnancies? I suggest that one answer to this important question is that pregnancies have begun, because ovulation and fertilization have occurred, but some of these pregnancies are terminated because implantation cannot take place. The pill has damaged the lining of the womb, stopping implantation.

    I was on the pill when I became pregnant with my first child. The pill did its work and caused me to lose my baby. My doctor told me I was not miscarrying, explaining that one side of my uterus was clearing off. When I was 14 weeks along, my doctor was concerned because my fundal height was less than it should be, and he ordered an ultrasound. This was when we learned that my baby was only 10 weeks. I *had* indeed miscarried, but since we didn’t use any protection, became pregnant right away.

    We used Fertility Awareness to conceive our second (technically third) child.

    The thing I love most is knowing how my body works. I think every man and woman should know Fertility Awareness. It’s pretty amazing.

    [Reply]

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