Fertility Awareness

Now that my second child has been born, it’s time to start thinking about birth control again. For the last 5+ years I’ve been practicing Fertility Awareness. I am not anti-birth control. But for me, I will not take anything hormonal (had a bad reaction) and I also don’t want to do something that might simply prevent implantation of an already fertilized egg. On top of the birth control/pregnancy attempts that Fertility Awareness grants you, it really is pretty amazing to see what your body does. I would recommend the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility to everybody. I personally think these sorts of things should be taught to girls entering puberty. I think it’s important to know what your body is doing and you see things like sex and pregnancy in a totally different light.
For birth control, this is different than NFP (calendar method). You’re not looking at a day of your cycle, you’re watching your body for signs that you are fertile. Even while breastfeeding, I had no problem noticing when I was fertile again. And in fact, talked to my husband one night and said “if we have sex tonight, there’s a good chance I’ll get pregnant”. Nine months later, we have a second child.
Of course, even with this knowledge there’s still a God-factor to all of this. Even knowing when I was fertile, it took us 2-1/2 years to get pregnant with our first child. But now that we have two, I think that’s probably it for us.
Fertility Awareness is still important for birth control as well as pregnancy achievement. Since I began taking notice of my fertility signs, there’s never been a time when my period just “snuck up” on me or when it was specifically late (without me being pregnant). I can usually predict my period within a day or two, usually about 12 days ahead of time. Think about how empowering this would be for young girls. No more having to get upset about “I can’t believe my period started TODAY”. It doesn’t mean it’s an enjoyable thing necessarily, but you can plan for it a little better. It’s so nice to know that God made our bodies in a specific way and there’s so much more to our “cycles” than just bleeding.