NFP - the Way to be!

I have a million thoughts about NFP, a million times a day, it seems, but that's mostly because I am 31 weeks pregnant and my daughter is only 14 months old! So my first thought about NFP, always, is HOLY CRAP! I have been greatly comforted by some NFP'ers on line and I want to say something about NFP in case someone is ever looking.

I just read an article in this magazine that we get from the Couple to Couple League. We belong to the League, I guess, because we bought a NFP kit from them last year. In fact, I got pregnant when we were charting for the first time ever! I literally was like, WHY am I running out of spaces for days on this chart? Is it because it's day FORTY of my cycle? And then I was like heeyyyyyy, WHY am I on day FORTY of my cycle? Perhaps I should go get a pregnancy test. Ugh, I feel like such a dope when I think about it! I have since read that when you are first charting, especially when you are breastfeeding, you are supposed to not have sex for like three months until you figure out your cycle. Ha. Noted. NOW.

So this article poses the question Is Using NFP Hard? There's a great answer written by a woman who has .... 11 children! It's interesting though, because she and her husband contracepted for the first three years of their marriage and only used NFP because in the three years that they were using contraceptives, they had three kids and she thought NFP might work better!

This will never be an issue for me, unless I am like Elizabeth or something, because I am already over 40 so I doubt there are 8 more pregnancies in my future. Also? I really really hope there aren't, as I can't think of many things I dislike more than being pregnant, except maybe having a newborn. Ha!

BUT the woman who wrote the article pretty much said that she and her husband, overall, are happy that they are using NFP, even though it's hard. And I thought of course it's hard, but that's not all it is. It's also easy and natural. Not natural in the sense of nature but natural in that it always feels good and is easy to do what God wants us to. Even if I am miserable, or worried, or think 'how can I do this? How can I take good care of Anthony, who is autistic, or Maria, who will only be16 months old when I have this next baby, and really give them ALL one hundred per cent?', even when I think that, I also think, 'I can'. Because anything is possible with God and I know it. I know that God wants us to have this baby too. I am hoping that I know that God is sending me a good, sweet, sleepy baby. Ha! I am not sure of that, but I am hoping.

It's also easy to make a decision that has been made for you. I could no more live with myself if we used artificial contraception than if I were having an affair or beating my children. I am a person who believes in the Rules of the Church, and I just can't break any of them. I mean, of course, I am a sinner and I make mistakes but I can't - I couldn't, like, go to confession and just leave out that we were using artificial contraceptives, as many of my friends do.

As for the one billion friends (and family members!) who are Catholic but still use artificial contraception, I say, you are full of shit, and if that sounds harsh and un-Christian, well, just know that I am praying for all of you that you get less full of shit. In many ways, the Church is to blame. I am always complaining to my husband that our priest never mentions ANYTHING about contraception or NFP, but recently our priest said that he didn't talk about sex during Mass because there were children present and it's not his choice to decide when parents talk to their kids. We don't take our kids to church with us, so I sometimes forget that this is an issue. I still think that in a parish like ours, we have enough young couples that we could offer an NFP class, or at least provide families with information.

It's like this - I know that we are all clear on the Big Sins. We all know about murder, and theft, and sex outside of marriage, etc. What people don't seem to know, or think, is that they are all the same. Sin is sin, right? Mortal sin? I can't believe how cavalier so many people I know, and their priests, seem to be about artificial contraception.

I owe a lot of our knowing the importance of NFP to our nun friend, who taught my husband when he was in RCIA. We were engaged the whole time he was in RCIA and she talked to us about it right away, which was somewhat embarassing at the time, but for which I will be forever (and beyond!) grateful. I also appreciate the way that Catholic Radio addresses the situation, although I guess maybe some of that is through commercials.

So. In short, I am glad we use NFP and I look forward to putting it into practice after I have this next baby in what I consider to be the RIGHT way. We are going to discern monthly what we think God wants us to do and really try to be open to whatever that is, even if it doesn't make immediate sense to us.

First Post - Vatican and Washing Machines

I was watching the View yesterday, God help me, and those ninnies were commenting on the recent article that a Vatican writer put out about the greatest innovation for women to come out of the last century (google it). The way the dimwits on The View saw it, it was the Pill, "Reproductive Rights" (abortion), and something about equal rights in the workplace, I think. The Vatican writer said it was the washing machine, which I have to agree with, for myself. It has certainly done more for me, as a woman and a stay at home mother, and just as a PERSON, than the pill, or abortion rights, or equal rights in the workplace and here's why.

I really think that it could be questioned by everyone, not just religious nuts like myself, that the Pill is so great. Baba Wawa said that it was great because now we "don't all have to have ten children". I know very few people with ten children, even the ones that use NFP. A LOT of the married women that I know don't take the pill, and the ones that do seem to hate it, because of the side effects, like weight gain, moodiness, etc. Also, it is amusing to me that the Pill is this great answer for women and it puts ALL the responsibility of birth control on the woman, which to my mind is the same as before the pill! HERE'S your great answer, girlies - take hormonal birth control so that YOU don't get pregnant, gain weight, don't smoke, don't be over 35, take it at the EXACT SAME TIME every day, or you might get pregnant, and if you get pregnant, the baby could be really screwed up, so you will maybe have to have an abortion. Oh yes, that sounds AWESOME. What a GREAT innovation for women! How KIND of you men folk to invent this for US. THANKS.

As far as abortion rights go, I think it's pretty much the same thing, right? Nobody thinks that abortion is a great choice, right? Even the most pro-choiciest of the choiciest? So again, here's this GREAT innovation (it's so stupid that this would even be considered an innovation, would anyone say that civil rights is an INNOVATION? Invented by someone? Duh.) that is going to HELP US poor stupid women so much. And what about women who are celibate? Or against abortion? Or only in reproductive years for like 1/3 of their life or something?

Barbara Walters did point out that the Church was hardly likely to come out and say that they thought abortion rights or the Pill was the greatest thing ever and then that NINNY Elizabeth Hasselbeck said that she didn't think the Church had any right to ever say anything about women because as far as she knew, women still couldn't be priests, right? Is that right?, she asked (someone, I guess maybe a producer?). Elizabeth said that until women can 'rank' as high in the Catholic church as men, then they should just be quiet about it. Sigh. Obviously, she knows nothing about the Catholic church and even if you are of the opinion that women should be allowed to be priests, to say that priests are 'ranked' higher than, I assume, nuns, is just ridiculous. There is no such ranking. I hate when know-nothings comment on something that is so personal to me.

Let me say some other things that I have been thinking about in the three damned days it's taken me to write this missive. If it weren't for the washing machine, no woman would have had the TIME to do anything else, like fight for equal rights or pay, because it used to take ALL DAY to do the laundry. My husband told me that a book he read on LBJ had a big account about this - LBJ was a poor person from Texas, right? I think? Anyway, they had no washing machine and his mother or whoever spent ALL DAY MOST DAYS doing laundry. Also, several years ago they had this show on PBS about this experiment that they did where several families went to live out on the Prairie as if it were the ... I forget. The late 1800's? Maybe? Anyway, the laundry and dishes were RIDICULOUS. I mean, they spent all their time cleaning that house and washing clothes. AND washing diapers, those of them that had children, AND washing home-made cloth pads, those of them who were menstruating. I can't imagine the kind of time that it took to just ... live before we had modern conveniences.

So, in short (ha, not really) I don't think that the Vatican writer was trying to degrade women or keep them in their place or anything else that the Vatican and anyone associated with them is constantly being accused of. So shove it, Elizabeth Hasselbeck. And shut up.