NAS: NFP: Not Just a Married Lady Issue

NFP, baby! 😉
So, who’s begun charting?! How is it going? What advice do you have/what method do you use? If you haven’t, is something holding you back? Are you considering starting up?

Great topic, Jen!  Reading her blog helps me know I’m not alone with my awareness of NFP as a singleton. Also check out Morgan’s blog and the other ladies’ sites for their perspectives.

I have written about NFP before here, here, and here. And the obligatory disclaimer: as a single woman, I do not have personal experience with NFP in the context of a relationship. Where I’m coming from is support of how it provides information for single women’s health and support of singletons knowing about it (the good, bad, and ugly – mucus! mucus! mucus! :P) as an Church-acceptable practice for the future marriages they aspire to.

*Special note: NFP refers to Natural Family Planning, of which there are a few named methods based on what you track. There is also FAM: Fertility Awareness Methods, which essentially do the same thing, but when done in the context of a relationship, allow for barrier methods. Catholic no-nos.

At first, my support of NFP was no more than a shrug and an “I dunno, I think it’d work for me” when discussing birth control with secular friends in college. I didn’t even know it was called that—just thought of the rhythm method! Now that I’m working where I’m working, reading what I’m reading, and talking with whom I’m talking…NFP is ever-present on my mind. I fully intend to be open to it, even if I am unsure it will “work” or what that word even means to me (and my husband).

More importantly, as a single woman hoping for said husband, knowing that this practice may be in place in my future family, I NEED to know a man is open to it too, or would support it—before engagement even. Future Mr. Proverbial Husband has to be on board with this option when the ring goes on my finger. I mean, why put down non-refundable deposits if this could be the proverbial straw?

I am so adamant about this right now because I believe many young guys just don’t appreciate Church teaching on this issue. Because while they may go to Mass (if they even go! some advice-givers go so far as to recommend dating on the fringes), they are still a part of the world, and I fear disagreement over NFP, or misunderstanding, or worse—the “I didn’t sign up for this!” or “This is too hard!” exclamations that could lead to a very painful break-up or some unnecessarily hard first years of marriage if this issue is not aired at an appropriate time. Because it sounds hard (if the catholic.com forums are any indication…). So I believe it is something everyone should be aware they might be signing up for when discerning a practicing Catholic marriage. /rant

So. My personal experience!

I started tracking signs: temp, mucus, position and to use the charts on myfertilityfriend.com and then the awesome CyclePlus app, which gives you sweet quotes about ladyhood and ToB and authentic love. And then it was summer, and then fall, and winter, and spring, and I have no a/c or consistent external environment, so my graphs on the free plotting charts started looking really, really wacky. And then I’d forget to take my temp, or when I finally remembered to record it, I forgot it. And then some weeks I’d have a cold AND dairy and couldn’t tell what was fertile mucus or not. And I ultimately decided that since in three years I only found one thing irregular ( a weird blip that corrected itself), I had no real good reason to stress myself out.

But I still like to read up on it and stay current. The awesome site iusenfp.com has a quiz to help you figure out which method you might be interested in learning. With one of my answers being “I want the monitor to do all the work,” Marquette it is! (And my archdiocese’s office actually just so happens to teach a modified version of it—to engaged and married couples.) But since the monitor and strips cost money and I am no where even close to thinking engagement or discussions about a future family, I’ve decided to just do light tracking. Now that I know what some of the basics are, I feel like I have some awareness of my body and find it all rather cool. Come serious relationship leading to the engagement-discussion time (I want the way he asks to be a surprise, not that he’s asking!) I’ll pick it up again—especially to help schedule the honeymoon! 😉

To conclude, I would like to reiterate:

1) NFP is an option, a tool, a system of information that married couples can use, but do not have to. It’s not mandatory. But it is a great skill to have in your repertoire should you need it (pulling my catechesis certificate card with this one, I admit).

2) The fertility and cycle awareness part of NFP can be beneficial to single women and their health, precisely because it is a tool and system of information. ETA: Ignore Internet people who don’t want you talking about it or knowing about it because they are grossly presuming single ladies want the info to have contraceptive-free sex. Uh uh. It really is a HEALTH issue.

3) You should check out onemoresoul.org and www.fertilitycare.org or call your diocese’s family life/NFP office to get info on lady-business doctors who not only know about NFP/fertility awareness but also very likely support it. I believe having this doc on your team when you’re ready for marriage will help aid the transition from single life to married experiences.

4) You are the single most best advocate for your health. If you find yourself clamming up in the doctor’s office, practice discussing your issue or at least your “No, I don’t need that, thank you” with a trusted relative or friend.

If you need help figuring out Church teaching on this issue or witnessing to a friend about it, do check out: Contraception and Catholicism: What the Church Teaches and Why, available in November.

And I couldn’t go away without at least one snarky joke: NFP: when there’s more than one “that time of the month” (Phase 1? 2? 3? Please be 3… :P)

Seven Quick Takes Friday – Mandates Women Can Actually Use

If we operate on the presumption that the government should provide assistance to its citizens (becauseit has a vested interest in their health and well being) and that the executive office can mandate anything it wants, then here are seven things that actually would help women (that we’re actually asking for):

-1-

 Free heart disease medication. Heart disease is the #1 killer of women, not pregnancy. I bet they’d also have better peace of mind when going to work.

 -2-

Paid maternity leave and post-natal job security for all workers (even part-timers). FMLA is not enough. If the government itself can’t mandate this (but apparently, IUDs…), then create tax breaks for companies to actually see the benefit in providing this option for all parents. If you really want your daughters to have the same opportunities as your sons – children and a job at the same time – then this just makes more sense then telling them to either delay or just give up on having children.

-3-

Firmer policies to encourage positive economic/market activity. You know what’s really a “pocketbook issue” – not entirely the health screenings covered by the insurance we’re all going to have – but the cost of gas/transportation, groceries, and housing.

-4-

Fatherhood Initiative support. Every child brought into this world has a father. But when those men leave or are not in condition to best raise a child, the mothers also suffer. While studies show (stable) married parents provide the best outcomes for children, just telling couples to say I do won’t help. A marriage certificate will not magically make a man with issues suddenly support his family. And marriage incentives will not help a woman find a quality husband/father when she’s too busy working three jobs and lives in a drugs-on-the-corner neighborhood. So how about supporting programs that instill in men the habits and virtues needed to raise the children they sired?

-5-

Better protections against criminal activity. One of the primary arguments in favor of reproductive inhibitors is to allow for care for victims of incest, rape, abuse, etc. However, if all a doctor does is help the woman prevent or end the pregnancy, but does not call for the cops to go out and arrest the perpetrator IMMEDIATELY, what good does it do for a woman to not end the incest, rape, abuse, etc? A strong leader would say: “You hurt a woman in this way? You don’t get to hide. You’re going to jail.”

-6-

Insurance coverage for NFP and NaProTechnology. If you’re going to cover artificial hormones and plastic, why not monitors and treatments that actually, treat gynecological problems instead of masking them.

-7-

Actually solving the pay equity issue. Did everyone listening to Tuesday’s debate fail to question how offering free contraception directly leads to companies paying women better than 72 cents to the dollar? Plus, if companies would still pay a man a higher salary even after he took time off to be a stay-at-home dad, then the issue isn’t really about parenting; it’s about gender discrimination. Further, contraception does nothing for childless or menopausal women who are still making less than their male peers in the same job. Perhaps the money the government would have paid for contraception could go directly to the woman to use at her discretion.

Regardless of where you stand on the government’s role in mandating things for society, the bottom line is that a true pro-woman government mandate would be for society to improve itself so that contraception and abortion are the rare exception, not the rule, for women.