We Are The 98%

Michelle from Endless Strength and Rebecca from The Road Home have co-authored a great post called We are the 98%. They have encouraged other women to share their stories with contraception and NFP. I have really struggled on deciding if I should write about my experiences. First of all, my mom reads this blog, as well as my big brother. I also have other family and friends who read this blog, and some of the things I have posted in the past has created some, erm, conflict. You've been warned: This is very personal.

I am going to share despite my hesitations. I sometimes feel so alone being a former contracepting-non-virgin-at-wedding Catholic woman. Maybe this will help some other Catholic gal not feel so lonely. Maybe it will clear up some questions some of my readers have about me. I'm sure when I'm preaching about NFP and saving sex for marriage that some people are like, "Uh, girl, we know about your past."

So here is my contribution.

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"You’ve probably heard it on the news lately; “98% of Catholic women are using contraception”. You’ve heard the statistic, but I’m here to tell you it just isn’t true. How do I know?

Because I’m one of them.

Even though I 100% wholeheartedly agree with the Church on contraception, I’m part of this “98%”. How can that be? Because the only question they’re asking Catholic women is this:"

"Have you ever used contraception?"

My answer would be yes. I can't say that my excuse was medical reasons. I was using contraception because I was sexually active, starting at an early age in high school.

"How did you previously view contraception?"

To be honest, I don't ever remember learning about contraception in high school classes. I probably wasn't paying attention. I learned about it from my friends and a teen website produced by, you guessed it, Planned Parenthood.

I remember reading the website and teen magazines and being terrified at the thought of getting pregnant. It could happen just ONE time! It could happen with just genital contact! They practically taught that if you took your shoes off in front of the opposite sex that you would get pregnant and your life would be ruined forever and ever and ever.



I remember being in middle school and thinking I would OF COURSE wait until marriage like all good girls do. But once high school hit and boys started taking notice of me, that all went out the window. With the teen hormones and the teen psyche and emotions, having sex was something you did. My friends were doing it. Teens on TV were doing it. It was a normal part of growing up.

I vowed not to be stupid about having sex. I protected myself from pregnancy in multiple ways- condoms, creams, films... lots of fun stuff to suit up with before doing the deed.

When I turned 18 I decided I was done with all those annoying barriers. I wanted to feel more "free" so I went on the Depo-Provera shot. No more condoms, no more creams. Just a shot in the hip every three months and I was good to go.

I was proud of myself for taking such precautions. I was a good girl, a good student and I didn't want to ruin my life or reputation by getting pregnant. That would have been the end of the world. I wanted to go out in the world and make a difference. I made sure my sexual actions had no negative consequences.

Even though I was sexually active in high school, I didn't become sexually slutty until I moved to Maryville. I was tragically depressed and the only thing that made me feel better about myself was lots of booze, buying pretty clothes and shoes, and having sex with pretty much whoever found me desirable. I was trying to live a Friends lifestyle. I was trying to live the modern college girl's lifestyle. I was being used and emotionally abused. Sex was making me happy and miserable at the same time. But it was so easy to have sex with whoever since I was on the shot. The shot also made it easier to be taken advantage of.

I remember hearing here and there that the Catholic Church was against contraception. I didn't grow up with a youth group while in high school so I was clueless when it came to teachings on sex and marriage. I just thought that contraception was frowned upon because it led to premarital sex. I thought the Church was cool with married couples using it. I never bothered looking into because I didn't care.

"What prompted you to stop using contraception?

It wasn't any religious awakening. It wasn't even going online and reading about how I was having carcinogens injected into my body every 3 months. I really think it was the Holy Spirit prompting me to get off the shot. I had gained a little bit of weight and was still feeling depressed even though I wasn't drinking anymore and was in a solid relationship with a decent guy. I didn't feel "right" being on the shot, so I just decided to stop. My boyfriend was upset. I went to my annual pap smear and said I was ready to be done. They gave be a huge paper sack of condoms. I was OK with that.

Fast forward to my spiritual growth spurt in Atchison. I started exploring more about the Catholic faith. I read Christopher West's book The Good News About Sex and Marriage and my mind was blown. Birth control wasn't just frowned upon by the Catholic Church- they thought it was intrinsically evil. And the reasoning they gave blew me away. The Truth knocked me on my ass. I was shocked at how my view of sex was changed. Sex was much more awesome than I thought, I was just doing it wrong. I was so angry that I was never taught this view of sex. The view I previously had of sex was so dull and cheapened. Never again would I have sex before marriage. Never again would I use contraception.

I decided to read up on how harmful Depo Provera really was. I learned there was a "black box warning" that read:

"FDA and Pfizer notified healthcare professionals of the addition of a BOXED WARNING along with revisions to the WARNINGS, INDICATIONS AND USAGE, PRECAUTIONS and POSTMARKETING EXPERIENCE sections of the prescribing information to include information on the loss of significant bone mineral density. Depo-Provera Contraceptive Injection is indicated only for the prevention of pregnancy in women of child-bearing potential. Bone loss is greater with increasing duration of use and may not be completely reversible. Depo-Provera Contraceptive should be used as a long-term birth control method (eg, longer than 2 years) only if other birth control methods are inadequate."

I was on the shot longer for just two years, thank God. I read elsewhere that getting the shot in your teenage years increases the risk of bone loss and can lead to infertility and breast cancer. Now I was scared.

The part that scared and devastated me the most was learning that some forms of contraception are abortifacients. How many of my own children had been swept away from my uterus by the hormones caused by the shot? If I get to heaven how many of my sons and daughters will be there waiting for me with love and forgiveness? Needless to say, I cried over that thought many many times.

The first time I had ever heard of Natural Family Planning was in Christopher West's book. I read about how awesome it is and how beneficial and beautiful. That was the path for me.

I turned my life to God. I changed.

Or so I thought.

I started dating Ryan about a year after my spiritual growth spurt. It had been a little over a year since I had sex. Those temptations were buried deep inside and sin took over. Ryan and I became sexually active and used birth control. It was a huge struggle for both of us because we knew the reasons why sex before marriage is a sin. We went to confession frequently. We prayed. We "stopped" only to start back up again. We were both weak and I was deeply, deeply ashamed.

Instead of helping the situation, I created more temptation. My cycles were all over the place, probably still trying to regulate after I got my period a year AFTER I stopped getting the shot, and also due to stress. I decided to go on the Pill to get regular. I was on the pill for two months, deluding myself that this was due to health reasons.

I remember the day I knew that Ryan truly loved me and that he was the man I was destined to marry. He picked me up from one of my classes and dropped me off at the house I was living. Before I left he took a deep breath and said to me, "This is your choice, but I really think it would be better for you to get off the pill. I'm afraid it will make me start viewing you as an object." That was the Holy Spirit talking through him. He wasn't very knowledgeable about Catholic sexual ethics or theology, but God showed him the truth. My heart filled with love and from that moment we stopped having sex and stopped contracepting.

"How did you learn NFP?"

I read about NFP in The Good News About Sex and Marriage, but didn't know the details. When I lived in a campus house with seven other good Catholic gals I got a basic gist of the idea. One of my housemates was getting married and she and her fiance went to an NFP class. Later that night she kind of explained some stuff. She mostly talked about periods and something called cervical mucus. Sounded interesting. I remember hearing in a conversation that using condoms was like french kissing with plastic grocery sacks over your heads. I couldn't agree more.

I don't really remember talking to Ryan about our decision to use NFP in our marriage. I'm not sure if was after our decision to stop sleeping together while we were dating or if we were engaged. He was fully supportive of using NFP even though he had only heard negative things about it.

When we got engaged I thought we should take a class and learn as much as we could before we would have to put it into use. A college friend of mine was going to a class with her fiance and she kind of explained the Sympto-Thermal Method to me. Sounded easy enough.

In our marriage prep we got a brochure about NFP. We went to an Engagement Encounter retreat and they talked about it there, but I didn't feel they really went into good detail about the benefits of NFP. It felt more like a lecture.

We never found the time to get into a class, so I ordered the home-study kit through Couple to Couple League. I read through the book and it all seemed fairly straight forward. Yeah there was a lot of weird sounding stuff like checking your mucus and cervix, but it takes a lot to gross me out. However, when I started to make my own observations I was confused beyond all measure. Was this sticky or stretchy mucus? Uh oh, I forgot to take my temp! What now?! And the one I asked frequently- Where in God's green earth is my cervix?!

It took awhile, and I still don't feel like an expert, but I got the hang of it. My periods were always very irregular, but once I found my temperature shift I knew in 13-14 days I'd have my period. I started learning more about my body. I was amazed at the female body. God did some nice work creating us females.

I found it very difficult to explain to Ryan how STM worked. I could work it out in my head but explaining it was tough. He's not much of a reader so I didn't want to just throw him the book to figure it out. We took a class with a very nice teaching couple. It was during that class that we found out there was a good possibility I was pregnant. A couple days later a positive pregnancy test confirmed it. We never went to another class.

I had two charts in between my miscarriage and getting pregnant with Joe. I was very nervous about NFP and breastfeeding. I could see that luteal phase was greatly affected by breastfeeding which I knew would create an obstacle with conceiving in the future, which it did.

To help with supplementing STM, I enrolled in a research study for the Marquette method using the Clear Blue Easy monitor. Ryan and I loved it!

"How has it impacted your marriage?"

We have never used any form of artificial contraception in our marriage, so I don't know how using it and then using NFP would have impacted our marriage.

A lot of NFP information talks about the beauty of the husband being involved in this form of family planning. With contraception it is usually the woman's sole responsibility. There are NFP stories of a husband filling out a woman's chart at the end of the day or who wakes her up to take her temperature in the morning. I'm sure that does happen, but not in our marriage, and I'm fine with that. I'm really anal and OCD about making sure everything is neat and correct, so I'd just take the time to double check his work anyway.

Ryan has learned a lot about my body and thinks it's pretty awesome how I am put together. He also knows ahead of time the times of the month when I'm more hormonal than usual.

NFP has opened the doors of communication in our marriage. Sure, we fight, we argue, we joke, we discuss, we debate- but we're always open and honest about our feelings. There is no silent treatment and we always resolve our negative issues fairly soon after they begin.

"What struggles have you had with NFP?"

Our main struggle was trying to understand how NFP works. There have been times that I have really had a difficult time understanding my signs.

It is hard to trust NFP and God sometimes. It can be downright scary.

We haven't had a lot of OMG ABSTIENCE IS TORTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! moments. That really hasn't been a difficulty, but those rare times that we have to put on the brakes have been tough.

The biggest struggle has been emotional for both of us. We have family and friends who just don't understand our decision to use NFP. It's tough to live in a society where everyone around you use contraception. It's tough and annoying to hear that NFP is "Vatican Roulette" or "What do you call couples who use NFP? Parents." comments. We feel like complete outsiders sometimes. There have been times I've thrown my hands in the air and yelled, "Fine! Let's just use the Pill! It'd be so much easier!" My saint of a husband has reminded me that we don't buy into modern day society. We buy into God's plan. God's plan isn't easy, but it is good.


So there is my contraception/NFP journey. NFP hasn't been easy, but it's been a blessing. Contraception was easy, but was destroying my life and my soul.

Oh yeah, and NFP really does work!