I’ve been trying to do things outside my comfort zone lately. My motivation is partly for personal development, partly a desire to push myself but underlying is a gnawing belief that NFP just needs to get out there to the rest of the world. For many women even the concept of NFP might be WAY outside their comfort zone; the learning curve involved can certainly be intimidating. It’s my hope that this site can break down some perceived barriers and take some of the complexity out of it. Because we could all use a little less complexity in life, agree?
Signing up to use NFP as your primary family planning method requires a little bit of guts. If you’re currently considering the method you might hear others dismiss NFP as being too “risky” or “too hard” for “regular” women out there to adopt and actually rely on in real life. But experienced NFP users know it’s truly not as risky as it may at first appear. Most of us start out with erroneous information from grade school health class that has to be unlearned. Once you do discover the facts about what’s actually going on during your menstrual cycle and learn a bit about the method in practice, those initial doubts and questions like “does NFP work?” will eventually lead to a different question: whether or not the method would work for you. Ultimately that’s the key consideration: are you motivated enough to invest the time to really learn it? I can help by shrinking the learning curve and share shortcut tips from years of experience but in the end you have to decide for yourself if you’re committed enough to make it work in your real life. Like many things in life, the payoff for doing things that are hard is worth so much more than taking the easy road, and rest assured NFP is no exception. The health benefits I’ve experienced simply would not have been possible had I started taking the birth control pill so many years ago…it’s hard to even imagine how extremely different my life would have been without finding the courage to choose NFP instead.
Even knowing what I know now, the truth is it’s scary to talk about the fact that I do rely on a method of avoiding pregnancy that gets perceived as “hippie” or only for “extremely religious” or only for dedicated married people where an unplanned baby “wouldn’t matter anyway”- implying that eventual failure is guaranteed. At first I felt insulted that others (including doctors, who you’d think would know better!) were so quick to dismiss NFP as a legitimate method of avoiding pregnancy despite all of the SOLID EVIDENCE. But I gradually began to realize that even doctors don’t know about the method because they were never taught. For some reason NFP is not part of typical MD training in medical school. Many doctors with fancy medical degrees haven’t even heard of the method at all. (That was a real shock to discover!)
Regardless of the challenges involved in spreading the word and trying to make NFP mainstream knowledge, I remain absolutely convinced that NFP needs to be seen. That’s why I’m committed to putting my energy into making that happen, to the best of my ability, as one person with a voice and now a website. Women deserve to know ALL the options available to them, even if they ultimately decide to continue doing the same thing they’ve been doing for avoiding pregnancy. The informed choice is the important part. This website exists because I believe NFP can truly help so many women who have yet to discover that it even exists. And if that’s you and it’s your first time learning about NFP, it would be my honor to introduce you to an amazing world!
On the other hand, if you’ve had experience charting your cycles I’d love to know what convinced you to get started. Maybe by sharing our stories we can all help each other. In the spirit of getting outside the comfort zone I invite any of you experienced NFP users to share NFP today with a friend, coworker, cousin, sister, neighbor. The more we talk about it together as women supporting each other, the better – and I promise to be brave enough to share along with you.