Birth Control: My Own Experience

*Boy discretion is advised* 

Part of the reason I'm so passionate about birth control is the fact that I've taken pretty much everyone in the book. From multiple types of birth control pills to the patch to the ring, I've been on them all at some point. I started taking birth control in middle school strictly to regulate my seriously crazy periods. Up until this past August, I had been on various types of aforementioned hormone-based birth controls since the 7th grade. When I went to my "lady doctor" in the 7th grade, she gave no indication that there were alternatives to the Pill. That being said, I definitely think it was okay for me to be on it. I wasn't having sex, so it was being taken in a strictly medical sense. Taking birth control for regulative and other medical purposes is not a part of my discourse on birth control. I know women who have to be on the Pill because of their struggle with Polycycstic Ovarian Disorder (PCOS). For them it is a medical necessity.

Soooo around my sophomore year of college I started getting more and more curious about how the Pill/hormonal birth controls work. I wrote people who thought the Pill was abortive off as somewhat crazy and kept taking the Pill (once again, for regulative reasons), all the while feeling somewhat convicted about taking it for the future. Around the same time I developed Fibrocycstic Breast Disorder and "needed" to be on birth control (it's really not serious at all and BC is only mildly effective).

Then this past summer I did the City Project, a two month long, super wonderful project through my church in which I got to meet and network with a lot of awesome, godly families. TCP allowed me to learn about birth control from godly women who were both knowledgeable and willing to talk about intimacy/BC and answer my plethora of questions on the subject! Many of them did Natural Family Planning along with another barrier contraceptive (usually condoms) for fertile times of the month.

Late this summer I decided to go off the Pill as somewhat of an experiment to see what my body would do. Praise the Lord my body has finally regulated itself! I'm so thankful! After doing a little research about NFP, I can now easily identify when I'm fertile and when I'm not. I love knowing what is going on with my body & being able to celebrate how God designed my body seriously every month! If you're one of my close girl friends, you can attest to this, because I seriously talk about it every month. Sorry I'm not sorry.

For me, NFP isn't the "Christian option." It is, however, a way of praising God by capitalizing on his design for the female body. The design of the female body is totally praiseworthy! Plus, if I can not take a pill every day for any ailment/issue, I'm gonna take that option! Alsoooo, having no sexual appetite (which is a side effect of hormonal based BC) is kinda the last thing on earth I want to happen when I get married. The reason I want to do NFP isn't because I'm a super-Christian (whatever that means...) or because I think taking the Pill is crazy sinful, it's really a culmination of celebrating God's design of both the female body and sex, and knowing how my body works and reacts to hormonal birth control.

This is just my own experience, and every one is totally different in terms of convictions and physiological responses. Pray about it. Check out resources. Know your own body. Then make a decision about it, making sure it aligns with Scripture!