NFP as a single, college age girl

You wouldn’t think that the words “Natural family planning” and “single Catholic college girl” would work together in one sentence very well. Well, until now that is.  It’s not just for married couples – the concepts introduced with Natural Family Planning are concepts that can affect every one’s life, regardless of what stage you’re at.  So why now? 

Because you shouldn’t wait until you are married to start thinking about your fertility.

It’s easy to think that the time we have right now while in college is not the time to be worried about fertility and all that jazz.  We’re young.  We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us.  Yet let me tell you something – it is becoming more and more obvious to me that life is literally flying by quicker than I can blink.  My little sister just graduated from high school.  My co-worker just got married and now has a beautiful little baby.  My college peers are graduating.  Life is happening, and snap you’re fingers and you’ll be at another stage of your life.  Don’t wait until you’re married to start thinking about how to take care of your health and fertility.

Because you should know where you stand on the issue of birth control before you are in a relationship.

The number one reason marriages don’t last anymore? Failed communication.  When birth control was first introduced to the public scene in the early 1960s, it’s affect on issues like divorce wasn’t something that was on people’s minds.  This was about improving marriages! Less stress around pregnancies, littles, and a general well being of the family.  But come in the 1970s, and divorce rates doubled.  And it didn’t stop in the 70s  – the number of divorces tripled from 400,000 in 1962 to 1.2 million in 1981.

Why? Because birth control in a marriage says one thing and does another.  Sex, by it’s unitive and procreative nature, says “Here is all of me!” but the addition of birth control tacks on “Well, all of me except my fertility.  And our future children.”  And that communication can tear down a marriage that is meant to be, according to the Catechism, “ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring” but instead reduces both members down to the sum of their parts.

Because it’s not birth control…which is what my doctors want me to be on.

It seems now a days that any medical issue that arises in a girl’s life is a case where birth control is prescribed by her doctor.  According to a study conducted in the United States, from 2006-2010, 62 percent of all women in the United states who are of reproductive age are currently prescribed some form of contraceptive birth control.

I’ve been there.  I’ve sat down with my doctor and heard how medical issues would be easily, quickly, and painlessly resolved if I would just let her write a prescription for birth control for me.

But there are a lot of risks associated with just the pill – most of which are not gone over in the doctors office when the pill itself is prescribed.  The pill is actually a combination of two different hormonal medications: estrogen and progestin.  Because of this increase in hormone presence in the body, the pill carries with it many side affects, one of them being breast cancer.  Research indicates that the birth control pill itself will increase the risk of a woman getting breast cancer by over 40% if she takes the pill before she has her first child.  After she delivers her first baby though, the chances rocket to over 70% increase of breast cancer risk if she continues for more than four years.

My family has a very high risk of breast cancer on both sides of my family, so taking the pill for me would be not only putting my current health at risk, but also placing the time I spend with my future family at jeopardy as well.  Other than just breast cancer risks though, the pill’s side affects also include higher blood pressure, heart health issues, blood clotting, a lack of fertility once off the pill prescription, increase of liver and cervical cancers, difficulty breast feeding and a lowering of the immune system to AIDS and HIV.  

On top of all this, the cost of being on the pill for just five years is over $1,000.  I’m in college.  And I drink a lot of coffee.  The budget that I have for medication is very small – and to be purchasing something that acts as a band-aid for the medical issues that I do have, only to increase my future medical risks and costs isn’t a cost effective choice. 

Studying the concepts of Natural Family Planning – such as the charting and tracking of fertility – is one way that NFP has been a blessing to me as a single Catholic woman.  Instead of relying on artificial hormones, I’m able to utilize the concepts of NFP to track my fertility and expose a lot of the underlying issues that birth control might have covered up – like the simple addition of vitamins into my diet and a better awareness of my fitness and general health.  

Also, this book was incredibly helpful for that reason.  

Because your body is amazing…and knowing how it works is fantastic too.

Even if you’re not married, or heck, if you’re in the same boat as me and you’re not even dating, it’s no excuse to not appreciate how stinking amazing the human body is.  One of my dearest friends is in veterinarian school and sends me facts about the body and the reproduction system and it’s amazing. For instance, did you know that, for women, the smell of a newborn baby triggers the same part of the brain reward center as a drug addiction does?  God has literally thought of everything imaginable and to be able to learn about it is the bomb.

Although it may not seem like it, in your early twenties is the ideal time to learn all of this as well.  Down the road you may have a family, a full time career, graduate degree work, or any other number of amazing thing God has planned for you.  Right now is the perfect time to dig into the amazing work He’s laid out for us in our creation.

Because life is beautiful no matter what stage of life you’re in.

This morning at church I sat behind a family with five littles.  They were gorgeous – all of them under ten and full of life and energy.  And it was beautiful.  Am I utilizing NFP right now to plan my family with my spouse? Nope.  However, knowing how NFP works and the Church’s teachings concerning families right now helps so much when both interacting with families now and when I, God willing, have my own family in the future.

God’s plan for your fertility doesn’t start when you put on a wedding dress.  Or when you are called to start a family.  Or even if you are not called to marriage at all.  Your body is good. It makes it possible for you to be Christ’s hands and feet to the world around you.

This weekend we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension – yet another way that Christ tells us that our bodies are important.  He rises, body and soul, and ascends into Heaven.  If the body wasn’t important, Christ wouldn’t have a glorified one.

So take the time now to learn more about your fertility.  It is never too early to glorify the Lord with your whole self.

For further resources, check out these amazing websites:

– Couple to Couple League: A great way to learn the basics of NFP and how they interact in a – marriage.

– United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: This website has some great articles about the religious explanation of why the Catholic Church supports NFP.

– Carrots for Michaelmas: Haley Stewart is probably the most incredible Catholic mama blogger in my opinion.  She’s sassy, has an incredible sense of style, and, in her own words is a “homeschooling, bacon-eating, coffee-drinking southern girl with a flair for liturgical feasts and a penchant for bright red lipstick.”  In other words, who I want to be when I grow up.  She has a fantastic piece on her NFP experience over on her blog.

There are countless of other bloggers who have written on their experience with NFP – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  If you’re looking for some more information on the subject, drop me a note in the comment box and I’ll get you set up.

Need

More than I ever thought it could have been, my dating fast has been such a blessing – irony of ironies –  becuase it has let me really focus in on what relationship looks like with an objective point of view.  I was thinking about this quite a bit today while I was running – because, face it, the best thinking is either on the treadmill or in the shower.  Let’s be real. What are some of these thoughts then? 

I don’t want a man to need me. 

I don’t want to be the reason a guy goes to Church.  I don’t want to be the middle man (or lady) between a man and the Lord.  This isn’t to discount the beauty of marriage and willing the good of the other as other.  But to be needed? No thanks.  It sounds harsh, but let me explain. 

Let’s say a man needs me emotionally. What would happen when he doesn’t need me anymore? When I’m not the reason that he’s standing, he can lean weight back on his own two feet and I become the pair of crutches that he needed until things got sorted out and healed? Or if a relationship with me is the substitute for what he really needs?

Because he doesn’t need me.  He needs God. 

I’m not the one who has seen him at his worst and still can make him whole.  I’m not the one who created his soul and who began his existence in his mother’s womb.  I’m not the one who can forgive all his sins with a single word, and welcome him with open arms and unconditional love.  But you know who can fulfill all of that and more?

Colossians 2:10 has a beautiful answer to that question.

“For in Christ all the fullness<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-29504P" data-link="(P)” style=”box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;”> of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been
brought to fullness. He is the head<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-29505Q" data-link="(Q)” style=”background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;”> over every power and authority.”

Yet not wanting to be needed is a two way street – I don’t want to need him either.

Whether that be the elusive him, the could be, who I ‘need’ in my life before I grow in my faith life…or the actual him who pursues me.  I want who I am as a child of God to be defined without him.  Because when two incomplete, half-people marry each other, they don’t complete each other.  They are just two halves that are struggling to find out who they really are.  I don’t need someone to complete me, because that is my maker’s job.

I don’t want to be defined by the need to be needed.  My definition of who I am is found in the fact that I am child of God. 

What does this all boil down to? A healthy relationship is a relationship that is built on the basis of an identification in God.  You are not defined by who you are with or who you aren’t.  You are not the sum of your failures, weaknesses or needs.  You are summed up by the Father’s love for you. (JPII).  Don’t fall in love with the idea of being needed by someone.  Don’t be in a relationship just because you don’t want to not feel lonely. The healthy relationship is one that works like a triangle.  You’re common need is not each other, or affirmation, or affection.  Your commonality lies in the common goal of God and eternity with Him. Each side of the triangle (both the guy and the gal) are working towards a commonality that is not themselves and is not each other.  Instead, they are working together towards a greater good that is outside themselves and requires sacrifice.  That’s what marriage is – not someone fulfilling your needs, but instead you both bringing each other closer to the one who is the author of love.  

Don’t need someone.  Don’t be needed. Instead, find your identity in the unmovable.  Feelings change.  Needs Change.  Wants change.  But the Lord? Not so much.  In fact, Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  That sounds like a constant to me.

Thoughts? I’d love to hear what you think on the subject.

In Christ,

Chloe 

An Open Letter to My Brothers in Christ

Dear Christian Men,

This letter is for you.

Whether you have come into my life already or will in the future.  Whether I count you as a really great friend or will never meet you. Whether you’re a country music listener or an avid alternative music fan.  Whether you pour over books or don’t even pick them up if they aren’t school assignments.  Whether you get to things five minutes early or ten minutes late.

This letter is for you.

Saint John Paul II once said, “Precisely on the level of this language [of the body], man and woman reciprocally express themselves in the fullest and most profound way possible to them by the corporeal dimension of masculinity and femininity. Man and woman express themselves in the measure of the whole truth of the human person.” (TOB Aug. 22, 1984).

You guys are awesome.  You can grow a beard (huge fan), have great cologne that smells amazing hours after you put it on, and in general have very comfy shoe options for formal events. Which I hugely envy.

In all sincerity, thank you. Thank you for the times where you’ve let me truly appreciate my own sense of femininity by honoring who I am as a woman.  For little things, like holding the door for me, walking me to my car after a late night shift or that night class, or being a great lead in swing dancing.

And for the bigger things, like leading me spiritually, challenging my views and urging me to be a better person.  For inspiring me to be a better Christian by your example of loving the Lord.

American author Norman Mailer once said, “Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.”

He’s right.  And I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for all the times that I’ve fallen back on the old slams of “girls rule, boys drool.”  Yep, those were mature times.  I’m sorry for the culture that we live in.  I’m sorry for the struggle you have to go through each day of your life, bombarded by a hyper-sexualized society that uses the objectification of women as a means of advertisement.

For the times where I’ve used you for my own emotional benefit.  For nailing on you for dealing with visual chastity while indulging in emotional lusting all day without you knowing.  For trying on your last name before even finding out your favorite thing to eat for dinner, your best memory, your passions and desires for life and for the Lord.

For the days where treating you as a brother in Christ fell to the wayside in favor of treating you as a potential…for valuing you for what you could do for me.  For the times when I’ve made the interactions between us a “me vs. them” instead of a journey towards Christ together.

And, on the flip side, for putting you ahead of God and idolizing what I thought would make the “perfect” man and projecting those dreams onto you.

“Relieved of moral pretense and stripped of folk costumes, the raw masculinity that all men know in their gut has to do with being good at being a man within a small, embattled gang of men struggling to survive”  (Jack Donovan)

Thank you for the struggle.

Sincerely,

A striving sister in Christ