Natural Family Planning

So although there are a number of good quotes to use from the readings this past weekend, a quote from another time came up. I don’t have the exact quote or location, but to paraphrase it goes something like those that the world considers wise, prove themselves to be fools, while those that the world considers foolish prove themselves to be wiser. We didn’t actually say this to my wife’s doctor, but it helped us bite our tongues while getting lectured about Natural Family Planning as if we are doing it for purely spiritual reasons and that the science behind it isn’t more effective than what he proposes. My wife and I don’t understand everything that he learned in medical school, but we do understand the science of Natural Family Planning and the alternatives and how the success rate compares to the side effects for each option. What’s frustrating is that some doctors, like this one, do not know the science behind Natural Family Planning and still feel confident enough to draw a conclusion about it. Current misconceptions are based on the outdated rhythm method based on statistics, which some churches promoted for moral reasons, but which has since been replaced by Natural Family Planning based on science and without negative side effects associated with some alternatives and with better success rate than the remaining alternatives whether it comes to having children or avoiding pregnancies. My wife and I wanted to have kids during the summer so I would be around to help late in the pregnancy and immediately after. We’ve had our 3 kids each summer we tried on July 11, July 16, and August 8 respectively (and avoided pregnancies during the school years and other summers every year since we’ve been married). So although we don’t plan on another anytime soon, we do plan on using the same method to avoid pregnancy that we have for the last 7 plus years with 100% success and don’t feel a need to resort to anything the doctor proposed that comes with possible side effects or a success rate less than 100%.