{    Cnytr   }

I've been talking with Aeb lately and the other night we were discussing the Catholic view of contraception. I brought up NFP as the acceptable way of spacing births, and Abe said that this was inconsistent, and like a Catholic way of birth control. I had been confronted with this before -- several times, in fact -- but keep forgetting how to respond. I sent an email off to Mrs. Laird, and she responded today. I got it between Politics and Psychology (hence its place in my narrative). I'm posting it here because it's just so good (and some of the stuff -- like personal stories -- she's had published and in much more detail, so I'm not afraid of putting it here):

Subject: Re: Your questions


Dear Lauren,


How nice to hear from you! I hardly have time to get to the computer when I am home, so I am responding from work. We are all fine - Mike did well in wrestling last weekend - came in 3rd at the state tournament and is off to Nationals today. We all saw "The Passion...." on Tues nite. AWESOME! and we all want to see it again - hard to absorb everything, but it is absolutely incredible.

Have been swamped at work - many many new clients keeping us busy.

As for your questions: I assume that your friend agrees that we are made in the image and likeness of God; to know how we should act, we turn to God...and God loves. Therefore, we are called to love - to give for the good of another. We should use things, but love people. As human persons, we express ourselves in and thru the body. That means that we should not alter in any way a part of ourselves that is fuctioning normally.

As married couples, we are called to complete self-donation in marriage - that is what love is - complete self-donation. Which means that when we engage in the marital embrace (intercourse), we must give ourselves completely. Each and every act of intercourse must be open to life. That is not to say that the intent each time must be to conceive; however, if one uses a condom, foam, diaphragm, withdrawal, etc., the act is not open to life and the couple are not performing a love act - e.g., they are holding back or interfering with the completion of what should be an act of love. In other words, they are using each other and not loving. In addition, this is very unsatisfying, especially for the woman.

Such actions are equivalent to saying, "I love you for better, but not for the imagined worse of parenthood," or "I love you, except for your fertility, so I must hold back or ask you to change that part of yourself..." In other words, it is using one's spouse rather than loving him/her.

The beauty of Natural Family Planning (NFP)/fertility awareness is that there are no barriers between the couple; no blame about contraceptive "failure" (a pregnancy). The couple learn the wife's fertility signs together and decide together when they can be open to a child and when they need to postpone a pregnancy. The periods of abstinence become periods of real romance and affection as the couple remains intimate - but in a non-genital way. It is much like building up for the wedding night all over again - refreshing and exciting. That's why the divorce rate among couple who use a natural means of birth regulation is less than 5%. In addition, it is over 99% effective in telling the couple when the wife is fertile and when she is not. The decision is theirs as to whether or not they feel a need to abstain in any given cycle (abstaining only on the fertile days - a few days a month).

The Holy Father believes that even if a couple initially uses NFP for selfish reasons, that will not last because they will be led toward virtue. They will begin to question why they are abstaining, and this together with the respect that is there just by not using devices and gadgets, will cause them to re-think their situation - often leading to more children by desire. This is what happened to us (otherwise, Jon would never have been born)! We fell into the contraceptive trap when first married, and it almost led to divorce. A friend told me about NFP, and I decided that I wouldn't use anything else. All hell broke loose in our marriage as a result and we fought for 3 months. Eventually, however, we did acknowledge that we loved oneanother and began to study and practice NFP. IT completely turned our relationship around and caused us to look at our first two children as "love with a name." After a few years of using it only to prevent pregnancy, we began to question ourselves and realized that we really desired more children. By the grace of God, we had Brandee, Jon and Mike. Actually wanted more than that, but I just didn't get pregnant every time I wanted to (imagine that, God was in charge after all).

Sorry, I got a bit carried away. Hope this helps your friend. The bottom line is that any barrier to the marital act hurts the marriage - it's a rejection of the other and a withholding of love.

Love ya,
Mrs. Laird

~~~

Isn't that beautiful? Especially the part about how the periods of abstinence are like building up for the wedding night all over again. That's awesome. What with that, and the references to her children ("without it Jon would never have been born" is enough for NFP to be the absolute gospel truth for me ... along with the fact that Mrs Laird said it) really drove that home, and I walked to psychology class in a state of amazement.

Also, adrenaline rush, Abe freaked me out this evening. We were talking about West Point. He's like "You've already done this and this and this and this and you're the daughter of an active-duty military LTC who was in active duty for more than 8 years? You've automatically got a nomination! All you need is a PT test AND YOU CAN GET IN THIS SUMMER." "I'm like AHHHHH, what????"

But ... I haven't sent my transcripts yet, nor have I gotten the packet thing from the Candidate Questionnaire, nor am I *ready* to take that PT test. But I have had the DODMERB. Abe's going to be a year ahead of me. Assuming I apply/get accepted/go (and that's a HUGE assumption, HUGE. I really don't think they would want me).

whew. Don't do that to me, Aeb.

So that was my evening. I'm exhausted.