Dear US Army,

Lately, I've experienced a lot of anxiety. My family has exited army life. My "optional income" is a thing of the past, and I am now the primary bread winner. Health insurance, housing, learning to be a civilian - it's all new to us. But then I see a bank statement without "Department of Defense" anywhere on it, and I breath a huge sigh of relief. We are so blessed to be on our own, building a life that finally fits our beliefs and goals.  Don't get me wrong, Army. It was fine while it lasted. But the give and take of our relationship, on it's best day, was at 110% to 30%, respectively. I thank you, earnestly, for the benefits that we received (and are still receiving through the GI Bill), but when I think of the 3 deployments, 8 years away from family, career opportunities, college credit hours, and the mental and physical health that we threw away, I have no regrets. You gave a little, but you took too much. And what did we really contribute to "the cause?" I'm afraid you wouldn't like my answer. I'm afraid we were always just a couple of numbers, easily replaced and hardly accounted for.

I'm determined that it must be over. I need to make my own way, guided by love of God and of family. I do, in fact, love my country, but I simply cannot give any more to a fictional ideal. A standing army is not what this country was designed for, and I'm tired of being dragged along as politicians seek out new wars to fight. I know too many who can't recover - they lost life, limb, and sanity. Sometimes all three. I must get out before I'm among their ranks. The battles that were fought in my marriage, and in my own mind, as a result of the "assignments" my husband received over the past 12 years - they took an irreversible toll. If I'm honest with myself, we were too weak for it, and we barely made it out by providence and ignorant stubborness. And now, believe it or not, we are happy. We are so happy and free. This life is hard, but it's not hard like the life we struggled against inside your system. It's a thinking hard, where wits and patience and love get you through. It's a hard that satisfies.

I don't blame you, Army. You are simply the result of humanity shaped by an historical combination of discipline and violence, violence and discipline - whittled down from a good start to a monstrous finish by a never-ending procession of short-sighted commanders and tired soldiers. It's my fault, for being young and short-sighted myself. I didn't see it, but now that I do, I had no choice but to strike out. I wish you well - I will pray often that your organization can find some sense of a center again. That your institution can become again rooted in the values you force upon your military men and women, but fall so short of every time. And so, to punctuate this brutal correspondence with a ending fitting of my message, I will leave you with your "Army Values," taught from boot camp to battleground throughout your system, but rarely embodied by their teacher. The day when I see evidence that you live these values, I will return to your service. Until then, fare the well.

The Seven Army Values: Loyalty. Duty. Respect. Selfless Service. Honor. Integrity. Personal Courage.

Respectfully,

Semicrunch

Wonder Woman Breastfeeding: Who's super now?

Dawn: Miracle Product or Too Good to be True?

I considered take a picture
of myself hugging my big bottle of Dawn,
but I'm not having a good hair day.

Dawn. It works. And when you measure it's effectiveness by the ounce, it's one of the best deals out there. Lately, I've been seeing some amazing ideas for how to use it, and I'm super stoked to start using my big blue bottle for more than dishes. But there's always that nagging feeling - is this miracle just a little too miraculous to be a good idea? After all, so many things that offer the ultimate in convienence come with a huge price tag - one that I pay off with guilt-dollars. Environmental impact, social justice, or just buying into a lie: three things I'm just not into. Does Dawn make the cut?

Let's start off with the list of Pros, in this case what Dawn can do. Since it cuts through just about any kind of grease like a charm, it makes for some really unique applications.

(I have not tried all of these yet, but as I do, I'll try to come back to update this post.)

---

Uses of DAWN Dishwashing Fluid: A quickly compiled list

NOTE: Original Blue Dawn. Not anything else - no other brand, scent, version. I'm pretty serious about this.

Sources: One Good Thing, Life Crafts & Whatever, Modern Day Moms

Freezer Packs
Partially fill a strong zip-type sandwich bag with Dawn dishwashing liquid, close and freeze. The liquid soap stays cold much longer and it can be re-frozen many times. It will conform to the place you need an ice pack.

Carpet Cleaner/Stain Remover for any Cloth
1 part Dawn with 2 parts Hydrogen Peroxide. Mix together and pour directly on the stain. Add light scrubbing.

Spot Treatment/Pretreat
For oil-based stains such as lipstick, grease, butter, motor oil, cooking oil, and some pen inks, simply apply some Dawn dishwashing liquid directly to the stain and scrub with a small brush or toothbrush until the oil is removed, and then launder as usual.

Flea Dip and Dog Shampoo
Use it to bathe the dogs. It kills fleas on contact and is much cheaper than expensive dog shampoos.

Bubble Solution
1/2 cup Dawn, 1/2 gallon warm water, 1 tbsp glycerin or White Karo syrup. Best. Bubbles. Ever.

Greasy Hair Disasters
If your kids get into the vaseline, or maybe (like me) you're doing a super-cradle cap treatment with mineral/baby oil, you'll want more than shampoo to cut through that mess. Use it just like shampoo and rinse well.

Clean Automotive Tools or Spills, or "Mechanic Hands."
After you have finished your automotive repair project, soak your dirty tools in Dawn before you put them away to remove all the oil and grime. Dawn also helps prevent rust from forming on the tools. Spill oil on the driveway or garage floor? Start with cheapo kitty litter to absorb, then finish up with a scrub of dawn and a stiff bristled brush. It's also the best cleaner for oily, greasy mechanic hands.

Soap Scum Remover
Heat up a cup of vinegar in the microwave to 1.5-2 minutes and add to a spray bottle with an equal amount of Dawn. Little to no scrubbing is needed.

Repel Ants
Spray counter-tops, cupboards and any other area where you see ants with a solution of Dawn and water. Wipe dry. The slight residue of Dawn that remains will not be a problem at all for kids or pets, but ants hate it. Should you see a trail of ants, go ahead and hit them with the Dawn spray.

Stripping Cloth Diapers**
Add a squirt or two of original Dawn dish soap to your washer and run a hot wash, then rinse until there are no more bubbles. Dawn is a degreasing agent and helps stripping by removing oily residue. Be sure to rinse, rinse, rinse until the water runs clear.

** New to cloth diapers? Here's my post on cloth diaper savings, and another about how we cloth diaper. You can also make your own detergent, which is super effective and safe on cloth diapers

Unclogging Toilets
A cup of Dawn detergent poured into a clogged toilet allowed to sit for 15 minutes and then followed with a bucket of hot water poured from waist height will clear out the toilet. Apparently, human waste is grease-based. Yikes.

Poison Ivy Treatment
Poison ivy spreads through the spread of the oil within the blisters. Washing the affected area with Dawn, especially on children who keep scratching the blister’s open, helps dry up the fluid, AND keep it from spreading.

Sidewalk De-Icer
When walkway is clean (right after you did all that crazy hard work) pour on a mix of 1 tsp of Dawn, 1 tbsp of rubbing alcohol, and 1/2 gallon hot water. They won’t refreeze.

Repel Pests from House Plants/Aphid Control on Fruit Trees
In a spray bottle, combine 2 tablespoons Dawn in a gallon of water. Try to get spray both sides of the leaves, branches and the tree trunks. In the case of fruit trees, let sit for about 15 minutes and then rinse the trees thoroughly.

---

I love this stuff. I buy the super sized bottle, and it's one of the only commercially-made products that you can always find under our sink (DIY cleaners that live "sub-faucet" in my kitchen include Orange Cleaner and Dish Detergent). But I've been thinking for months that I could be really falling for a dupe (for more on what the heck a dupe is, check out my other blog and "The Duped Project"). Maybe this product, amazing though it may be, is actually terrible. You know - like "wow that's a beautiful ivory necklace!" or "my, this rhino-horn syrum works great on my shingles," or "those baby seal boots are rockin with that albino tiger belt" kind of terrible.

Before you tell me, yes, I've seen the heart-warmin' commercials where the Green Peace volunteers lovingly caress an adorable baby duck with Dawn post-oil spill disaster. That's a darn cute duck. And a pretty fantastic marketing ploy. Whether or not it's 100% true, or a classic twisting of facts to sell soap, I'm happy that Donald and Daisy weren't preening petroleum into their bellies that day. But is it really as benevolent as it seems?

The question is: Is Dawn really ok for the environment?

Here's one of the best, quick-and-to-the-point answers I came across:

Dawn is safe for the environment and is the only detergent used by wildlife rescuers when cleaning aquatic animals affected by oil spills. Dawn is water soluble and is a non-irritant. It contains no carcinogens, and its surfactants are biodegradable. Dawn also has a line of soaps made from biodegradable plant oils.

There's a few other objections to consider though. Dawn is produced by Proctor and Gamble. This company is known, in the raging-against-the-machine circles, for less than savory business practices. Here's an excellent article about concerns from an animal-rights angle. On the other side of the coin, here's good write-up of why Dawn is still a better choice than other dish fluids.

Conclusion:  I'm glad I did my research because now I know more about this product I'm using, but none of the evidence I turned up changed my mind about Dawn. I'll still stay away from the fancy new-fangled versions (unecessary fragrances and additives will take away from it's effectiveness and could introduce other problems like carcinogenic phthalates or environmentally-unfriendly ingredients). But I'm going to continue to use my "true blue" - in the grand scheme of things, this is a truly semi-crunchy option for a multi-purpose (to say the least) product.

The Effort It Takes

A while back (at least a year ago) a friend who was instrumental in my switch to cloth diapers posted this conservation-minded witty quip on her facebook. Maybe you've seen it before:

I wish I could give you a source, but I can't find it!

Genius, eh? At the time I looked for the source, original designer, etc and couldn't find anything. (Side note - if you want to use my stuff, go ahead! - and if you feel so lead, be kind and redirect back to my blog).

My friend and I decided that the concept was gold, and it had too many applications to be ignored, so we penned this little number together.

Design by Far.  Logic by Semi-Crunchers everywhere.

I enjoyed researching - watching them make the diapers on How It's Made, reading about the process. It's ludicrous. So much wasted energy and time (forget materials) for something that your kid poops in. As if you really handle the doo any less when you just wash it yourself.

---

If you like, share! If you really like (and you aren't already an avid cloth diaperin' fool) you can check out my posts on cloth diapering:

• The Duped Project: Cloth Diapering
• Cloth Diapering Savings

Fertility and Politics: A letter about who's really in charge of our bodies

Dear Women of America:

Let me start off by saying Thank You. Thank you for caring so much about your body, your rights, and your future. Thanks for taking the time to care that what male politicians do, because you're right - it does affect our bodies, sometimes directly.

But I am really afraid you have it wrong. I am worried that you have fallen for a big hoax - and it's name is contraception.

If you're reading this letter, maybe you know how I feel about artificial birth control. Maybe you don't. In a nutshell, I'm not a fan. In fact, I don't use it at all. Spoiler alert: Despite a happy and full marriage, I don't have a house full of kids, all 9 months apart (2 so far, both fully "planned," more than 2 years apart). I live in a large American city, in a normal suburb, work a full-time job, and eat fast-food more often than I care to admit. But enough about me - lets talk about you, women of America.

There's a caravan in town, and they're peddling snake-oil. You remember that story, right? The crazy salesman with the handle-bar mustache, selling something foul-smelling out of the back of his horse drawn wagon. "It will solve all your problems!" he says, but he's not telling the whole story. His magic serum isn't all it's cracked up to be. On average, it costs a woman (or her insurance, or her government) $18,000 over the course of her fertile years to "make sure" she can have sex without getting pregnant. The most commonly-used form of contraception, oral contraceptives (the pill) has been classified by the World Health Organization as a class 1 carcinogen. Women using contraception are significantly more likely to get cancer, to die a violent death and to be divorced, and they are just as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy (since half of all unplanned pregnancies in the United States occur despite the use of contraception). And not one bit of it is necessary.

I have heard and seen a lot of buzz lately from you about how politicians can't tell you what to do with your body, because it's your decision. True. But how much do you know about your body? Are you really making the decisions? Or have you relied on some old assumptions? Have you, convinced that knowing the intricacies of your fertility is impossible, gotten a bit complacent about your right to your body? Have you, convinced that this natural function of your body is something to be stopped at all costs, already handed full responsibility of your reproductive system over, not to politicians, but to doctors? Are you really in control at all?

I pose a question to you, women of America: what is more irresponsible - knowing nothing about what your body is doing "down there" and trusting a prescription to take care of it all, or taking the 2 minutes a day required to know that you are healthy, functioning properly, and (gasp) ovulating on schedule? FACT: A woman is only fertile for a few days each month. FACT: It is possible to observe very simple signs in your own body and predict this fertility. FACT: "Unprotected" sex with an infertile woman does not produce pregnancy.

I could go on for ages. I won't. This is not about religion. It is certainly not about politics. It's not about cancer-prevention, or hormones secreted into our drinking water, or 7 fold risk of preeclampsia, or the complications risked during tubal litigation (though I would love it if you would look into those things). It's not even about citing my sources for all of the facts I've included in this letter (if you would like to know if I'm making it up, I challenge you to do some good research). What this letter to you is about is simply this: before you claim that no one has a right to make any decisions about your body but you, find out about you. Make some educated decisions. In my humble opinion, contraception is unnecessary, unhealthy, and (frankly) misogynistic. It's anti-woman.

Don't buy what the snake-oil salesmen are selling.

Spoken with the greatest of love, with nothing but your health and wellness in mind,
Semi-Crunch

Get the Heck Out of My Bed!

Hello again. I would like a break from politics. You too? Sweet. Let's start with something hilarious.



Oh, how I identify with this totally wacked-out woman. Especially with the breast pumping. Video courtesy of MamaNatural.com - one of my new favorites. The blog is a great hub for all things crunchy and is the home of this and many very funny videos. But we all know that I'm only semi-crunchy. I vaccinate my kids, buy genetically modified seedless grapes, let them watch educational television, and yes - I even have been known to feed them the occasional happy meal.

And here's another one. Brace yourself.

I. Hate. Co-sleeping.

I'm not talking about newborns. No need to open up that worm-filled can. Rest assured, we have a side-car bassinet that we used for the first 6 weeks of life for both our kids, and after that they were moved to cribs. In this case, maybe co-sleeping is a bad term. I'm talking about kids that are much older. At least a year, or in this case 2.5 years.

It's honestly a closeness thing. I've spent most of my adult life a little averted to being near others. After only a few years together, the cuddle phase was all but eradicated from my marriage with the introduction of a two mattresses in one bed frame (God bless the Germans - they have this one right). There are long-running jokes among my friends about how much I hate to hug. Elevators, crowded church pews, and public transportation have been known to bring on full-fledged panic attacks. And not out of something logical like fear of infectious disease or pick pockets. I just can't stand the NEARNESS of it all.

You think this is precious.
I think it's a violation of human rights.

And then I became a mother. So much of that has changed - I love to hold my babies. Everything about being close to others has become easier, even enjoyable at times. My girls crawl, kick, and drop 'bows on me daily, and half the time it makes me smile. But sleep is different. Sleep is still sacred. I have fantasies about sleeping alone, on a tempur-pedic in the middle of a field of lavender - miles from the nearest child. Unfortunately, the only thing that's really distant is the hope of a night without a kid in my bed. Since my youngest (now 6 months) was born, her older sister has returned to our bed every night. Sometimes it's at 4 am, sometimes it's before we even get there. She's always been a terrible sleeper (night terrors, hallucinogenic dreaming, you name it) so I don't turn her away. And there are times when I'll wake up at night and look over at her peaceful face and think, this isn't so bad.

But most of the time, I feel very differently. Look, kiddo. From the moment you took up residency in my uterus, I've been loosing ground. First I lost my figure, then my boobs became someone else's snack pak. You take my food AS I'm trying to eat it, you force me to watch Nick Jr all day, and now you want to kick me out of my bed? C'mon man. You're adorable, but I didn't buy you those Dora sheets to look good on an empty toddler bed.

Of course I exaggerate. But I think you get the picture. Just in case you don't, this says it all.

Despite many long sleepless hours mulling it over, I have no idea what to do about this problem. The Great Bed Invasion of 2010 is stretching into 2012, and seems to have no end. My husband says "it's not like she's going to be sleeping with us when she's 12," but honestly, I'm not convinced. I am terrified that I will wake up a decade from now, and find that I am on the floor and my bed is full of a knot of covers and progeny. Like 8 of them. I'm nauseated just thinking about it. 

But the truth is, one day, my sweet daughter will roll her eyes when I so much as brush her hair out of her face, and I'll long for these days. I will miss the hugs, the cuddles, the groggy wake up to what is quickly becoming one of the best and worst sentences: "Mommy, is it get up time?" She's a precious one, that little bed hog of mine. And she's in my bed because she loves me, feels safe with me, and is calmed by my presence. She's there because I'm her mom. Oh - I guess it's not so bad after all.

Just don't ask me at 3 am.

Photo credits: Ed Wolstenholme and unknown.

National NFP Week: Part 4 - Top Ten Reasons (3-1)

Finally! The last installment of my Top Ten Reasons I love Natural Family Planning. Enjoy!

3. Rebellious   
Ok, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but the truth is that there is a rebel factor that really fuels my love of NFP. When I think about the masses, falling off cliffs of birth control like lemmings, it makes my little punk heart go all a flutter. It's really quite bad of me, but I feel so smart for figuring it out - except that I didn't.

This sticker was just too
appropriate to pass up.
You can buy it here.

Really, I'm just lucky. When I was thinking about becoming Catholic, I knew that the Church's teaching on Birth Control was the deal breaker. Like so many converts, I was not going to go through the long and arduous process of becoming Catholic (not to mention the confusion and sometimes even alienation of my protestant friends) if I couldn't go "all in." And how on earth could I go all in? They wanted me to have a million babies, loose all control of my body, and throw away any chance of being the independent success-driven woman that I was meant to be!

It takes about 30 seconds of REAL research (ie, not just talking to a cradle Catholic about birth control - since only 1 out of 10 of them follow this teaching, and certainly not listening to anyone who isn't Catholic - since I have never ever encountered so many myths about one subject before investigating the Church) to understand that the teaching that the Catholic promotes has nothing to do with a million children or a sexist agenda. In fact, when you actually bother to find out what the teaching is, rather than relying on hearsay, it's a very natural extension of a non-hypocritical pro-life, pro-feminity, pro-family viewpoint.

But I digress. As much as I would love to say that I'm superior to all those victims (and their well meaning healthcare providers) out there who are still falling for the lies of the fat-cat pharmaceutical companies, I just happened to be blessed to find out the truth. You actually don't have to take a pill that could kill you. You don't need to have surgery to stop your body's natural function. It's not neccessary, but more importantly it's downright unpleasant. And I choose not to. Stick it to the man, baby. Down with the machine.

2. Moral

"The Good News About Sex & Marriage"
by Christopher West is based on JPII's .
Theology of the Body.

This one is way too big for me to tackle on my own. First of all, people will believe I am condemning them, or at least condemning their friends. I understand why they think that; it seems like tolerance and acceptance have become inaccurate synonyms nowadays, but that's neither here nor there. Please remember that to condemn those who use birth control would be to condemn myself, since I used artificial birth control for a very long time. The only "condemnation" would be a self-imposed one: to fully understand what exactly you are doing by blocking the whole purpose of sex fully and intentionally, and continue to do it. Very few people understand it, and that's not their fault. However, if you are smart enough to want to know what's actually happening when you use contraception, then you do have a moral responsibility to learn more.

"The Good News About Sex and Marriage" is my favorite resource for information about the morality of NFP. The author, Christopher West, offers talks geared at Catholics, Evangelicals, Agnostics and more. YouTube it. It will be worth a listen - if for no other reason than to open your mind a bit to what God actually intended for sex. It's certainly not the Puritanical leftovers that most American Christians believe, nor is it the totally open agenda that our culture is pushing - it's quite refreshing and liberating. Sex can be both moral and fun. Who knew?
 
1. Pro-Life
There's a lot to this one, so I'll focus on the one aspect of it that I think will be the hardest to swallow: that using birth control within a committed marriage relationship to control the size of your family is anti-life.

I struggle so much to understand how someone can be pro-life and still take birth control. Forget the fact that it's an abortifacent,  it's also completely contrary to the attitude that welcomes life. If the myth that sex without birth control always results in an eventual pregnancy was true, I would understand the need for taking those measures. But it's simply not true. See reason #10. I suppose that's why they do it - they think that they must in order to be responsible parents and citizens. It goes back to what I said about your number of children exceeding your ability. If that's the case - kudos for trying to be a good mom or dad, and for considering the rest of the world when you make your decision. But you've been sold a bunch of junk. Return to sender.

The truth that I've discovered is that to be truly pro-life you have to really redefine sex all together. It's not about you. It's about the person your with. To quote JPII, sex is the free, total, faithful and fruitful union of a man and woman. You can't give yourself in a way that fits all those criteria without being void of anything that would block the giving. That includes cheating (the potential for current or future partners, ie, monogamy!), mental withholding (pornography and fantasies about someone else), and the intentional blocking of the miracle of life that results from the natural union that sex is. Anything less that a full giving of self objectifies your partner instead of honoring them. It makes them a thing of pleasure instead of a person of value. That's not a good marriage folks. That's not even a good lay.

How is that for a finish?

National NFP Week: Part 3 - Top Ten Reasons (6-4)

Yes, I know. It's confusing. Part 3 of NFP Week is Part 2 of my countdown. So sue me. Anyway, on with the show! Here are reasons 6, 5, and 4 that I <3 Natural Family Planning.

6. Marriage-Building
Even though I looked up tons of great statistics on the success of marriage when practicing NFP, including divorce rates that are as low as 3% and usually cited at at least 5% in comparison with 50% for the average couple, I think that this is a more subjective point, so I'll just share my experiences on this. There are countless reasons why this method strengthens the bond between man and wife, but I'm going to focus on only one: abstinence as a positive thing. Say what?


Times of abstinence observed during fertility can be very frustrating to be sure, but the surprising thing is how profoundly they change your heart. You don't realize the difficulty of showing love outside of a single physical act until that act is not available. Sex often becomes a crutch to keep us from actual closeness, real intimacy. Eliminate that option, even for a little while, and you discover that the ability to show physical affection without sexual contact has all but disappeared. In the beginning of a relationship, a young couple can't seem to keep their hands off each other: holding hands, making out in public, constantly flirting. How many couples maintain that? You might argue that it's due to time passing and passion naturally waning in the wake of a mature relationship, but I would argue that we have used the "crutch" of sex to excuse us from everything else.

Monotony or Monogamy?

Here's the best way I can think of to describe it: simple and straight forward. You love Starbucks. You love it so much, that you decide to declare in front of God and all your loved ones only to drink only Starbucks Coffee all the days of your life. You move in next to a Starbucks, and every day you go in and get your coffee. Sure, there may be some variety: flavor shots, iced drinks, maybe even a little whipped cream (coffee, folks - get your mind out of the gutter!). But it's all really the same. After a few years, Dunkin Donuts is looking pretty good. Shoot, even a good pot of joe at home sounds pretty nice. Then Starbucks announces it's new hours of operation: they are closed for business from the 15th to the 22nd each month. Because you vowed not to stray, this means no coffee at all for that week of the month. It's gonna be a long week for sure, but tell me you aren't going to hug your barista when the doors open on the 23rd!


I know that the concept of abstinence during fertile times sounds horrible, but in my experience both the husband and the wife look at this time as a time of growth, love, and most importantly, appreciation. If you'll pardon the pun, I would say "Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder."


5. Healthy
I've already written a couple posts of the constantly-ignored and ever-present dangers of hormonal birth control and sterilization methods (see "Are you NovaSure about this?" and "Beyaz: It's Good (?) to have Choices"). The fact is that anything outside of a simple barrier method has terrible side effects that we tend to ignore. Why? I'm really not sure. I know that personally, when I used it, I played down the risks because I thought that they were worth it in order to not become pregnant (side note: did you know that 49% of unplanned pregnancies in the US occured while using contraception?).

Prevent Breast Cancer: Stay off Hormonal BC!

So what are the risks? Well, for all my ladies out there, there's what I refer to as the Big Four: greatly increased risk of Cervical, Ovarian, Uterine and Breast Cancer. (Note: a reader graciously pointed out that I have fallen into one of my least favorite traps. My source here was not up to date or accurate. Better information with reliable sources on the links between oral contraceptives and cancer will be available in a new post. I will update here. Thank you reader!)  In other words, this stuff attacks your reproductive system's ability to ward off cancer. Geez o petes, folks, leave my lady parts alone! There's also the abortive nature of some of the most popular methods of birth control. As I've mentioned before, IUDs (hormonal and the non-hormonal copper version), birth control pills, rings, shots, patches, and some forms of sterilization are known to not only prevent ovulation or the meeting of sperm and egg - they simply make it impossible for a fertilized egg (aka growing life) to implant in the uterus or to survive there. To make a metaphor, rather than locking your house to prevent the riff raff from entering, you leave the door unlocked until they are inside, then starve them to death.

And for a second, let's talk about body function. If the big pharmeceutical company came out with a new pill that you take every day that keeps you from ever having to pee again, would you take it? I mean, sure it would make car trips nice, and the bathroom would make a great walk-in closet, but come on. Wouldn't that strike you as incredibly unnatural, and probably unsafe? Would you listen a little closer to "fine print" at the end of the television commercial for this miracle drug? Something about stopping a function of your body just for convenience seems really wrong to most people, but that's what we are doing. Whether or not your birth control stops menstruation, it is stopping the function of your reproductive system entirely. A complete halt of something that our bodies have been doing since the beginning of time. That's just creepy.
  
4. Unifying (between Partners)  
I talked about the benefits of this method on marriage a little, but I don't think I really discussed the cooperative nature of the method. I have begun to realize that there is a real inequality in how we think about pregnancy prevention. We say that a woman has to right to declare, "my body, my choice!" Woo hoo! Except that, as Spiderman once put it, with great power comes great responsibility. And that responsibility, like the choice, is not also not shared.

Why does the man's half of the
responsibility resemble fruit candy?

When a teenager becomes sexually active, we tell them it's their responsibility to protect themselves. For a girl, this means a trip to the free clinic for birth control pills (accompanied by a lecture in safe sex, an education in options and possibly an STD screening) followed by a nearly endless pressure to keep up with that medication until menopause. For a boy, it means a trip to CVS for a couple rubbers that he'll keep in his wallet. No lecture, no education, no long term commitment - really not much of anything. His involvement is limited to the same actions as buying a comic book.

Not that I think this is man keeping woman down. I am not so sure that man is the awful, sex-crazed caveman we make him out to be. Maybe he wants to take some responsibility. Maybe, out of love for his partner, and appreciation for her natural responsibility to carry a child should she become pregnant, he wants to be a real man, and take action. But what choice have we given him? Just go get your rubbers, you cad.

NFP is completely unique in that it takes equal commitment and understanding of both partners. They are both in tune to their own fertility (since his doesn't vary, the focus is on hers, but the responsibility is shared). It would be unfair to ask a woman to do all the housework, or a man to do all child rearing. Fertility is a big job - it takes two.

Coming Soon:
3. Rebellious   
2. Moral 
1. Pro-Life

National NFP Week: Part 2 - Top Ten Reasons (10-7)

Call it what it is, I always say. That's the premise behind the title of today's post. True, it's not National National Family Planning Week anymore. Missed the boat on that one. But I promised a Letterman-style breakdown of the what I love about this crazy Natural Family Planning mumbo jumbo, so we'll cut to the chase.

10. Accurate
There are so many medical professionals who would argue with me on this, and I see their point. I have seen "failure rates" for natural birth control methods range from as low as .5% all the way up to 25%. What would cause this disparity? Measuring failure of this method is tough, since the majority of those who use it are happily married and could welcome more children with no real objection - most of the "mistakes" are what I would call "slip-ups." For example, I have a friend who, after 22 months of successfully using this method after her first child (through turbulent breastfeeding, mind you) got pregnant. A doctor would call this a failure, but my friend wouldn't. If you ask her, she says that she was growing "intentionally more lazy about tracking everything." In other words, she wanted a kid before she thought she would, and let her "slip up" take the fall. To me, that's a planned pregnancy, not a birth control failure. I also have a friend who truly wanted to space her children, and used this method without so much as a scare for 3.5 years before conceiving their second child on the very first try. I have a similar experience. I've only tried to get pregnant twice, and both were one shot one kill. I can not only tell my OBGYN the date of my last period, I can tell her the date of conception (down to the hour...TMI!). In between our kids, we had no scares. To me, accuracy of NFP is dependent on 2 main factors: what method you use, and how devoted you are to it. If you are using a "lazy" method, or are "lazy" in practice, well - who's surprised when the pee stick has two lines? So here's a simple answer from an unexpected source. The Department of Defense lists both condoms and NFP as equally effective, providing the woman practice correctly.

9. Economical
I spent $5 on my thermometer, $14 on my "how-to" book, and that was pretty much it. If I replaced them every year (I won't replace them that often, but just for argument's sake), and I used them for 30 years, I would spend $570 in my whole lifetime. If you have insurance, based on average co-pays, a woman on typical birth control will spend nearly $18,000 in her life (source). Here's a visual breakdown from the same site:

8. Natural 

This is not what I mean by a well-planned family.

We all know the green movement is...well...moving. What could be more natural than refusing to fill your system with chemicals to stunt a natural cycle of the female body? After all - how did they do it before birth control? It's a relatively new idea, right? When thinking about this before I started looking into NFP, I remember thinking that the reason my great-grandparents had 12 children was because there was no modern birth control. But then again, the pill wasn't perfected until the 60s, and what about people in the 20s, 30s, 40s? Didn't they have reasonably sized families? It seems that the trend of giant families in the 1800s was an American thing, more a product of necessity (more hands on the farm) than fertility. So what did our ancestors know about having babies that we don't? Mmm hmm.

"Sex= No connection needed with babies"

7. Enlightening
Raise your hand if sex-ed failed you (insert ridiculous flailing of author's arm here). I left high school understanding about as much about my body as I did about the body of the frog I dissected in 9th grade bio, and rest assured that wasn't much. A few simple facts that no one bothered to put together for me: Men are always fertile. Women are only fertile 3 days of the month, on average. Coincidence, or providence? My point here is that I have learned more about what's actually going on inside me and why from NFP than I ever thought possible (and the truth will set you free).

More to come in Reasons 1-6:

• Marriage-Building
• Healthy   
• Unifying (between Partners)  
• Rebellious   
• Moral  
• Pro-Life  

National NFP Week: Part 1 - Why Artificial Birth Control is Wrong

This child is clearly a
product of NFP and some seriously
crunchy parents.

Hello again! After my light-hearted and approachable post on the growing epidemic of juice-loving toddlers, it's time to reach deep into the heart of what makes me crazy again! This is an extremely Catholic, extremely pro-life, extremely crunchy post. Be warned. Still reading? Huzzah!

Of all the things I do, my choice to avoid all forms of artificial birth control is by far the most shocking to most people. In honor of National NFP (Natural Family Planning) Week, I'm going to talk a little about why. What? No birth control? At all? That's right - I don't take the pill, I don't use condoms, and I am against vasectomy and tube-tying. In fact, I think all of these things are immoral. To me, it's the most obvious and honest extension of the pro-life mentality. Almost all forms of birth control are abortive at least some of the time, meaning that they cause a fertilized egg to be unnaturally expelled or create an environment in the womb that makes it impossible to continue growing. If you believe that life begins at conception, that means that these kinds of birth control end life*. Abortive forms of birth control include hormonal pills ("the pill" in all it's forms) and hormonal IUDs, to name just a couple.

*If you don't think of conception as the beginning of life, I would really like to talk to you about why. Maybe you think of it as life, like a parasite has life. My question then is: when does that life progress to the point of having the same rights as a human? Or simplier even, when does it have a soul? Is it when the heart starts beating? When the embryo moves? When the baby is born? I have heard them all, and I can't for the life of me (pardon the pun) understand any of them. Biology says that conception is the beginning. Anything else seems to just be half-hearted unresearched personal philosophy.  But I'll save that for another day.

So what about other forms that don't allow fertilization? Barrier methods (condoms, cervical caps) and sterilization (vasectomy, tied tubes) have some really horrible cultural side effects: they make sex purely recreational, create a false sense of security, and foster an attitude of pregnancy as a disease. The more you look into it, the history of our society and how it has thought about sex for the last 100 years, you see that birth control has caused a breakdown in our understanding of our place in the world. We are sexual creatures. But we are also moral, logical, reasonable creatures. That's what makes us different from, say, a bonobo monkey.

The Duggar Family has become famous
based on their "quiver-full" mentality.
Do they have the right idea? I say no.

This does not mean that I want, or even plan to have, 15 children. Though couples that embrace pregnancy in this way (by not taking any measures to space or avoid pregnancy) have grasped the basic idea of "life is good," they are, in my opinion, missing the point. The whole idea is to love children, from the moment of conception on, and to treat them as gifts to be treasured and nurtured. Having too many children can hurt them all. They may not get the resources they need - financially, emotionally, or even physically - to grow up in the best possible environment. For example, if a 6 year old girl spends most of her day caring for the basic needs of her younger siblings, she is not being allowed to learn, experience and grow in a way that will give her the best chance at a great life. The key is to balance it. Love life, love children, welcome them as the gift they are, but value the ones you already have enough to not "crowd them out."

I realize that I'm simplifying this so much that if this is the first time you've heard of this line of belief, it probably sounds like complete malarkey. It goes against absolutely everything that our society teaches about sex, love, babies, marriage, etc. It took me a long time to get to the point of even understanding - much less believing - this school of thought, often referred to as the "culture of life." I'm not here to convince you of these thoughts with just a few paragraphs. I'm just hoping to open your mind a bit.

Enter NFP. Natural Family Planning is a deep subject. I'm just going to have to write a whole new post on this one. Sufficient for now to say that it's not your mom's rhythm method, it's so medically-minded that it will make the pill look elementary, and it will change your life for the better. How? Here's a fun fact: the divorce rate for couples that practice NFP? 5%. No, I didn't forget a 0.

Got you hooked? Stay tuned - my next post will be a simple top ten reasons why I love NFP. Thanks for reading!

Follow Up on those Crazy ZPGers

I have found a new blog that I love. This lady is amazing. Even the name of the blog is classic: The Feminist Breeder. Thanks to Amber - you've improved my life by sending me to this site.

One of my favorites on this blog was about how having more than 2 children is greedy. GREEDY. Seriously? Didn't I cover this? Oh yeah. I did.

Actually, to be specific, I covered those in favor of Zero Population Growth, and how they are killing off the industrial world, one delayed pregnancy at a time. This particular blog did a fantastic job of talking about the microcosmic effects of having more than 2 for an individual family. But of course, in the comments, someone had to go there. Someone had to talk about how we're over populating the world, and the responsible thing to do is to sterilize ourselves (so that we can enjoy our mochajavachinos at the local coffee haus without annoying the other patrons with our toddlers).
Honestly? Must we always promote our pseudo-knowledge and push our under-researched ideas onto others? Just because some associate professor said something to your buddy's mom in 1979 about population growth, and she loved it and repeated it a zillion times (loosing accuracy with every occurance), and he told you about it last week, you are now an expert. Knowledge fail.

But back to the comments section of the blog. If you ever want to have a good-hearted, jovial laugh at the ignorance of the average anonymous internet-user, just find a popular blog with slightly controversial ideas and read the comments. Here's how this one went down:

Note the light-hearted smiley face. Just a little witty banter between a mom and her doctor.

 

Way to take it to blows! Clearly, this blogger is both a doctor and a mathematician.

Yes. Awesome blog burn.

One more time, here's the link to the blog I wrote in March on this subject: "ZPGers may not have a leg to stand on" (Soon, they may not have kids to pay for their nursing home either, but that's a whole different subject...)

That Fourth Day in July

lib·er·ty/ˈlibərtē/n1. The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life.¹

 

free·dom/ˈfrēdəm/n1. The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. 2. Absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.²

 

in·dep·en·dence/ˌindəˈpendəns/n1. a condition of a nation, country or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory.³

 

I was listening to the radio yesterday (EWTN, of course. What else is there?) on the 4th of July. One of the talk radio hosts said that he believes that one of the biggest problems we have with our attitude about Independence Day is that we misunderstand the difference between liberty and freedom. He said that we use them as synonyms, that we think they mean the same thing, but they do not. Enter my confusion. I guess I had never thought about it. Are they really that different? What is the difference?

 

I have a friend who is very "intense" on facebook. I know, I know. Hello pot, I'm kettle, and you're black. But this guy makes my posts look like marshmallow fluff. Of course, I love that. I relish the chance to stir the pot right back and comment on the things he posts, most of which are about religion (note that we don't agree here, but maintain a friendship - go Ecumenicism!) but also include some of my favorite subjects like Irish Heritage and least favorite subjects like partisan politics. In honor of our "nation's birthday," he made multiple posts on the subject of that anniversary. Because I know he won't mind, here they are, verbatim, but in no particular order:

 

Rock on, friend. Stick it to the man.

1. FYI- Did you know that the "Star Spangled Banner" was written aboard a British ship, and the tune was composed by a British composer? It wasn't adopted as the National Anthem until 1931.

 

2. If Jesus died to set men free, why do we behave as if it took Him 1776 years to do so? 

 

3. "When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?" -Abigail Adams

 

4. (My personal favorite:) Jesus Saves From Patriotism.

 

And you think I like to stir up trouble! Of course he makes an excellent point, perhaps several. But I think there's something to be said about the theory of the EWTN DJ here: If people are confusing what Christ did for mankind and what the Declaration of Independence did for Americans, bad definitions are the source of the breakdown. Therein lies the rub. Shall we discuss? I include a cited glossary at the top. It doesn't do as much to illuminate as I would have hoped, but it's a good jumping off place. Let's start at the bottom and work up. 

 

Independence refers to a country's political ability to govern itself. It doesn't really relate to  the individual, but remembering that the official name for the 4th day in July is "Independence Day," that sheds light on the idea of why we shoot fireworks and drink too much. Because on that day, 235 years ago, we made an official statement to the British government that we were going to govern ourselves and fall under our own sovereignty alone. Boo-ya Mama England. (Please note that this is not the anniversary of when we actually began governing ourselves. A lot of good men died for the cause before that happened.)

That leaves Freedom and Liberty. From the definitions I found, it seems like they both relate to the individual, but freedom is more dependent upon the idea to which it refers, while liberty is more of an abstract,  broad-spectrum concept. 

Give me liberty or give me death (P. Henry). Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (T. Jefferson). Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty (J. Adams). When these guys talk about the ultimate goal, they don't talk of being free. Freedom is a word the founding fathers reserved for specific rights. Freedom of Religion (not from Religion, mind you). Freedom of the press. To bear arms. Etc. Freedom is a, forgive me, lesser concept. Liberty is the great pie in the sky that we strive for as Americans. The idea of freedom can be lofty, I suppose, but the word itself mostly is just functional.

 

Going back to my friend's point, I would say that Jesus didn't die to set us free in general. His sacrifice didn't make us free to write blogs without fear of government reprisal. The Bill of Rights did that. It didn't make us free to abort pregnancies if we so choose. Roe vs. Wade did that. What Christ did freed us from the consequences of our own sin. That's what makes it powerful. Not the word "freedom." The word "Sin" immediately following the word "freedom." 

 

Specificity! The best thing since sliced bread. After all, that pretty lady at the top with the eagle and the Captain America sheild is Lady Liberty. I doubt she'd answer to anything else.

Sweet Little Lies

Don't be manipulated by the mean mom down the street! High fructose is just as harmless as the safety rating on the Land Rover driven by the lobbyist who thought this up!

Well, that's one way to begin, right? Start off strong. I have been, once again, scandalized by a television commercial, and you get to read the fallout. My goal here is to try to, in my own way, summarize all the conglomeration of facts and opinions about corn syrup into a easier read. It was painful, and I'm sure I've left a ton of important stuff out, but you can easily track it down if you want to. If you don't, here's a quick blitz on what you should know before you trust the messages put out by the Corn Refiner's Association.

First, here's some fun clips from our friends atthe Corn Refiner's Association. I recommend them ALL!

BURN! - A brother is reminded what a "doofus" he is with these corn-friendly factoids.

SIZZLE! - A man is put in his place by his corn-loving girlfriend.

ICED! - An awesome remake of the last commercial. That's how smart you and I are going to sound after this blog.

Radhia Gleis, a certified clinical nutritionist out of Austin, gave a highly enlightening talk on this subject (see it here, though it takes a hot minute to watch it). She contributes the rise in obesity during the 80s with the replacement of cane sugar with high fructose corn syrup (here refered to as HFCS). She insists that it does, in fact, affect your body very differently than typical white granulated sugar, derived from sugar cane. She points out that HFCS is a "synthetic food" because of (1) the chemical process used to create it and (2) the genetic modification used to produce most HFCS corn, both of which equal health problems. She refers to the introduction of HFCS in our diets as the start of a "veritable epidemic of obesity and diabetes" and talks briefly about the links between the amount of HFCS ingested and type 2 diabetes.

She also talks about the Farm Subsidy Act of 2002. Wait, what's that you said? "What this means, guys, is that our government is paying farmers to produce more corn." To boil it down, way down, our tax dollars are being spent on producing more and more corn to be used in HFCS and ethanol, even though we already have more corn than we know what to do with. Why? It's cheaper, easier, and it lasts longer on the shelf and can travel further without spoiling. Small farmers are put out of business, corrupt food monopolies are supported, and once again our health and well being is ignored as we consume corn in practically everything we eat. Don't believe it? Check out the ingredients on, say, the first 5 things you pull out of your pantry or fridge. Government subsidies may mean that our food becomes much more affordable, but our bodies - specifically our livers and fat cells - pay the consquences.

Or so they say. The American Medical Association says that HFCS is an unlikely cause for obesity and other conditions - or at least is as likely as sucrose (sugar). So maybe Ms. Gleis and the King Corn documentary have it all wrong. It's certainly possible. Nutrition is, by it's very nature, a guessing game, and the truth seems to change with each new study. I just hate to see this kind of shameless propoganda on my television and let those slimey promoters get away with it.

"Maze Commercial" (My personal favorite, but unfortunately, I cannot display it here it b/c it's been disabled by request of the Corn Refiners Association. Possibly because of all the spoofs on youtube from their last botched campaign.) If you only watch one video, watch this one!

Seriously? Do you think they are getting off on squeezing every last ounce of patriotic fervor out of us? Don't you think this could have been improved with some fireworks, apple pies, a 21 gun salute and a 20 foot American flag waving in the background? Bring out the marching band! Go Corn!


Please folks. Don't buy this nonsense. I'll leave you with a couple quotes from my wittiest source:

"Watching the food channel, I recently heard that the most delicious pork comes from Spain, where the swine are fattened up on an all-corn diet. This little tidbit reminded me of we Americans. Surely Americans are often enough referred to as pigs, but who knew we held so much in common with this lowly animal? It seems we and they are being fattened up for some strange slaughter yet to come." (Independent Lens)

Are you NovaSure about this?

This will be my second post about drug ads this week...think of it as a series about  pharmaceutical advertisements. They provide me with all sorts of fun.

I just saw this ad for Nova Sure.  Even through the misty haze that the pharmaceutical company's ad campaign, I could see that this procedure was causing a whole lot of trouble. It was the diagram of a woman's uterine lining being magically thinned out that made the "warning" light start flashing. All I know about that is that a thin lining means a fertilized egg can't implant and grow - which means that life is created only to be immediately flushed out. So I googled. I started with "Is Nova Sure abortive?" (why not get right to it?)

10 minutes of reading, and I cannot believe that this procedure, also known as endometrial ablation, is being advertised as a treatment for heavy bleeding. This is serious stuff guys! What I read tells me that this procedure was experimental about 10 years ago, and since then has only been offered as an alternative to a complete hysterectomy. Once you've had this procedure, you should not ever get pregnant again - not only for the sake of your potential children, but for your own health's sake. That means you will have to sterilize yourself even though you can still conceive for the rest of your fertile years.

And don't mistake the procedure for being much less than a hysterectomy either. To summarize (while attempting to use graphic language), a triangular heating element is inserted into the uterus to cauterize the lining permanently. If you don't know what that means, please look it up. Or watch this video, and look up the definition of cauterize.

Other potential risks and side effects:
- Fusing of one side of the uterus to the other
- Undiagnosed cancer (makes it nearly impossible to do a future biopsy)
- Terrible cramping - "take me to the ER" level pain - immediately following
- Tearing, burning, or infection of the uterus

I'm not saying that there aren't people who need this procedure. When faced with EXTREME menstrual bleeding because of clotting issues, there are all kinds of life threatening conditions that can result (I read about one lady who lost so much blood monthly that she was passing out at stop lights). In cases like that, this can keep you from the dangerous procedure and long recovery associated with a hysterectomy. However, there is no mistaking that this procedure is serious! Read this "enlightening" testimony from a very well spoken Canadian woman from 2001 (when this was but an experimental procedure). But I just can't believe that this is being advertised as a way to deal with heavy periods - for a normal menstruation that is simply inconvenient and otherwise uncomplicated.

And yes, it is abortive. To quote the promotional website for the procedure: "Because NovaSure treats the lining of the uterus, your chances of getting pregnant after the procedure will be reduced. However, it is still possible to get pregnant if you’re sexually active." Right, because didn't treat the ovaries or fallopian tubes, so you can still GET pregnant, but you just can't grow that life in your body, and the baby will be flushed out (best case scenario).  "After the NovaSure^® procedure, it is still possible to get pregnant. Since pregnancy after any endometrial ablation procedure is dangerous for both the mother and the fetus, you’ll need to rely on long-term birth control after the procedure. " Great guys. Nicely put.

ZPGers may not have a leg to stand on

Let me begin by wishing you all a holy and fruitful Ash Wednesday. I will be marking this Lent with additional prayers and required abstinence from meat on Friday - but not with fasting. One of the nice things about being pregnant (though I understand why it's not required of me, since I was starving by 11 am after a huge bowl of oatmeal at 6).

Did the title of this post confuse you? ZPGer is a new term to me. I found it in a book I'm rereading: "Rome Sweet Home," by Scott & Kimberly Hahn (incidentally, the story of an anti-catholic Presbyterian couple who slowly comes to believe that the Truth is in the Catholic Church). You know I love to be cryptic so that you will ask a question, so today's question should be: What's a ZPGer? Answer: Zero Population Growth Advocate.

I like kids - so much that I hope to be able to have 4, maybe 5. Not exactly typical. A big part of this desire is the NFP that I practice (see last post, "Beyaz...") and how it's changed my view of life as a whole, but particularly the value of a child. Most people think this is a lot of kids - too many, in fact. I have been told that I shouldn't have so many children because I will contribute to the "overpopulation of the earth." I have two words in response to that: "Oh brother."

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this because I'm being selfish about it. This is not a "I can have as many kids as I dang well please" kind of thing. I believe (very much) in being responsible with my family choices - and I assure you, reader, that I will not have more children than I can handle. If two is where I stop, I will chalk it up to a prudent decision based on the emotional, financial and mental needs of the children I have already been blessed with. I say Oh Brother because this whole myth of our shrinking earth is malarkey. It's time for an episode of myth busters, semi-crunch style.

I want to share another video with you, but it's super controversial. Here's my disclaimer: This is not a sign of my hatred or disdain for Islam, Muslims, or any other population represented. These views are the views of the videos creator, and not my own. I share only to let you see a few numbers, because they helped bring the "population grown problem" into an entirely new perspective when I first saw this. Watch the whole thing, and remember that an implication that the video makes is just that, an implication. Try to see the good in this, not the bad.



My opinion of this video? It's taking a lot of liberties with these facts, and it has all the symptoms of a classic scare tactic. But it makes an excellent point, don't you think? I think the major "take home point" for me is that the ZPGers have already won over anyone who's culturally surroundings don't supersede their new idea. In other words, if your religion, creed, culture, or society doesn't demand you have more children, you're going to have less. Much less. So telling your college roommate, neighbor, or future spouse that having 6 kids is contributing to the over population of the earth is really quite ridiculous. Take your message to Niger, Mali or Chad (highest birth rates). Leave poor Minnesota alone.

Here's a persepective I stumbled across on Yahoo Answers that I find particularly interesting:

T. Seal, editorialist for the Arctic Times

Underpopulation is a problem where the economy is set up for growth. Of course it threatens a community if the population loss is great. That community will no longer thrive, nor will the economy. However, nature will be glad. Overpopulation is killing the environment through pollution and destruction of resources we depend on for survival, such as our atmosphere, clean air and water, good farming land, healthy ocean fish, etc. Nature tends to thin the overpopulated, but not the underpopulated. So, the ecologically correct answer is reduction of population is good and I'd like to see a significant reduction before we take out any more species' ability to survive in a world with us.

Sincerely, a seal.

Besides the fact that the seal can write better than me, I think he's a bit biased (not being human and all). I couldn't agree more - overpopulation is certainly contributing to the death of our precious ecological balance. But is the answer to stop procreating? Or maybe - crazy thought - maybe we should focus on raising ecologically responsible children?

I won't go on, because my posts almost always border on the ridiculously long, but here are a list of other (superficially and seemingly less biased) sources that say the same thing. View if you'd like.


http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/populationgrow.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-01-06-us-population_N.htm
http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/15_3%20Population%20Growth%20II.htm

---

If you like this post, check out "Follow up on ZPGers"

Beyaz: It's Good (?) to Have Choices

So remember how I said I was a crazy Catholic hippie? Here's something I do (or don't do) that strikes fear into the heart of just about every American woman. Brace yourself...

I don't take birth control.

Have you regained your composure? Are you thinking about how I will inevitably have 12 children, spaced precisely 9 months apart, and live in the poor house? Are you thinking of forming an intervention to keep me from ruining my life? Don't panic too much. Let me rephrase my previous statement:

I don't take ARTIFICIAL birth control.

My husband I absolutely practice birth control. I just don't take, use, or do anything to sterilize either of us. You may have heard of NFP - natural family planning. If you're anything like I was, you're thinking a variety of choice phrases. "Useless wishful thinking" was one of my favorite objections. "Old fashioned wives tale" was up there too. But this isn't your mom's rhythm method, or your crazy cousin's cycle beads. For the past year and a half, I have used something called FAM - fertility awareness method. I won't go into the details of how it works, other than to say that it's a series of precise measurements to determine, scientifically, when a female body is fertile. It's medical, it's easy, it's not any more work, and it's not based on "we'll see what happens." I won't go further than that, because the goal of this post is not to educate you on HOW to practice NFP. The point is to open your mind to the possibility that it might actually work just as well as any chemical out there.

That's right - when practiced well, the method I use is 99% effective. That's better odds than most pills. And it comes with some really great side effects, unlike your ortho-tri-whatever. For example, greatly reduced chances of the big four - uterine, ovarian, cervical and breast cancer. No one talks about how the pill, or any hormonal birth control like hormonal IUDs, increases the likelihood that one of your female organs will become cancerous, but it's huge. Other things that hormonal birth control does: decreases sex drive, increases weight gain, and (yes) aborts successfully fertilized eggs by preventing them from attaching to the uterine wall. Just to name a few.

But doesn't that mean that I practically don't have sex? Ever? Like, ever? True, there are about 10 days a month when we are mutually fertile (a hilarious statement, considering that men are always fertile) and we choose to abstain then. But I can pretty much guarantee that we have sex as many times a month as any married couple. I'd wager more. Go without chocolate for a month and see if you don't eat your weight in it when you get the chance again. I'm just sayin.

The funniest thing to me is how the American woman feels so safe with her little pill. Sex is now "safe" (translation: recreational). There's no way you'll get pregnant on birth control! Who does that happen to? Ask that of my sister-in-law. She has two boys, both of whom were concieved on the pill. Two different pills, actually, since the first one obviously didn't work. Oops. Birth control fails* all the time, guys. When you factor in human error, it fails for 8 out 100 women (http://www.contracept.org/risks.php).

*Fail is a funny word. Let's talk about that.

It's not until you take the leap of faith and accept the natural fact that "sex makes babies" that you realized how royally f-ed up our views on pregnancy are. We are the queens of control, aren't we? The masters of instant gratification. We sterilize our bodies for decades, then - when we FEEL the time is right - we throw those meds in the trash and expect to be pregnant the next week. And if we aren't pregnant in 2 months, there is something wrong. Off to the fertility specialist** we go for more hormonal treatments! Now now now!

**This is not to say that there aren't couples who suffer from infertility - it is a serious and tragic problem that I have seen many women close to me suffer. But I'm sure they would agree that they often cannot get the treatments that they so desperately need because the lists are jammed with people who could very well conceive on their own.

Just stop to think about it - before the pill in the late 60s, people had larger families, but not huge. The 12 and 14 births that you hear about in your great grandparents generation were a choice, and that was limited to America. French women in the 1860s did not have that many children. Americans were raising children to help them survive a hostile landscape, not succumbing to the inconvience of multiple pregnancies. So how did we survive before our little miracle came along? Hmm... makes you think.

So after I did all this research and gather all the information you see here, I made the switch. Begrudgingly. More like I was dragged kicking and screaming by my own convictions - it was a violent battle). But then something happened that I never expected: it made me a better person. It made me question so much of my life, and what I now saw as the controlling, selfish way I had been living. Here's the best side effect of my choice: happiness. I am happier and my husband is happier (didn't see that coming did ya?). My marriage is stronger, my family is healthier, and I have a much better chance of living to see them be happy.

With such a profound change in the way I think about life, family, and pregnancy, it makes some of what our society puts out very difficult to swallow. Take this commercial, for example.



You hear, "It's good to have choices." I hear, "It's better to stay selfish as long as you can." You see a powerful, independent woman telling that stork to take a hike. I see a women denying the real power of her body and asking to be put in the dark about anything other than the here and now. You see freedom. I see chains.

Alright - bring it on. If I had a large readership now, I would expect anger! Hatred! Outrage! After all, that's what I gave myself when these ideas started. So if you're out there, and if you're angry, spill it. I guarantee there's nothing you can object with that I haven't already objected with. It's controversial and downright scandalous, and I didn't even talk about Catholicism once.