Friday, July 10, 2009

What is Natural Family planning?

A woman is only fertile 3-10 days per month. I guarantee that when any birth control method failed, it failed on the days she was fertile. You can't get pregnant when you are not fertile. Period.

The key, then, is to know when you are fertile.

It actually takes more than a sperm and an egg to make a baby. The sperm must get TO the egg. The woman's vagina is high in acid. Acid kills sperm. Also, the cervix is closed tight most of the month. But once per month, the cervix softens and opens up. At the same time, the body produces a clear mucus (about the consistency of a raw egg white), that is alkaline (neutralizes the acid) and is high in glucose (to nourish the sperm). It also has channels for the sperm to swim up.

Then the progesterone that causes you to release an egg also causes your temperature to go up half a degree. If you take your temperature (orally with a digital thermometer works fine) first thing every morning before you get up, drink or eat anything, and record it, you will see this happen. That means you have ovulated. The mucus will stop when you ovulate. It takes a few days for it to all go away and an egg is only viable for three days. So three days after you ovulate, you are no longer fertile.

So, if you want to get pregnant, enjoy your mate's companionship while you have mucus showing up to three days after it stops and your temprature raises. (Note, if you have been using a hormonal means of birth control, it may take a year or more for you to begin to ovulate again.)

If you do not want to get pregnant, avoid intercourse during these days. It is that simple.

Benefits:
· 100% natural.
· No chemicals.
· No side effects.
· It is FREE.
· It increases communication between partners.
· It is instantly reversible.
· It leaves things open for God to work.

How effective is Natural Family Planning?

For achieving pregnancy, I have read about one doctor, (who was a fertility specialist), having a conversion to Catholicism, a religion that forbids chemical or mechanical intervention in fertility even in getting pregnant. After her conversion, she began teaching her patients this method and had far better success than she had had with modern pills and procedures.

For preventing pregnancy; clinical trials have shown it to be as effective as the pill; 98%. In everyday practice, it is as effective as the condom; 89%. This is due to its being instantly reversible, not because of any flaw in the method itself. In other words, no one is getting pregnant while faithfully adhering to the method. They are getting pregnant because they decide to risk a pregnancy during their fertile time.

I have only hit the highlights here. There is a great deal more that can be learned about fertility. For more information, check your local library for "Your Fertility Signals."Or contact the Couple to Couple League

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Why have children

1. Children are blessings from God and more blessings are always good.

“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.” Psalms 127:3

“He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.” Psalms 113:9

“Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” Psalms 127:5

“And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God… Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be THE FRUIT OF THY BODY, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine (cows), and the flocks of thy sheep…And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the FRUIT OF THY BODY, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee… But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed shall be THE FRUIT OF THY BODY, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.” Deuteronomy 28 (fruitfulness is a sign of blessing and barrenness is a sign of cursing.)

2. God commanded us to multiply.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Genesis 1:28 (This command was never rescinded.)

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” Genesis 9:1

“And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.” Genesis 9:7

3. God designed our bodies to have children.

Men with six or more children (who are never overweight) live more than ten years longer than men who have none.

Women who have children have far less rates of cancer and the more children a woman has the lower the cancer rate as well as the slower the aging process.

4. To create an army of God.

Let’s do a little math comparison:
Let’s say we have ten families, one Christian and nine sinner families. Each family has the average number of two children and each child finds someone just like them outside our group to marry. The second generation the score card will look like this: Christians: 2-Heathens:18. The third= Christians: 4-heathens: 36. The fourth= Christians: 8-heathens: 72. The majority of Christian families are loosing 85% of their children to the world and it takes 30 Christians to win one sinner. In the fourth generation we will loose 7 out of 8 of the Christians and not have enough Christians to win anyone.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

Let’s redo those numbers assuming the Christian family at the beginning takes God’s Word at face value and assumes children are blessings, the “Be fruitful” command was never removed, and that God really is in control of even biology. Most families like this also believe God tells parents to homeschool (Duet 6:7, Ephesians 6, Duet 11, et al)
Generation one= C: 1 (family) - H: 9. Generation two= C: 7 (the average family before the days of our birth control/death culture had seven children) - H: 18. Generation three= C: 49- H: 36. Generation four= C: 343- H: 72. If we carry it one more generation we have 2401 Christians and 144 heathens. Since homeschool families only loose 4% of their children, we still have 2305 Christian families. Add in the one sinner saved per 30 Christians and we have 2385 Christian families. We are still losing ground, unless…

Unless the higher ratio of Christians saturates the society to the extent that there is a faster conversion rate.

The first group had absolutely no chance of surviving much less winning any one for Christ. The second has a fair shot at it.

Let’s look at our original question: Why have Children?

Should we even be asking this? Shouldn’t we be asking “Why shouldn’t we have (more) children?” The entire idea of us controlling how many children we have stems from the worldly idea that children are curses and burdens and we have a right to be selfish. And this indoctrination is so deep that I can’t even tell you how many people I know how ask God for guidance in every area of their lives… except how many children to have. You suggest they pray about it and they give you a blank look like just began speaking a foreign language.

“Aren’t we supposed to be smart and responsible?”
The Bible tells us not to lean on our own understanding. It tells us to pray about everything. It also tells us God controls the womb.

“I can’t afford it.”
How do you know? I have heard of many who let God give them as many children as He wants to even though they are living in poverty. Many times, God gives the hubby a new, bigger income shortly after this commitment. Other times He miraculously stretches the existing income (for example, someone GAVE us a $1500 vacuum cleaner and someone else GAVE us a 15 passenger van!) but I have never heard of a God fearing couple who honestly trusts Him going hungry.

Let’s put it this way:

Who would know best how many Eternal Souls a couple should bring into this world? God or a human being?