No longer 99.9%

For most people, they get to a couple of years in marriage and decide "hey, let's start trying to have a baby."  Then a month (or few) later, she misses a period, she takes a test, it's positive, she's happy, he's happy. 9 months later, a happy and healthy baby pops out and they call themselves a "family."

Then you have the other end of the spectrum.......people like Someday (S) and Maybe (M).

A few months into marriage I started having some trouble with my birth control.  No big deal, this was normal for me.  The Dr will just switch me to a different brand of pills, I'll be on those for the next 6 months, then will switch to a different brand again.  So in October I called my Dr (whom I absolutely love), and scheduled an appointment to change my birth control.  She was used to this, and we were on a first name basis with each other. Before the day of the appointment, she called me (yes, her personally. Small towns are great for this) and asked me to discuss with S a few different birth control options that were non-hormonal.  She left me with a few types and told me to go ahead and do my research.  She knows that I like having information and knowing what my body is doing. So this was a typical conversation for us.

So off I went to Dr. Google.  *Disclaimer:  Never Google anything medical related unless you want every BAD thing that can happen, or complication.*  Let me tell you, typing "chances of conceiving" and diaphram, condoms, IUD, NPF (Natural Family Planning), brought up quite the descriptions, studies, and percentages. Along with a sickening feeling in my stomach.  You mean to tell me that we are no longer going to be 99.9% effective, and only 80% effective instead?  And we have to deal with creams, taking my temperature, charts, and deciding whether we don't want kids for 5 years?  But my Dr. and I were determined that we could find some form of birth control that would not mess with my body, like the pill had for the past 5 years. 

I then took this information to S and discussed with him what my Dr. wanted me to do.  Here's how the discussion went:
M: My Dr. isn't sure what other pill she can put me on that I'm not going to have trouble with. So we need to find another method. Here are our options.....
S: Natural Family Planning?  Like what Catholics do?  Is that truly a method?
M: I guess so. She gave it to me as an option, so it must actually work.
S: Do whatever you feel is the best. I'm good with whatever.

After much discussion with my Dr. We decided that NFP would be a good option for us.  For those of you not knowing what that is, it is where a woman takes her temperature each morning to track her cycle.  Once she's ovulated, her temp will spike and she is no longer fertile until the next cycle.  For NFP purposes, she is fertile for a 7 day timeframe (to which you abstain or use other methods).

Beginning in October of 2012, we were no longer 99.9% effective.  For the first couple of months with NFP, you use a secondary method of BC in order to get familiar with when you ovulate. Now, for most people this is an easy couple of months.  However, I'm an exception to that rule.

This is when the sh*t hit the fan......