Why I Don’t Use Birth Control (my Natural Family Planning Experience)

[@elisabethtorok272]

I love how you speak about your Faith in a way that is not apologetic or minimizing your beliefs and simultaneously very kind and inclusive of others who may be following the same methods for different reasons ❤

[@annamccormick6864]

Katherine, God bless you and Max for talking in such a way that presents Church teaching as beautiful and not as a burden.

[@pumpkinqueen3776]

I’m one of those non religious people (card carrying atheist) who have chosen to go this route (basal body temp; test strips are honestly just not affordable in my country), I took birth control for over a decade and the minute I stopped (which was to get labs done regarding fertility just to know where I was at) I decided I would NEVER take BC again. We planned our first son, are planning for our second (and then hubby will get a vasectomy; froze eggs and semen should we ever want a third one). But hormonal birth control is a monster of a drug and sometimes, as was my case, you get so used to it and its side effects that you forget how well you can feel without it (of course to some it actually helps, endo, PCOS, etc). Thanks for making this ❤

[@shannon_cf]

Kath!!! You are glowing ✨Hope this pregnancy is going smoothly for you, thank you for sharing this vid with us! Always such a sweet surprise when you upload on your solo channel, your vids are always so comforting to watch ♥🙏🏻

[@KatherineCimorelli]

Thank you so much!! I really appreciate that!! 💗

[@suharaza352]

@@KatherineCimorelli Hi my name is suha raza I am from village and I love watching all of your videos

[@sofialicheri9415]

Kat, as a young catholic dating, i found this amazing. I am a student at Ave Maria University (you should come visit the catholic town!!) and i took a class on JPII’s theology of the body. I think one day you should talk about his teachings on this and ways of explaining it; it is truly beautiful! He treats it all not from a spiritual basis but from the natural law and nature of the spousal act - which, of course, is intrinsically connected to the spiritual nature of the act, so it does bring fruit to the spiritual. God bless you and your family!

[@KatherineCimorelli]

Thank you so much for your comment!! I LOVE theology of the body. It has truly changed my life! I would love to talk about it but I want to make sure I’m properly educated as it’s such a deep, rich message. Thank you again for your comment!! 💗

[@CamilaaLL]

Kath, thanks for sharing your experience with such kindness and clarity. I'm also catholic and in use of a NFP method called Billings Ovulation Method for about 7 years now, with 2 amazing children (and counting). This year I became an instructor of the Billings Method, to help other couples to plan their families with responsibility and respect for the integrity of sex. I feel very blessed and defied in this mission. It's sooo nice to know there are other couples that follow this path! I specially liked the way you give back to God, in prayer, your fertility every month. Such a beautiful perspective! I'll pray now doing the same. God bless you! 😊

[@KatherineCimorelli]

Thank you for your encouragement! Really appreciate it!! 💗💗

[@Bellecg]

Amazing. Thank you for sharing. Praying this impacts those who need to hear it!

[@celainagreen24]

A lot of Christian religions believe in the use of birth control, but I regretted it so much. It messed me up for literally over year when I was getting off of it after a divorce. Definitely wanting to go natural for next time and when I plan to have a family. Thanks for the insight on your experience ❤

[@SamanthaRossiMusic]

The Christian churches only changed their minds on this in the mid 20th Century. Before that everyone was on the same page that it is morally illicit

[@abbybraaten7156]

Love that you speak about this! Fellow Catholic and NFP user

[@KatherineCimorelli]

❤️❤️❤️

[@Isabel-pf8yo]

Very important subject! Thank you, Kath! I've been using the same NFT method since getting married (almost 4 years ago) and I love it. I'm also catholic and agree with your perspective on receiving children as gifts of God, but I think NFT is also really for the couple. No form of birth control promotes such dialogue and responsability for both 🫶 And obviously, it has the plus that is all natural and free ahah Thank you for the great video!

[@msbeautybubbles411]

We are not catholic, but we are Christian and have always known we wanted children. I was on the pill in high school because of painful periods (which side note I've always resented the provider that put me on it) and it made me crazy yyy. My husband said that when we got married we would never use hormonal bc again because it's horrible on me. So we have NFP for over 4 years. We have only had our 2 intentional pregnancies. There is definitely a higher risk of an unplanned pregnancy, but that slight risk is so worth it for us. The thing with NFP is both husband and wife have to be involved and care about where you are in your cycle. It only takes one time of not being diligent to end up with a baby!

[@VictoriaJoyWeir]

I've used NFP for 10 years now and I highly recommend the non hormonal tracking methods. It's so much better for the body and once you find your preferred method it becomes routine every month and its easy.

[@JesusPrinceofPeace]

My husband and I have used NFP for our whole nearly our whole 9.5 year marriage. We have 2 beautiful children with no current plans of having any more. I’m in the medical field and my field of study required me to know a lot about how the women’s cycle works. I think that helped me a lot with NFP. I am not catholic, but am a Christian and I just don’t believe birth control is good for us and tried taking it before and hated how I felt on it. I feel peace about NFP and if it failed me, oh well at least I would get another little blessing ❤

[@ana-7421]

Thank you for your boldness in witnessing to the Catholic faith and the beauty of NFP! I got married 4 months ago and we use the creighton model and also use LH test strips!

[@stephanieberg5675]

Thank you for sharing!! This is very helpful to hear this convo. We also use NFP but I’m a different way. Loved hearing more in depth on this subject

[@emilysanders5234]

I hope you and your baby are happy and healthy , loved the video Katherine xx

[@mousebyte94]

Love hearing this side as someone who isn't religious, have PCOS, been on birth control and hormone treatment trying to get pregnant for 3 years. No luck yet but tracking is very very helpful no matter what

[@sandy4160]

Hi Kath, in regards to checking cervical mucus reminds me of the creighton method. I had irregular cycles and was trying to conceive for 2 years. Now 3 years later on our NFP journey through creighton we have 2 children!

[@Sara-AnneRybinski]

Yess Kathy Lee!! Been so looking forward to this video! 😊❤

[@Shanelie]

Not to mention the awful risks and side effects of birth control that no one talks about. It depleted the body of vital vitamins and screws so many body systems up! I thought for sure I’d have fertility issues and I definitely didn’t. Got pregnant on accident but my husband and I are trying to roll with it! Thanks for sharing your journey!

[@Camila-cr8df]

Hi Kath! What i don't understand about Cristian religion being against hormonal birth control is: why? Because in hormonal and in family planning you are arriving to the same that is: you are having sex just for plesuare sometimes (I'm not saying this in a bad way, I'm really curious about this)

[@alexhiel727]

Hormonal birth control or the barrier method blocks fertility and prevents giving yourself completely to your spouse at any point in a women's cycle. NFP uses what God created (a women's cycle) . Working with our natural cycle, you can avoid having sex on fertile days to try and avoid conception. Being married in the church, we make a promise to be open to life, so avoiding pregnancy should only be done for health reasons, spacing out children and other important means. It is complex and can be a hard pill to swallow, especially in the secular world. But basically, hormones block out God while NFP is working with God. Idk if I make any sense.

[@stephanietodd1876]

Disclaimer: I'm neither Catholic or a doctor but this is my understanding. 1. Catholics believe all children are a gift from God, and taking hormonal birth control is basically overriding the will of God and making it much harder to get pregnant. Using NFP, there's no barrier to you getting pregnant. Some people using NFP will use condoms during their fertile window, others will just abstain during that time, but there are no changes happening in your body that prevent pregnancy. You can still very much get pregnant. The real-world success rate of using NFP to prevent is about 75%, meaning 1 in 4 people practicing NFP will get pregnant. 2. Birth control methods work in different ways. Some methods, like the pill, basically trick your body into think you're pregnant so you don't ovulate. No ovulation=no chance for pregnancy. Other forms thicken the cervical mucus to make to near impossible for sperm to get into the uterus to fertilize an egg that's been ovulated. The problem comes with the third thing some methods do which is thin the uterine lining so a fertilized egg can't implant, which prevents pregnancy. All these things happen naturally in our bodies. There is a reason people don't get pregnant their first month of trying every single time. However, Catholics believe life begins when sperm meets egg, they view this as an abortion, which is a no-no. Medically, this isn't an abortion because you aren't pregnant until the embryo implants, and birth control cannot end a pregnancy after implantation occurs. However, everyone has different moral views for a whole bunch of different reasons about when life begins and what reproductive choices are acceptable when, and that is the line that Catholics (and other Christian denominations) draw for themselves.

[@abjws]

Someone once explained it to me like this and I saved the text because I thought it was an insightful explanation: "Is there a difference between having sex and not having sex? Then there is a difference between contracepting in the fertile time and abstaining in the fertile time. You can lose weight by dieting or by purging. We seem to understand in our culture that it is disordered to eat for pleasure without restraint --that we must make choices in the types of food or quantities of food we eat to achieve good health. God made eating pleasureful so that we wouldn't starve to death, but we are supposed to control ourselves. So too, God gave us the gift of sex, for use only in marriage, with our spouse, ordered to the ends of life and love. The act is the consummation of the marriage vows. He made it pleasureful to insure the propagation of the species. If we choose for a just reason that it is not prudent to have another child right now, there is no rule that we must have sex every day. We simply choose not to use the gift. But if we do use the gift, it is disordered to try to wrest the pleasure out of it while rejecting how the act is ordered. Fertility is part of the design, not a flaw. In His goodness, God did design us to be able to tell our times of fertility, so that if prudence dictates that we not have a child, there are still days to show conjugal love, without insulting Him by destroying the integrity of the act. And having a tubal ligation or vasectomy is taking a healthy, properly functioning bodily organ and intentionally rendering it non-functioning. Nowhere else in medicine is this considered ethical. This is beneath our dignity as human beings, like "fixing" an animal that has instinct and not free will. We are capable of disciplining ourselves for the good outcomes we desire. It is not easy, but it is how we have integrity."

[@alexhiel727]

@@abjws love this! Thanks for sharing!

[@cheldog9356]

There are two main reasons Catholics are against birth control. 1)A couple using birth control is withholding their fertility from one another. Marriage is the total gift of self, and when you use artificial birth control you are saying "no" to part of that. 2) It says "no" to God to being open to life. The two ends of sex are for the union of the spouses and the procreation of children, and using birth control shuts down half of that. A couple other reasons are certain forms of birth control are abortifacients, meaning they cause an early abortion, and certain forms are very harmful to a woman's health.

[@melloniche]

I was put on birth control pills at 14 due to hormone/period issues. I was on it for 8-9 years with mostly no issues until I hit that last stretch of puberty that starts at around 19 and goes into your early twenties. I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism at 21 (my dr thinks that I may have developed it at 19 per my crazy thyroid levels) and no medication was helping for two years (it was horrible) - I was very consistent and strict about taking my birth control and thyroid meds exactly 12 hrs apart as I was supposed to. Until my mother suggested to my doctor that maybe my hormones weren't communicating with my birth control pills properly anymore and that we should see what happens if I stop taking both of them. My doctor had ran through all her theories at that point so she shrugged and took me off both medications, and sure enough my hormones and periods leveled out, my crippling depression subsided, and my thyroid levels have been in the healthy range ever since (I'm 29 now). Moral of the story: hormones are not to be flippantly messed with and more people should be educated on NFP even if they don't choose it as a birth control/planning option. I'm an atheist so when it comes to beliefs, I have loads of other options but that experience has mentally scarred me into only using condoms and NFP to avoid pregnancy. My husband and I wish to remain childless, but if it happens, it happens. Like you said, even people on various birth control methods have been bestowed a child. You can't control everything as I have tried to my whole life. lol. I may not want children but I like educating myself with other women's experiences with pregnancy and childbirth so thank you for being open and sharing these things with us. You are a wonderful person!

[@marawood3801]

My sister got pregnant with both her kids while on BC. I just got off BC because of hyperthyroidism. I'm learning the NFP method. I missed my cycle for 2 months now they are back after being on thyroid meds. My goal is to avoid hormonal BC if possible. Married for 16 years and we don't want kids. I have other many health issues and can't even afford proper medical care. I need to get mammogram but can even afford that so I'm just gonna a chance here so I can even imagine getting pregnant now.

[@PaigeYesLee]

Thank You Kath 😊

[@teresahoyt5750]

I hope you respond. But, does the Marquette method work well when traveling across multiple timezones? I am using the symptothermal method right now as well and as I am learning the hard way, checking your BBT isn't always accurate or consistent when traveling across time zones.

[@anatolia774]

Katherine we are very excited to find out what your baby's gender is!! I hope you share with us soon! Love you, you are an idol!! ❤🤩

[@msbeautybubbles411]

I could never be consistent enough even before kids to do basal body temp 😂. I used ovu strips for a long time and then combined that with cervical mucus. I think I technically do the FEMM method.

[@rosameijering5161]

thank you interesting

[@rosameijering5161]

it is nice when the man is intrested too

[@nicolasbarraza3008]

Are you going to release solo music for your kids?

[@mimichellu]

I grew up in a catholic family and in a country where most people are catholic but I've never heard of this. In fact, most catholic women used birth control. Are you part of a specific kind of church or something? (no judgement just curiosity!)

[@abjws]

As far as I know she's Roman Catholic. The use of contraception or direct sterilization to prevent pregnancy in marriage is not allowed for Catholics, as taught by the Magisterium of the Church and defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraph 2399 and 2370. That said, under the principle of double effect, a married Catholic woman could use the birth control pill for medical reasons (ie. some women use it for epliepsy) and it would be moral provided that preventing pregnancy was an unintended side effect of its use. There are so many great KZbin videos on this topic explaining it more in depth such as from Trent Horn or Jackie Angel.

[@SamanthaRossiMusic]

Unfortunately, due to poor catechesis and lack of resources, many Catholics have never heard of this. But this is very much mainstream Catholic teaching!

[@ania5038]

My life is too crazy for me to try NFP right now but maybe I will in the future and now I know why you were taking so many pregnancy tests lol

[@Steve-ne7jw]

Hey, Katherine. How's it going?

[@ButterSandwich]

It is not as effective. That is a myth. With normal use BC pills are about 91% effective, with normal use NFP is only about 76% effective. I have no problem with people using or talking about NFP but you have to be accurate about its efficacy. To not give clear accurate efficacy numbers is irresponsible. Classes like what Kath took use the perfect use efficacy which is wrong- because humans are not perfect. Also, if you don’t use BC because of the prevention of pregnancy part, that’s fine, but many Catholics also believe that BC is an abortifacient and it prevents implantation. That is false. BC pills do not prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, and in fact by being in BC you are less likely to have a fertilized egg not implant because you are less likely to have a fertilized egg since you are not ovulating. Idk if Kath believes that- but this is an audience that probably needs to hear this. It’s fine to share personal experience, but it’s important to also share accurate information.

[@KatherineCimorelli]

Hi! Thanks for your comment. Was wondering where you’re gathering this data from as I’m not finding these numbers on efficacy. There shouldn’t be a single number on the efficacy of NFP as there are multiple methods and each one is different. Here is a published study showing efficacy of Marquette which is the method I use.. hope this helps! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18997569/

[@ButterSandwich]

@@KatherineCimorelli KZbin does not allow me to post a link but I used data from the NIH. This study you posted here still does not show a higher or same typical use rate than BC pills. Typical use should always be used for contraceptives- using the perfect use rate is a misunderstanding of the science. The rate in the study you posted is similar to BC pills, but that is the rate found in one sample of ~200 women. The NIH data uses multiple data sets and studies, it is more reliable data. Without replication, an efficacy rate taken from 1 study is not sufficient evidence for anything- again, that is a misunderstanding of the science. You did not specify in the video when you made the claim that NFP is just as effective as BC. NFP can be a good method for some people, but to claim that it is just as effective as BC pills is wrong and dangerous when talking to an audience who a) will take your advice over medical professionals because of your religious authority (weather you intend it or not) and b) do not have the same resources you do to deal with an unplanned pregnancy. I highly recommend watching MamaDoctorJones video about Brett Cooper where she breaks down the myths Cooper uses to villainize BC (which you are not doing but the information is important) and more importantly discusses the actual efficacy of NFP and how to interpret it. MDJ is a board certified OB/GYN in multiple countries and has used NFP herself.

[@SamanthaRossiMusic]

@@ButterSandwich Doctor here. data from NIH does not account for those who are using NFP TO conceive as opposed to prevent pregnancy. So the numbers are quite skewed.

[@SamanthaRossiMusic]

@@ButterSandwichalso not a true claim that various forms of BC aren’t abortifacient. For many, chief mechanism is prevention of implantation. This is indeed abortifacient given that life begins at conception.

[@ButterSandwich]

@@SamanthaRossiMusic I do not believe that you are a doctor, at least not a physician. Because both of your responses are blatant falsehoods.

[@nicolasbarraza3008]

Hi, Kath. How are you doing? I miss our convos.