Few couples are as enthusiastic about using NFP as the Trinidadian couple, who moved to Canada in 2012. They have appeared on TV and taught hundreds of couples how to use the Billings Method to achieve or avoid pregnancy.
“If you look at the cycle and you look at God’s design, He created women with naturally occurring cycles of fertility and infertility,” Lisa said.
She calls these “naturally occurring phases” that women are generally not taught to watch for.
“Contraception has been promoted as a fix-all. When you get into the complications of using it, the side effects of using it, there’s a heavy price you pay,” she said.
Lisa believes Billings, one of three major methods of NFP, is better for women’s health and for a marriage relationship than contraception.
“There are no drugs. There are no devices” or side effects, Lisa said. “You already have something that works.”
She believes the problem is that women in the West don’t know their own bodies.
“We really need to get back to teaching women about their bodies,” said Lisa.
“When you have a cold, you sneeze, you cough, and you have a sore throat. You know that you’re sick. (Natural family planning) is the same thing: just paying attention to what’s happening to your body.
“We are not taught as women to pay attention to these things.”
On average, it takes a woman three months of paying attention to her body and tracking the signs to learn how to know when she is fertile. That knowledge can also lead to early detection of illnesses such as endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome.
“We are complex beings, but I think beautifully complex, and it’s sad that we can be so out of touch with all of this that’s going on,” Lisa said.
It was Dominic, however, who introduced NFP to their relationship. He learned about it after coming across Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body.
Theology of the body helped Dominic understand “this is where (sex) fits. This it where it will always be good. This is where it will always be a win,” he said.
“When I encountered John Paul, it made sense. Finally, there was somebody who said something that brought all the points together.”
After he and Lisa began going out, he brought up theology of the body.
“I was hooked,” Lisa said. “It just made a lot of sense, especially at that time: I was a young adult, so many mixed messages, so much confusion, but this, you know in your heart that it’s truth.”
They married in 2007 and found NFP brought them closer together. They have three children, aged seven, four and one.
“It has enriched our marriage in many ways: on a communication level, I feel more respected and I feel more confident,” Lisa said.
Dominic agreed. “It allows me to draw close to her in a way that no one else is. Why wouldn’t you want to know your wife?”
Lisa said a Billings-approved app, called Fertility Pinpoint, is a helpful tool for women to understand their bodies. More information about Billings is available at www.billings.life.
(B.C. Catholic)