Hitech

There are all kinds of people with all kinds of beliefs on this subject. Some range to the extreme of letting God choose the size of your family (like the Duggars) to the other extreme of believeing that everyone should be sterilized because their is to many people.

We trend towards the middle of the road. We find very little in the scripture about birth control good or bad. A lot of people look at the story of Onan and claim that God killed him for practicing brith control. You can read that from the Bible here. It appears to me that Onan was killed, not because he practiced birth control, but more because he refused to raise up children for his brother.

We waited for 5 years before we had our first child. We tried various options when it comes to birth control. Some we hated, some we mildly disliked.

The pill

When ever you hear of a family getting on bc the first thing you think of is the pill. Their are a lot of varieties to the pill and a lot of them have problems. My wifes biggest problem with the pill has been weight gain... or more realistically a much harder fight losing weight. Their have been numerous studies showing it's harder to gain muscle and lose weight while on the pill. Not much fun for a woman, or the husband trying to support her. The other side effects where troublesome as well. She had blood pressure issues and various other side effects while on the pill. Overall not a choice we were thrilled with.

The shot

Depro-provera was a bad idea. It can be effective for a long time after it's supposed to have worn off and has some of the most extreme side effects listed with it. My dear wife (dw) gained over 50 lbs in 6 months. She also had a very long period following the shot. We only did this once.

Jackets

Condoms, jackets, rubbers what ever you want to call them they aren't what they used to be. Their are a huge variety to choose from ranging from texture, to size, to thickness, and even material. They have new materials which make it seem like you're not wearing one (almost). If you want to go this route the only major problem is where to keep them and what to do with them. You can have a huge stash of these lying around and children seem to have an innate sense of finding whatever will emberass you and showing people. (Sweet angels :) ). My suggestion is go to Amazon and check out there condom varieties. Check out a variety and see what you think.

NFP

There are several different varieties of nfp and they all have their problems and benefits. The one we like best is a combination of temperature and symptom tracking with careful avoidance on days that could lead to pregnancy. We have tried to be careful, and while we have had some scares, we have not had any surprise children from this method. We use several different avoidance methods but what you use is entirely up to you.

The calendar method is a dangerous method to use unless you have very regualr cycles and your certain of your ovulation date. We have one friend who has used this succesfully, she simply declares it unsafe untill the 18th day of her cycle. She has avoided adding to her family for several years following this formula.