{"id":517,"date":"2012-03-12T20:02:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2012\/03\/the-failure-rate.html"},"modified":"2015-01-13T14:11:20","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T19:11:20","slug":"the-failure-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2012\/03\/the-failure-rate.html","title":{"rendered":"The Failure Rate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I have been told more times than I can count that if I were truly against abortion I would have to be pro-contraception.\u00a0 \u201cContraception prevents unwanted pregnancies,\u201d the argument goes, \u201cso putting women on reliable birth control would cut down on unwanted pregnancies and there would be fewer abortions.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an old argument, but always flung at me as if it were fresh and new and something I had never considered before this present moment.\u00a0 I think they expect me to stand there with my mouth hanging open at the cleverness of this point of view.\u00a0 This not being my first rodeo, I simply smile and ask \u201cWhat about the failure rate?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a statistical anomaly, I\u2019m told, if only people used contraceptives correctly there would virtually no unplanned pregnancies.\u00a0 Education and free access are all that separate us from an abortion free world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about the failure rates?\u201d I press them again, only to be told that those are just statistics.\u00a0 The number of those pregnancies is so small\u2026..<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to introduce myself: I am the Failure Rate.\u00a0 My husband and I have \u201cdefeated\u201d almost<\/i> every form of birth control available.\u00a0 Back in our pre-Catholic days, we did the \u201conly sensible and responsible thing \u201d and tried to prevent babies from coming before we<\/i> wanted them to come.\u00a0 Look how well that worked out for us:<\/p>\n

#1 was conceived while I was on the Pill.\u00a0 It was 4 months before our wedding and we were not spectacularly thrilled.\u00a0 (LOVE her now. Just wanted to get that in there.)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
#1 was conceived while I was on the Pill<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We couldn\u2019t figure out what I had done wrong.\u00a0 This failure was all on me.\u00a0 Taking the Pill was my responsibility, and obviously I had messed it up, because I<\/i> was pregnant. We decided to remove the possibility of error, so we opted for something stronger.\u00a0 My OB gave me a Depo-Provera shot the day after #1 was born.\u00a0 It was \u201cfool-proof\u201d we were told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
# 1.5\u00a0 conceived on Depo-Provera<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

#1 wasn\u2019t even a year old when we found out that # 1.5 was on the way.\u00a0 I won\u2019t lie to you.\u00a0 I was stunned.\u00a0 I cried a lot.\u00a0 My husband was decidedly not happy.\u00a0 I apologized.\u00a0 Often.\u00a0 I was convinced that somehow I had messed up again.\u00a0 We were poor college students who were struggling to feed the baby we already had.\u00a0 What business did we have having another one?<\/p>\n

We were devastated when # 1.5 died at 11 weeks gestation.<\/p>\n

In the midst of our devastation, we decided to have #2.\u00a0 He was to be our only \u201con purpose\u201d baby.<\/p>\n

We wised up to the idea that hormonal contraceptives might not be the best choice for us.\u00a0 Since we had no desire to be celibate, we reluctantly decided that it would have to be condoms.\u00a0 We were not happy.\u00a0 What kind of married people used condoms?\u00a0 The kind who could defeat the Pill, that\u2019s who.<\/p>\n

We learned that condoms and spermicide don\u2019t work either the Christmas just after #2\u2019s first birthday.\u00a0 He was a sick and unhappy baby, and I couldn\u2019t imagine adding another baby to the mind numbing worry of my life.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter what I was thinking.\u00a0 Stunned or not, #3 arrived the next August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No barrier was going to stop us from having #3<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We were finished with artificial things which didn\u2019t stop anything.\u00a0 Not only were we frustrated, I was becoming more Catholic and couldn\u2019t reconcile my actions with my beliefs.\u00a0 We turned to our last hope, the Rhythm Method (no snickering, NFPers.)\u00a0 It should surprise no one that #4 came along pretty quickly after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
#4 \u2013 Proof her parents can\u2019t count<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We were pretty sure that we were done having children. We had 4!\u00a0 We reverted back to condoms because they were cheap and didn\u2019t require me to take contraceptives.\u00a0 It was all on him, (Hah!) so it was him<\/i> sinning and not me. (Okay, I know better now, but that was my reasoning.)<\/p>\n

Within 18 months we were expecting #4.5<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
# 4.5 \u2013 The last time we used contraceptives<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We lost our sweet Bernadette halfway through pregnancy.\u00a0 It completely devastated us, but convinced us of the beauty of life. It also led to the Computer Guy\u2019s conversion.\u00a0 He joined the Church in June of the next year\u2026..just before #5 arrived.<\/p>\n

When we realized that #6 was coming, we shook our heads and laughed a bit.\u00a0 We were no longer trying to prevent their coming, but they were still arriving in the \u201cevery 2 years\u201d pattern we had established.\u00a0 We had decided that spacing was up to God, and He seems to think every 2 years is a good thing.<\/p>\n

We were in the midst of moving and were watching my cycles and charts to avoid pregnancy in the middle of a move.\u00a0 God laughed.\u00a0 My midwife looked at my chart and exclaimed \u201cThere\u2019s no way you got pregnant that month!\u201d but we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
#7 \u2013 The \u201cyou can\u2019t possibly have gotten pregnant\u201d baby<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Once again we beat the odds.\u00a0 We just laugh it off and love them all.<\/p>\n

You can talk to me all you want about the statistical anomaly of the failure rate and how it\u2019s only around 1%.\u00a0 You can tell me that the number of babies from the failure rate would be too small of a number to make a difference.\u00a0 You can say that all you want, but you\u2019d be wrong.\u00a0 I know because it has surely made a difference around here. You see, my whole house is bursting at the seams from that insignificant<\/i> \u201cFailure Rate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been told more times than I can count that if I were truly against abortion I would have to be pro-contraception.\u00a0 \u201cContraception prevents unwanted pregnancies,\u201d the argument goes, \u201cso putting women on reliable birth control would cut down on unwanted pregnancies and there would be fewer abortions.\u201d It\u2019s an old argument, but always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Failure Rate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have been told more times than I can count that if I were truly against abortion I would have to be pro-contraception.\u00a0 "Contraception prevents unwanted\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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