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Kids Need Nature and Other Take Aways from Last Child in the Woods
When I made the quick decision to homeschool Levi for preschool, I began doing what I do best: compulsive research. I looked into different homeschooling blogs, followed different homeschooling moms on Instagram, and began to understand a few of the various styles of homeschooling out there. One book that kept coming up in my research was Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Many homeschooling moms referred to it while explaining why they placed tremendous importance on having their child outdoors in nature. This was something I identified with. Two years ago, on a near-perfect autumn day, I took Levi to a local park. It…
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Fertility Awareness Part 4 – Our Continuing Story
This is the conclusion to a four part article on Fertility Awareness. Part 1 – The Beginning of Our Story Part 2 – Birth Control and its Effects on Reproduction Part 3 – Personal Interviews I believe in fertility awareness and know that it works. There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not grateful for the choice that Kevin and I made. It has brought a depth of respect to our sex life that has resulted from the shared responsibility and consistent communication. It also gave me a peace knowing that when we did have children, whether planned or unplanned, my body would be in its natural,…
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Fertility Awareness Part 3 – Personal Interviews
These personal interviews were conducted in 2014. I have changed the individual’s names, except for the case of Dr. Reiff, for the sake of privacy. Don’t miss Part 1 – The Beginning of our Story and Part 2 – Birth Control and its Effects on Reproduction. John and Katie The abortive nature of birth control was the ultimate reason why John did not want his soon-to-be-wife, Katie, on birth control in the first place. He explained to me, “I didn’t want her to be on the pill at all. In fact, I bought her a Taking Charge of Your Fertility book.” I must have raised my eyebrow or something, because he grinned…
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Fertility Awareness Part 2 – Birth Control and its Effect on Reproduction
Since I wrote this article 4 years ago, some of the information I had quoted directly from sources has changed. I believe this is because of biases in media shifting the way information about birth control is presented, which I find actually pretty scary. I decided to keep some of the old information there, so you can see the shifts for yourself. Brand new information is italicized. I totally believe that women have the right to know about their bodies and be correctly informed. That’s why I wrote this article in the first place, and that’s why I’m including it here. Spoiler alert: I believe that life begins at…
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Fertility Awareness Part 1 – The Beginning of Our Story
Several years ago, while an eager graduate student, I was tasked to write an in-depth article about something that I was passionate about. I chose to write about fertility awareness and birth control. I conducted interviews, put out an informal survey, and researched and wrote and revised until it resulted in a 6,000 word essay that I thought nobody would read. But the reality is, there’s still not much out there about Fertility Awareness or Natural Family Planning. After writing the piece, which was well-received by my professor and skeptical peers, I published it on my hobby blog. I only promoted it to the women who helped me by…
