Hi. I'm against vasectomies and all contraception because my religion (Catholic) teaches they are gravely sinful, but aside from this, I've read that some very small percentage of men have recurring pain for years following vasectomies- something to Google/ think about if you're considering this. Like the top commenter said, another option is Natural Family Planning - the Symptothermal method taught by the Couple to Couple League, which sells a home-study course) boasts an effectiveness rate rivaling hormonal contraceptives for couples who follow the guidelines. This does require periods of abstinence, which sucks sometimes, but is otherwise free and side effects and free for both couples. Another Symptothermal way is Daysy, which my wife and I haven't tried but looks cool since it does all the charting/rules for you. God bless and best of luck.
> "You really can't extrapolate from this paper," says David Grimes, an obstetrician-gynecologist and vice president of biomedical affairs at the nonprofit public health organization Family Health International. "Naive readers see these results, and they think [STM] is the greatest thing since laptop computers. The researchers on this paper went back and cherry-picked this data from an ongoing study from the past 20 years. They chose the users who were the best users for this method."
and there aren't any references there at all. Besides, the requirement that a couple perfectly adhere to the rules is pretty ... unergonomic.
(caveat: I'm of course not remotely anti-contraception, but it was a fun couple of searches)
When my wife and I decided to have our first child, we did basically the reverse of this method (ie, had sex exactly when this method would tell you not to). And we were expecting after the first month. So, the predictability is there; it's just the usability that makes this method not a reliable form of birth control.
