let's talk about sex?

Recently, I had a discussion with a friend about all sorts of life issues. The conversation, as they so often do, turned to the topic of sex. He told me that he believed Christian couples, married or not, use birth control as a cop out to "enjoy the pleasure of sex without having to face the consequences". Right at first I saw where he was coming from and thought, how arrogant of us to take that into our own hands (my inner Catholic wanted to have its say). Within about 5 minutes I was in strong opposition to his statement.

My issue with this statement (there are many): Why should married couples be forced to have children? I said to him, "What if a couple gets married but doesn't want to have children yet?" His response, "Then why get married?" Wait...what? Let's say a couple knows they aren't cut out to be parents, but they're madly in love. They don't deserve to be married? Let's say a couple would like to spend time working on their marriage for a few years before having children. They should just keep dating forever? Get real. It was suggested that there are "natural" methods of birth control, like tracking a woman's cycle. I'm not sure if you know much about a woman's cycle, but that doesn't leave much "action" for anyone.

What I'm saying is, I'm not getting married to be abstinent. Nor am I getting married to become that family on TLC with a thousand children. Why can't I get married because I fall in love? Call me crazy, but I didn't understand the sole reason of sex to be procreation.

I feel as though saying taking birth control is putting it in your own hands instead of God's, would be like saying you shouldn't go to the doctor. Didn't God create the people who became doctors for our benefit? Not to say every medical procedure is justifiable because "God made the doctor", but keeping people who shouldn't have children from becoming parents sounds good to me.