I am the 98%

Michelle and Rebecca have co-written an excellent post about being the 98%. This is my humble contribution.

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You’ve probably heard it on the news lately; “98% of Catholic women are using contraception”. You’ve heard the statistic, but I’m here to tell you it just isn’t true. How do I know? Because I’m one of them.

Even though I 100% wholeheartedly agree with the Church on contraception, I’m part of this “98%”. How can that be? Because the only question they’re asking Catholic women is this:

“Have you ever used contraception?”

And the answer for me is yes.

Yes, I took “the Pill” for nearly five years.

Yes, I took it “for medical reasons”.

But I also had sex with inappropriate partners because I thought I wouldn’t get pregnant.

I was a “women’s health advocate” without knowing I was putting a class 1 carcinogen into my body. Every day for five years.

Here’s my story. Straight from one of the 98%.

How did you previously view contraception?

I didn’t think much about it at all until I was 15, about to turn 16. Since my 13th birthday, I had only gotten my period a handful of times. I was about to turn 16 and wondered if something was wrong. So I went to the doctor with my grandmother, who was raising me since my mother had died.

After a round of tests, I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).

The main “treatment” for the disease was hormonal birth control. My grandparents wanted no part of it. They knew, particularly my grandmother, that the Church taught that the Pill was wrong. My grandfather thought that putting a teenage girl on birth control was like lighting a stick of dynamite and handing it to her.

I guess they were both right.

My doctor, being a good little soldier of the medical establishment, steamrolled over both of them and said, “I needed it for the regulation of my cycles”. So, despite their better judgment, on the pill I went, just in time for my 16th birthday.

No talk of any other treatment was made.  My doctor told me that I would have my periods “just like normal”, and not to worry about PCOS, because it doesn’t affect you until you want to have babies. So I didn’t think on it again.

During the nearly five years I took “the Pill”, a lot of things happened.

I went to college, got taken advantage of, and then slept around to try and numb the pain.  Would I have done that if I hadn’t been on the Pill? Probably not. My fear of pregnancy was high, and I wouldn’t have trusted condoms.

I tried to claw my way back to God and the Church, but by then I had been wounded so deeply by men and so deluded by Planned Parenthood’s scthick that I could not have a heart open to the Truth.

Being on the Pill (and having it for FREE!!!!!) enabled the behavior that kept me far away from God. It enabled me to continue in willful blindness to the truth of who God is (ultimate, lasting, life-giving love) and what He wants for us (ultimate, lasting, life-giving love).

While the Pill was allowing me to wreak havoc on my soul, it was letting the PCOS wreak havoc on my body.

What the good doctor didn’t tell me, was that the Pill wasn’t actually doing anything to treat the PCOS. Nada. It was giving me a false sense of “everything is fine” each month, while I got a fake period and the artificial hormones suppressed ovulation that should have been otherwise encouraged. Not to mention that one major side effect of the Pill is weight gain. Just what the insulin resistant, fat girl needs. A pill that makes her gain weight. Excellent treatment plan.

So, how do you encourage healing in PCOS?

You lose weight. You exercise. You eat low GI. You take Metformin. Birth Control pills do nothing for PCOS other than make you think you don’t have it.

So guess what happened when I stopped taking it?

What prompted you to stop using contraception?

Since my grandparents had not adopted me, I was not eligible to be a part of their insurance plan. So I had the state version of Medicaid for children. Then I turned 21 and I stopped having health insurance. No more free birth control? No more birth control.

By that time I had thankfully realized that casual sex with inappropriate partners (read: anyone I’m not married to) was an empty illusion, rather than the road to freedom that the “sexual health experts” and Cosmo told me it would be.

I vowed to stop having sex, and to not have sex again until it was with my husband. It’s by the grace of God that I kept that vow.

I figured since I wasn’t having sex, and the Pill was no longer free, that I would just stop taking it. So I did. I am so grateful that my free supply of the Pill was cut off. That’s not to say that I was 100% on board with the Church on contraception. I figured I would probably use the Pill again someday when I finally got married.

Fast forward two years. I met the man who would become my husband. We dated for over a year and got engaged.

Before we met, and while we were dating, God was opening my heart and eyes, very slowly, to the truth of what sexual love is supposed to be. Not a battle for which we need to “suit up”. Not a series of meaningless encounters. Not a way in which we use each other, taking other human beings out for a “test drive”. Not a way in which we give everything to our spouse- everything, that is – except the thing which makes us most like God, our ability to create.

When we got engaged, I knew that I’d never go on the Pill again. So it was time to learn about this elusive NFP.

But before we learned NFP, I got a shock. A diagnosis of Type II diabetes. At 24. What had happened? Well, I was overweight. About 20 pounds. In a normal person, being 20 pounds overweight at 24 would not give them Type II diabetes. But I wasn’t a normal person. Remember that pesky PCOS? The one the doctor told my silly 16 year old self to ignore? To just take my Pill like a good little girl?

Yeah, if you don’t actually address PCOS and one of its main causes – insulin resistance-  it can lead to…type II diabetes!

Here I was, 24 years old, about to be married, and I have an incurable chronic disease which I will have for the rest of my life.

What if I hadn’t had the Pill shoved down my throat? What if I had been given Metformin then, and given the chance to work with a nutritionist? Who knows.

On top of that, the PCOS was still there. All those years jacked up on hormones, and the Pill never fixed anything. Entering into marriage with a man I loved, having a chronic illness, and probable fertility problems to boot. All we knew was that contraception was not an option.

How did you learn NFP?

Our pre-cana class made no mention of (a) Church teaching on contraception or (b) that  NFP exists or where to learn about it. I know, you’re all shocked, right?

We searched on our own, and decided we wanted to try the Symto-thermal method since it used two observations (mucus and basal body temperature) to monitor fertility in order to avoid or achieve a pregnancy.

I didn’t know anything about it when we walked into that first class. I was afraid because several well-meaning friends told me “It [NFP] won’t work for you, you have irregular cycles”. I didn’t know what to expect at all.

It was an eye opener.

Did you know that women are only fertile for 24-48 hours per CYCLE?

So, when the “sexual health” experts told me that I could get pregnant at any time, filling me with a constant sense of fear, ignorance, and loathing at my own biology, they weren’t exactly correct? Why didn’t they instead EMPOWER me to figure out for myself when exactly I was fertile and let me choose whether or not to engage in sex?

I was mad.

We learned sympto-thermal, though I never felt super-confident with it. We had only one full chart before we got married, because the three months leading up to our wedding was one cycle for me. We weren’t 100% sure it would work for postponing a pregnancy, which we were hoping to do for the first six months or so of marriage. Honestly, we didn’t even know what kind of fertility I would have, with the PCOS running unchecked all those years.

Then I got pregnant our first married cycle. I know, right? I was shocked too.

Scared. But so, so happy. Which I didn’t expect at all.

My hubby was unemployed, I was in grad school, working part time. We lived in a shoebox apartment. We were overjoyed.

Of course, the Sympto-thermal method is 98% effective at preventing a pregnancy if you do it right. But we didn’t. It worked just fine; we failed. But what a sweet failure.

What tripped us up was that our instructors, who were not the greatest, told us that women ovulate around cycle day 14 or so and that if I was having long cycles, it was because of a variable length in phase III. That information is an epic FAIL. Phase III generally does not vary in length, and if cycles are lengthy it is because ovulation is delayed. We only learned that a few months later.

While we were happy at the prospect of welcoming a baby which had been a “user failure” of NFP, it was not to be. We lost that baby very early in pregnancy.

I’m so glad we messed up NFP and got pregnant three months into marriage. Do you know why? Because having that child in my womb for that short amount of time made me realize just how much I wanted to be a mother. It also let me know that I could get pregnant, something I was very anxious about because of PCOS.

We tried for over a year to conceive another little one, which we finally did on our first cycle charting the Creighton method of NFP.

Sympto-thermal seems to work great for women who have mostly regular cycles, but it never worked well for me. I did not have the type of temperature shifts I should have, and I never felt sure that ovulation had occurred. It would have been stressful if we had been avoiding during the time between when we lost our baby and when I got pregnant with Maggie, our daughter.

However, I have nothing but positive things to say about the Creighton method. The nurse who was our instructor was very professional and worked with us one-on-one, which allayed a lot of my fears of NFP with PCOS.

We have successfully used Creighton model NFP to avoid pregnancy for the last 14 months, many during the confusing days of postpartum charting.  We are eager to begin using NFP in order to achieve another pregnancy in the near future.

What are the main differences?

Well, I can’t compare within marriage, because other than one very stupid condom, we have never used contraception of any kind in our marriage.

I can only compare my life while on the Pill with my life using NFP.

There is no comparison.

On the Pill, I constantly felt pressure to be and act sexy at all times. To always be available and ready for sex, since that’s what all men need and want, right?

Only the bad ones.

The good ones love all of you, even the part of you that makes babies. Even when it’s not time to make babies. He loves ALL of you. So much that he’ll never disrespect you by asking you to mutilate or manipulate your body to serve his ends. Instead he’ll rub your back, even though it’s phase II and it’s not the time. He’ll kiss you deeply and passionately, and you know it’s not just because he wants you to “put out” later. The difference between a “contraception” man and an “NFP man” is the difference between a selfish and a selfless man.

What are the struggles?

At first, the main struggle was figuring out how my cycles were working. I ovulate regularly, but in cycles of varying length. In fact, there was much more variation of my cycles before I was pregnant and had a baby than after. Now, my cycles are still on the long side, but are all usually about the same length, and I seem to be ovulating each cycle.

That has made charting much easier for us. Also, with time you develop confidence at your observations, and that helps you feel secure in what you’re charting.

Abstinence during fertile times (when avoiding pregnancy) is always a challenge, though we do not seem to struggle with it as some couples do. We are definitely a quality versus quantity type of couple, so we see the time of abstinence as a great buildup to phase III. It works for us! We also play a lot of Scrabble.

I think the biggest struggle after you have a child is in discerning when it’s time to be open to the possibility of another. In my mind, one big difference between contraception and NFP is the mindset. With contraception, the default setting is closed to life. In other words, there has to be a good reason to be open to a baby. With NFP, the default setting is open to life. We have to have a good reason NOT to be open to a baby. We talk about it every month. When you have had a baby, there’s a real period of discernment that goes on when you have to talk frankly; “Do we have a good reason to not be open to another child?” Of course this looks different for every couple who is discerning. A well-formed conscience is the guide.

It’s been a long journey.

I am one of the 98%.

I’ve used contraception. I’ve lived that life and I have to live with wondering what kind of damage I did to my body by pumping myself full of hormones for all those years.

I’ve lived naturally. I live naturally. The only hormones in my body now are the ones God put there.

I’ve experienced sex as something you “arm yourself” for, “suiting up” like warriors going into battle. I’ve lived with the fear of pregnancy, the belief that my body was somehow broken and suppressing my fertility was the only way to fix it. It’s depressing and neurotic as hell.

I’ll never go back. Natural sex is the only thing worthy of the name.

I used to think that I was chained to my biology and that I had to suppress the natural function of my body in order to be free. I used to buy the lie that I needed these pills, patches, potions, and artificial hormones to be free.

Now I know the truth. I am free. I am a woman and my body isn’t broken. That’s why I use NFP.

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