When I was 17 I decided I was ready to have penetrative sex with my then boyfriend. I went to planned parenthood with my mom and they put me on the pill. I gave it a good try for a few months and the mood swings were not working for me. I went back in, told them and they switched me to a different pill, one with more progesterone. A few months of mood swings that had me crying, screaming, and crying again within minutes and I knew this birth control wasn’t working for me either. Unsure what to do I went back to planned parenthood and they prescribed me the nuva ring. I thought that because this was a newer to the market birth control it would be better. Months go by and now not only am I depressed, sad and gaining strange water weight but I don’t want anything to do with the sex I was so excited to be having anyways.
“At this point, if you’re having this many issues, it’s not the birth control, it’s you. You should think about seeing a psychiatrist.” This is what the doctor at planned parenthood told me after trying three different forms of hormonal birth control. Not only did I sink in my chair feeling like I was bothering this doctor by speaking up about my issues, but I also felt like something was wrong with my body, or my mind, I wasn’t really sure which. It made total sense to me that taking hormones would have some effects on my mood but the extremes I was experiencing felt way outside the normal scope of what I could tolerate.
Following this appointment I decided to listen to my body, these birth controls weren’t working for me so I stopped taking them. I was using condoms and I was using them correctly every single time and I didn’t have any issues. Oh yeah I also felt sane, which was really important. My first run in with the medical community and women’s health left me feeling alone, and untrusting of doctors when it came to my body.
Fast forward a few years, my mom is around 50 when she finally decides to go to the doctor for her extremely heavy and painful periods. After a few scans she finds out that she has multiple fibroid tumors, one the size of a 5 month pregnancy, along with endometriosis. The doctor explains that her best plan of action would be a full and complete hysterectomy. Within a week she was calling me telling me she didn’t know what was wrong but she wasn’t able to sleep, she was loosing weight and crying all the time. When I convinced her to go see a doctor she was told for the first time months after her surgery that she was post menopausal. Not once did this doctor explain to my mom that she might need hormone therapy after full complete hysterectomy, or that this surgery would drastically change the way her body would continue to function. I felt so much anger for my mom to not have been informed by her doctor, to not have proper aftercare. My guard again rising up between doctors and my body.
When I became pregnant I knew I couldn’t go in blindly trusting anyone. I watched documentaries, I researched and the reality was pregnancy was no different and was probably the worst treatment so far with my body and doctors. Not only did I have a doctor lie right to my face about test results in order to persuade me into a c-section, (I hired a doula after this who we referee to as our birth bodyguard), I was also lied to and told that I would be receiving a cervical check when instead my doctor gave me a cervical sweep induction after I specifically expressed refusal of that exact procedure. The medical field again failed me in women’s health care. The reality was that I’d only felt safe when I was in a space where women supported women. When I stood up for myself and decided to hire a doula, and years later decided to birth at home with a midwife who truly trusted me and my body.
I’m 33 years old and I know the future holds one last womanly transition of body for me. I know that I will experience perimenopause, menopause, and eventually I’ll be post menopausal. Going into these years of my life I fear being alone in my experience, I fear my body not behaving, I fear medications not working correctly, I fear a lack of medical knowledge about these phases of womanhood. So far womanhood hasn’t been easy, in a lot of ways womanhood isn’t supported, and it feels far from understood. While all of this angers me greatly, I take comfort in the sense of self that I have built along the way. I’m more in touch with my body because I’ve had to be. I know that I will always be the best advocate for myself and just like in pleasure, I will always know my body best. I can trust my body, support my body and fight for my body. I just hope the medical community can catch up to finally understand and support my body in time for this last womanly transition.