This April Fools’ Day I told my sister I was pregnant and to not tell our parents.  She informed me that she wanted to see the stick I pissed on- isn’t she charming?  Anyway, my little joke leads to today’s topic: birth control.  Choosing a form of birth control is one of the most important choices a young woman could make today and my joke made me think back over my choices concerning hormonal birth control.

I started taking the pill just shy of my twentieth birthday despite my mother’s warnings that hormonal birth control always had horrible side effects for her (Ladies, take a note here: it is very important to speak with your mom about any health issues she has had over her lifetime because genetics can play a role in some types of cancers and health issues).  My personal reason for starting BC was that I was always skipping periods and I was tired of not knowing when I was going to get it, which caused a lot of anxiety  and more than a few embarrassing moments.  Add in the fact that I was falling in love for the first time and I wanted to be safe if we decided to have sex.

I took various hormonal pills for over a year and a half and there was one problem after another.  There were the physical problems: constant vaginal infections, my breasts going from a C cup to a DD cup (oh the back pain!), extreme fatigue, weight gain, loss of sex drive and muscle aches.  The last few symptoms I attributed to being in college and working at the same time.

The mental issues were a serious problem as well.  I had the craziest mood swings- happy one minute and crying the next.  I started suffering from depression.  Eventually my boyfriend and I broke up and I felt suicidal and that was the breaking point because I had never wanted to hurt myself- EVER.  I called the doctor and she told me to stop taking the BC.  I stopped, and within a week noticed a difference- I felt lighter.  I laughed more easily, I lost weight, my muscles stopped aching, and the mood swings were fading.  All I kept thinking was, “Why the hell did I do that to myself?!”

I was reading the most recent issue of Glamour magazine the other day and the following statement caught my eye: “Eighty-two percent of women under 45 have used oral contraceptives- but just 19 percent are on the Pill now.”  Perhaps those women had similar problems to my own and I’m not alone in having such a horrible experience.  Maybe someday there will be a birth control pill I can take, but for now I always say no when my doctor asks me if I want the pill- and that’s no April Fools’ joke.

Share this Post!