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Part of Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice
I have been aware of contraception since before I was sexually active. Before any of us had even kissed anyone, my friends and I knew about condoms, birth control pills, diaphragms and other contraception. We attended a progressive Catholic school in New York City, where our sex education classes went into great detail about birth control methods. It was also the late 80s, and AIDS was ravaging our communities, despite President Reagan’s persistent and immoral denial of the disease and its toll. Just as important in shaping my ideas around sexuality was the fact that by my freshman year in high school, I had several friends who became pregnant and struggled with their decisions about whether to parent, place for adoption or terminate the pregnancy. I knew then that preventing pregnancy and STDs would be an important part of my life for a long time.
I became sexually active in my teens, much earlier than my mother would have wanted, and if I am honest, earlier than I was emotionally ready for. I was in love for the first time, and my boyfriend and I were pretty inexperienced (read: virgins). At that point, condoms were my contraceptive of choice. They were cheap, accessible and my mother did not need to know about them. (Let’s not even discuss my father’s knowing anything about my sex life.) Condoms also meant that my boyfriend could and would share in the responsibility of keeping us both free from disease and pregnancy. The latter was still a more real and terrifying thought to me than the former, even at the height of the AIDS pandemic. Condoms continued to be my go-to birth control method until college.
As an undergraduate, I continued using condoms, this time with spermicide. It took me a while to realize that I the irritation I was experiencing was an allergic to nonoxynol-9 , the spermicide used in several brands of condoms. On to the next method. Like my friend, Bianca I tried withdrawal. I even tried the sponge – yes that sponge made famous by the character Elaine on Seinfeld. I felt clumsy inserting it and wasn’t confident that I had done it correctly. Not a good starting point for a relationship with a contraceptive.
Finally, I made an appointment with my campus health services to get a prescription for birth control pills. It seemed like the right birth control method for the relationship I was in. They were only $5 a month through University Health Services, and I didn’t have to worry about my mother finding them. I suffered few side effects and overwhelming relief that I’d found a birth control that worked for me. Sometime after college, I got tired of taking the pill. I wanted to share the burden of preventing STDS and pregnancy with my partner, not carry the whole responsibility myself. I was also a little concerned about putting hormones in my body. So the pills went on hiatus, and I went back to condoms. This time it was an eye-opening experience. Had I forgotten what condoms were like? Or had my body changed? Or was my current relationship different from the last time I used condoms? I wasn’t sure which it was, but now condoms were yucky, uncomfortable, and a complete turn-off. How had this happened? Condoms had been my go-to birth control method before, but I realized that they weren’t right for me in the relationship I was in. The hiatus was a short one. While I still wanted a more equitable sharing of the responsibility for birth control, I was not willing to sacrifice a happy sex life for it.
Things went along like this until my 30s. My husband and I were thinking of having children, and we stopped using birth control altogether. We didn’t get pregnant, and we were okay with that (and still are). Since we hadn’t gotten pregnant, we figured we wouldn’t get pregnant and kept using nothing. Then I went in for my annual check-up with my OB/GYN. I love my doctor, who I have been seeing for more than 10 years. Like me he’s a cyclist, and he admires the work I do. He also appreciates seeing my husband in the waiting room during my visits to him. Many of his patients come by themselves, even well into their pregnancies. Doc was aware that my husband and I had tried to have children and weren’t successful. He very gently suggested that it just might not happen for us. When he asked me about birth control, I was confused. Hadn’t he just said that “it just might not happen for us”? Then he asked me if I was prepared for an unexpected pregnancy at this stage of my life. “NO!” I almost screamed.
That question and the subsequent conversation I had with my doctor convinced me to consider yet another contraceptive method – the IUD. I had my initial misgivings about it – political, medical and social. Doc talked over my options with me and made clear that I should take time to think and talk with my husband. I went home with the brochures and did some research on my own. Once I had spoken to friends about their experiences with the IUD and sufficiently answered my own questions, I realized that the IUD was the right choice for me. My doctor’s office also made it easier by looking into what my insurance would cover. Luckily for me, my insurance paid for all the costs.
That was a year-and-a-half ago. I feel really good about my decision to get the IUD. My goal at this stage of my reproductive life is less to prevent STDS than to prevent pregnancy. That doesn’t mean my contraceptive journey is over. I’m only 37, and who knows how many more years I might be able to get pregnant (and not want to). I look back on my sexual and reproductive life and see that I made some really good decisions about what was right for me at any given time. I had access to good information, financial resources and support from my partners, family and friends. Shouldn’t everybody have the same?
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