scooter
This is a picture of me from five years ago. As it appeared on my Facebook feed recently, I couldn’t believe the raw emotions that sprung forward. In no particular order, here were some of my thoughts.

  1. That’s the scooter that my husband Shaun drove while he finished his bachelor’s degree in Grand Forks. We were so broke.
  2. I had recently quit the Depo-Provera birth control shot, followed by the patch, and was now on the pill, trying to find something that was a good fit. The effects of the shot wouldn’t fade completely for years — one area being my weight. I worked out twice a day most days and was watching my diet like a religion, yet I was the biggest I have ever been outside of pregnancy.
  3. I wanted a baby. The timing wasn’t right, and it was more than just wanting a baby. I had been told at 15 that I would likely never conceive and if I did, I would likely miscarry. I went from specialist to specialist, and no one would help me beyond giving me the pill. I did have one doctor tell me that as soon as I was ready to have a baby, not to wait. The longer I waited the worse the cards were stacked against me. I wondered every month that passed if I was missing my chance; would this have been the egg that might have actually had a fighting chance?
  4. I believe I miscarried very very early due to the contraception we used. I cannot prove it, but looking back, due to how intense one of my “cycles” was and the emotions and depression that accompanied it, I am certain I had in fact conceived but trusted the contraception too much to let myself do more than wonder for a minute. In the first two years of my marriage, this occurrence happened at least twice.
  5. Shaun sold that scooter to buy me a camera. I was completely surprised and while it sounds corny, it gave me hope that better days were coming for us. Soon after, things did get better. A large part of it was due to the fact that we decided that contraception would be a thing of the past for us, never to enter into our marriage again.

My fertility wouldn’t have been “dealt with” in ways that hurt me physically, mentally and emotionally. Maybe it could have been embraced as a gift to use how we wished and we could have built a team effort into learning and appreciating it. I wouldn’t have felt sick the first entire year of our marriage. Maybe, not feeling sick, I would have been more patient, more loving, more in control of my emotions and able to better communicate my needs to my new husband. The way things could have been different seem too many to list.
Every woman and couple deserves to have the knowledge that she doesn’t have to suppress the way her body naturally works. We have options, and we should feel empowered with solid and scientifically proven knowledge of our own fertility. We should walk into our doctor’s offices and be an active participant in our healthcare – long before we are even in the position of achieving and avoiding pregnancies.
What I wouldn’t give to have had this information not even just five years ago when the above picture was taken, but to have had it available to me at the onset of my fertility. Today, I no longer accept sub-par “healthcare” which throws a pack of pills at me instead of giving me real answers and seeking to fix problems at their root. Today, I use (and teach) the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning. Will today be the day that you choose something different for your best health?