How I Came to Question the Pill

I first want to say that the purpose of these posts is simply to bring the issue of birth control to the surface.  My goal is simply to share my personal experience and understanding of the subject and to encourage you to do your own research and soul searching.  More than 99% of women who have ever had intercourse have used at least one method of contraception.  Let's discuss!  

Here's my story - Matt and I were engaged on the 4th of July, 2009 and got married on a beautiful snowy day that December.  

We were cute! :)

As I said before, we saved sex for marriage.  When we were discussing marriage and during our engagement we had very real conversations about how we wanted to wait several years to have children, but if the Lord had other plans for us and we became pregnant sooner than planned that we were prepared to accept that blessing and love that child.  If you had asked if we were "ready" for children, we would have said, "No, not yet!"  Are you ever really ready for that? But we were committed to loving any child that would come from our union, at any time, from day 1 of our marriage. Because, as should be common knowledge, the only method of birth control that is 100% is abstinence. We need to consider the choices we make with the same seriousness as the consequences they can have.  I think it's wise to accept in advance every possible outcome that goes along with that decision.

That being said, we had been in a long-distance relationship and engagement for over a year and very much wanted to get used to being around each other, married, 24/7.  We knew it would be a big adjustment enough without the added stress of a first child early in our marriage.  So one of the first orders of business for me when we got engaged was to set up an appointment for birth control.  I'm good at routines and taking a pill at the same time every day seemed like an easy thing for me to do so I went with that and started it immediately.  I wanted my body to have time to adjust and I wanted the routine to be ingrained in me before the craziness of the wedding.  No honeymoon babies for us, please!

Before I started taking birth control, I had lengthy, uncomfortable periods and pretty severe...um...monthly psychological distress we'll call it.  These symptoms were almost immediately relieved when I started taking the pill. Then we got married, and after several months I started trusting the pill to work and to keep me from getting pregnant before we were "ready."  At some point I transitioned to the Nuva Ring which was even better - no more daily pill taking!   I loved it.  Hormonal birth control was one of the best things that had ever happened to me and women in general.  Thank God for birth control!

Last spring (2011), I was working only part time and waiting to start the OTA program.  I decided to spend more of my free time doing good for others and I started volunteering at the Austin Pregnancy Resource Center.  I will probably spend another whole entry on this fantastic organization because I have such a huge heart for it.  Essentially, it is a Christian organization that provides entirely free services for women facing unplanned pregnancies.  Services include ultrasounds (truly lifesaving tools!), materials like clothes/diapers/formula, written resources, referrals, and spiritual counsel.  They really love on these women, offer them hope, and share the gospel with many.  Volunteering there opened my eyes to the issue of life and I began doing my own research and discovered the massive ugly reality that is present in our country.  I won't go into detail here but I'll provide you some resources so you can see for yourself.  This is not an issue to push aside as too controversial and uncomfortable to discuss.  It's also not an issue that only those of faith should be concerned about.  It's a human issue, not just a faith issue.  (Side note: we do have a presidential election coming up in which the life issue is HUGE.  Please take some time to consider where you truly stand, research the candidates, and go vote!)

One day I was talking about these issues to a dear friend who was about to enter a pharmacy residency.  She said to me these words, "If you are ok with birth control, then you have to be ok with the Morning After Pill, because they do basically the same thing."  She then went on to explain that they both could prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus by altering the uterine lining.  (There is some debate over whether or not the Morning After Pill is capable of this or not, but the pill's website continues to state that it does).  I did the only thing I could do with those words, I stuffed them way into the back of mind and told them to stay there!  I didn't want to deal with them! But of course they didn't stay there.  Over the next few months I asked myself the very important questions: Do I believe that life begins at conception or at some later point?  Where do I really stand on the life issue? What's the truth about these pills and what's God's truth in this? This is personal now, because now we're talking about the lives of my own children.  So I went on a personal and scientific quest searching for answers!

I'll share what I found in the next post.  Here are some valuable resources about the life issue.

LifeSiteNews
Secular Pro Life Group
US Abortion Statistics
National Right to Life
Fetal Development
Why Pro-Life?