Tag: Sweetening the Pill

  • Is Fertility Awareness a Teched-up Disguise of the Rhythm Method? #Periodically 16

    Is Fertility Awareness a Teched-up Disguise of the Rhythm Method? #Periodically 16

    I first heard the phrase “Rhythm Method” in a Religious Education class at my all-girls catholic high school. It was discussed alongside actual birth control methods like the pill and condoms, and I detected a tone of skepticism in the voice of my teacher. I have a vague memory of dropping the phrase at home one day and my dad going on a “it doesn’t work” rant, which ended, as I recall, with him threatening to demonstrate something involving a banana and a condom…

    So off I pottered on with my life, knowing that the Rhythm Method, which involves using the dates of your previous cycle to forecast the fertile and infertile days of the next, was an unreliable load of rubbish.

    Then something happened. I read an article by Holly Grigg-Spall that talked of Daysy and the Fertility Awareness Method. A year or so later the Natural Cycles phenomenon began. When I first heard about it my family and I agreed that it was the Rhythm Method in disguise, teched-up and glorified anew – it was a dangerous response to the sudden rejection of hormonal contraception that was going to end in a lot of unwanted pregnancies.

    That is until I learnt how the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) was different from the Rhythm Method. While the Rhythm Method looks retrospectively at past cycle dates, FAM looks for markers of fertility within your current cycle. Tracking Basal Body Temperature (BBT) can flag up the temperature increase that occurs around ovulation. There are other markers too. Getting very familiar with your cervical fluid can be a huge indicator of fertility, testing your urine for luteinizing hormone (LH) even more so.

    I remain very nervous about how FAM is being depicted as this completed project. “Here it is, go forth and only multiply if you want to,” has been the attitude. I think it is still early days and that FAM should be treated as a step in the right direction, not a finite solution to a huge problem. So far in my own experience with FAM I’ve found that I’m less likely to take my BBT reading at the correct time than I was to take the pill on time. It is still super at risk of human error. This is before you consider the fact it can take around six years for a menstrual cycle to get, well, cyclical after menarche and without considering health conditions that can morph FAM data.

    Now a leaked memo from the White House suggests that as effective teen-pregnancy prevention programs (contraception) are being subsidised, abstinence based, sex risk and Fertility Awareness methods are being suggested as alternatives. I think that a big part of what the White House, and supporters of FAM within the Catholic Church, have got wrong, is that the sudden focus on FAM and the recent turn away from hormonal contraceptives is not because we are worried about our consciouses, souls or honour – it’s about wanting more. We want to choose when and if we do or do not have children and we want that choice to be free from the life-changing side-affects that often come with mainstream methods of hormonal birth control. FAM is still birth control. Those using it to avoid pregnancy are still looking for a contraceptive, they are simply asking for more. Having observed the changes in my own body when I was on and off of the pill(s), I am now acutely aware of how my body changes throughout my cycle. If that can stop me getting pregnant (if I could have sex, that is LOL) then of course I’m going to exploit that.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: knowledge of self is powerful.

    This week I attended the opening of Period Piece at the Science Gallery in London. It’s on over the weekend too if you want to check it out, but it was a excellent platform for talking about why Femtech is changing things by using old ideas in new ways. Period Piece is a multi-media art piece that incorporates biometric data, like BBT, while touching upon political and religious events, like the papal ban on the pill in 1968.

  • Does being ‘anti-pill’ make me a bad feminist? #Periodically 13

    Does being ‘anti-pill’ make me a bad feminist? #Periodically 13

    As discussed at great length (sorry) in A Tale of Two Pills I consider my relationship with hormonal contraceptives to be over. It is an unpopular opinion, one I’ve struggled to conclude myself for a long time.

    In my world, the pill has always been seen as this great feminist tool. It sat on its pedestal throughout my childhood promising independence, reproductive freedom, sexual liberation and professional advancement. All my feminist icons raved about it, my sisters took it, my friends’ acne had been cleared, boobs had flourished, pain had lessened and my school despised it – by the time I was a teenager it was the most attractive piece of candy I had ever laid my eyes on. It symbolised maturity and being a strong, no nonsense woman. Until of course, I started taking it.

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    Last week I read Sweetening the Pill: or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control by Holly Grigg-Spall. I’ve been following Holly’s stuff for a couple of years or so now, but it took my longer than I care to admit to get to the book itself. While I can’t say I agree with everything suggested in Sweetening the Pill there were dozens and dozens of moments where I found myself saying ‘so it’s not just me!’

    “The pill is a rejection of femaleness. In swallowing the tablets women are swallowing the negative connotations that are attached to female biology,” Page 34. 

    When you strip the pill back of all the obvious benefits our doctors, and in America, the pharmaceutical companies rave about, you begin to realise that what the pill actually offers is a cure to femaleness. Hormonal acne? Take the pill. Horrible PMS? Take the pill. Heavy bleeds? Pill. Time of work due to menstruation? Pill! Period pain? Pill. And that’s before they start saying ‘hey you don’t need a period at all’ (to which the answer is the mini pill, implant or injection).

    “In lowering the hormonal levels and flattening out the fluctuations the pill takes away the natural peak of libido women experience in connection with ovulation and sometimes pre-menstruation,” page 50.

    I think the most poignant moment of Sweetening the Pill for me was the idea that when you try to suppress the natural lows of a menstrual cycle, you also inadvertently begin to suppress the natural highs. Menstrual cycles are (duh!) cyclical – that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Good skin and hair days are often just as common as bad ones, randy days can be just as common as days when you don’t want anyone to come near you. In fact, your cycle can work for you, it’s not always a question of fighting it. Problem is, we don’t get to know how our cycle works. It can take up to six years for a menstrual cycle to mature, I was on the pill just over two years after I started my period and it took a year to become regular after I came off the pill. For many women, life on the pill is all we really know and the withdrawal from it can be so scary that it frightens us back onto the pill.

    It’s scary because when you start to think about it, you can’t not think about it. Why are we taking a pill every day when we’re only actually fertile for a few days every cycle – ought we not limit our scope a bit?

    As the book discusses at the length, the ‘anti-pill’ rhetoric has always been dominated by the Religious Right. It’s what put me off. I always assumed being opposed to the pill meant be anti-feminist, sexist and backwards. Thinking that people who spoke against the pill must be religious nuts was an opinion I held for a long time. It remains an unpopular opinion. When I talk to others about my experience with the pill I’m always sure to add the disclaimer ‘not that I’m at all suggesting you stop taking the pill,’ when actually I think that might be exactly what I’m suggesting.

    “FAM is absolutely not the same thing as the ineffective Rhythm Method, which tries to predict fertility based on the length of past cycles. Don’t believe those who tell you that FAM doesn’t work; women using it can achieve effectiveness rates as high as the pill – 99.4 percent.” Toni Weshler quoted in Sweetening the Pill, page 157. 

    What women, like myself, who have had issues with hormonal contraceptives need to do is demand more options, non-hormonal ones. Being done with hormonal birth control is not the same thing as being done with birth control. The book talks a lot about the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). I had always associated it with the Rhythm Method, unsurprisingly preached about at my catholic school, that has been proven time and time again, not to work as a contraceptive method. Learning how FAM is different was really interesting, and it’s definitely something I’ll be looking into in the future. It’s fascinating to see how FAM and Femtech are beginning to offer an alternative.

    When the pill was released women had to stand up to their doctors to get the pill, today they must fight to get off it,” page 61. #RELATABLE 

    I want more options for female reproductive rights and I think we have the technology to find them – the research just isn’t happening as much as it should be, YET. Rejecting the pill from my own life hasn’t been an anti-feminist act but rather, it has been a feminist act of defiance for the benefit of my own quality of life, and the quality of life of other people in similar situations. In Sweetening the Pill Holly makes reference to hoards of other articles, journals and books, many of which I have now added to my reading list. Sadly, a lot of the evidence for hormonal birth control making women depressed, feel different (worse) and less libidinous is anecdotal and is rarely taken seriously. I’m hopeful that the more anecdotal evidence we report to our doctors, the more likely it will be that quantifiable research projects will take place.

     

  • Conversations with doctors that shouldn’t have happened #Periodically 4

    Conversations with doctors that shouldn’t have happened #Periodically 4

    I have been very lucky with the doctor who’s been helping me sort my uterus out in Swansea, and it’s a little daunting that whatever happens now I’m going to have to figure it all out without Dr H now I’m back in Essex. Regardless, there are a couple of conversations that have happened with both Dr H, my GP, and Dr M, my gynaecologist, that I’m not sure are entirely fair. Disclaimer: I will be paraphrasing for comedic effect here, unless you want my full um-ing and ah-ing while I tried not to rage cry at them…

    A lot of the reasons I feel the conversations are inappropriate is because I don’t think they would have happened at all if I was a man. If I was a man enduring horrible pain during sex, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be told to ‘keep trying other positions,’ ‘take ibuprofen before sex’ or pump my body full of hormones that also directly impact my sex drive. The truth is there would likely be a solution, simply because while men were figuring out how to fix their penises, for a long time research into female sexuality was often limited to hysteria, ‘wandering womb’ and childbirth. That said, the uterverse is a lot more complicated that the male reproductive system and so our understanding of it was always going to take a bit longer.

     

    “Yes, but if it didn’t hurt on the pill, then you should go back on”

    I’ve had a troublesome past with the contraceptive pill, both the combined and mini. So when Dr M asked ‘did sex hurt when you were on the pill’ and I said no, he said, ‘ah well there’s the solution then’. I calmly pointed out that things also weren’t bad before I was on the pill. The plan he was suggesting sounded to me like a mask solution, and that any serious problems I was dealing with would return if I ever came off the pill to, say, reproduce. I would prefer to deal with this situation now, rather than ten years down the road when it’s too late to be a surrogate for my sister because of a defunct uterus.

    “What would you say if all I can offer you is either no libido or painful sex?”

    The mini pill destroyed my sex drive. Physically and psychologically there was no ‘desire’ (read moisture) for sex. So when Dr M put this ultimatum before me I was a bit lost for words. Are these really the only options I have? Not wanting to have sex but possibly being able to, or wanting to have sex but not being able to? Pretty slim pickings if you ask me. It makes one ask, when will female sexual pleasure begin to be as important as male sexual pleasure?

    Me: “I actually ended a relationship because of this” Dr H: “OMG well we’ll expedite your appointment then”

    After several months of waiting for a gynae appointment and with things getting progressively worse, I visited Dr H and explained. She said there was nothing she could do until I’d seen the gynae. She asked how I was doing otherwise and I mentioned how honestly ‘it was making life a bit shit’. I subtly mentioned that I had ended a relationship because of it and suddenly, as if this was a new sign of the severity of my situation, she was able to write a letter and expedite my appointment, as well as book me in for an ultrasound. I received my gynae letter two days later and had a scan within a fortnight. Call me picky, but I kind of wanted my doctors help for me and my body, not for my love life.