birth control control

Content warning: SA

This topic had been sitting in my drafts for a while. I wasn't sure if and how I would approach this topic but in light of the likely overturning of Roe v Wade I think it's time to face it.

...

Winter 2019/2020

"I HATE you!"

I don't remember why he was angry this time. It's hard to separate. 

But I remember those words. 

It's one of those things you can't forget. 

Even if you try... 

I know...

I tried.

I remember standing, bare feet planted in the thin apartment carpeting. He hovered so close I could feel the heat from his breath as he shouted. 

I remember the smirk as he pulled back. Confident he'd "won". That he'd shut me up.

I remember the silence that followed. It hung thick in the air. Every breath felt heavy.

Tears pricked and rolled down my cheeks. I dug my heels in and brought myself to full height. I wouldn't have him accuse me of being hysterical. I wouldn't have him tell me I was a coward for walking away.

"I want you to understand. I'm not saying this in anger, but I need you to hear me now. I will never. EVER. bring a child into this home as long as "I hate you" is an acceptable response to frustration."

...

I meant every word. 

And it killed me to say it. 

I have always wanted kids. I have always loved kids. I adore my nieces and enjoyed all of my Sunday school and daycare kids. It was always part of the dream, part of the plan. 

A little house with enough yard for a dog and a swing set. Two kids, maybe three. A loving partner to work by my side. A job that I enjoyed most days.

In that moment I realized that picture I had been refining in my mind from the time I was 10 or 12, was a dream that I would have to let go.

I wouldn't bring a child into a home where they would question if they were safe and loved.

...

In the time we were dating and engaged he would regularly refuse to wear a condom then tell me I needed to go get plan B (which I paid the $50 for each time) even if I was taking birth control. 

I lost my insurance when I moved to be with him, and there was no affording an independant insurance plan on Build a Bear pay. I couldn't get a new birth control prescription so I started tracking my cycles in an attempt to avoid fertile days.

I explained that as long as my cycles were fairly regular there was really only a few days we needed to avoid. I explained fertility cycles and conception. It didn't matter. He refused to educate himself. Insisting it was gross and too confusing. 

In the meantime I was taking huge doses of expensive hormonal birth control to placate him. In actuality it may have done nothing (some studies suggest plan B is less effective if you're over 155lbs) but I didn't know that at the time.

Once I was again offered insurance through my job, I was able to set an appointment to get my prescription renewed. Unfortunately within days of setting that appointment, I was told the company would no longer be offering insurance. 

I made a call to change my appointment to ask about an IUD. I'd be without insurance for a few months between the time the policy ended and the wedding, but it would be fine. We were going to get married and then I'd just get on his insurance right away.

...

January 2019. 

We had just returned from our honeymoon. I asked about getting on his insurance policy, and got a variety of answers ranging from "yeah, yeah. I'll get to it." To "I don't understand why you don't trust me!" To "WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS NAGGING ME?!". So I dropped it. Figured he'd either do it, or I'd just be especially careful to not need medical care until the next enrollment period. 

July 2019. 

I hadn't felt well since March. I wasn't sleeping because of the pain. It had been weeks since I strung together more than two or three hours at once. I knew something was seriously wrong. I fought through tears; begged not to go to the emergency room. I knew there was no way we could afford it.

My take home pay each month was about $800. His wasn't much more. That had to stretch every month to cover rent, utilities, gas, gifts, groceries, entertainment, car maintenance, travel, clothing, toiletries and more.

We fell into the gap of making too much for assistance, but not enough to be secure. I was painfully aware of the fact we were one accident, one medical emergency away from the kind of debt you cannot dig yourself out of.

Then the diagnosis. Cancer. 

Surgery was scheduled. A week and a half in the hospital followed by six weeks of recovery at home. Most of which he was absent for.

September 2019.

The oncologists have the timing down to a science. Just as I was feeling a bit stronger, treatment began. The radiation isn't so bad the first few rounds before the burns set in. And for a few hours following chemo I felt great. I even made a batch of cookies when I got back. I still hadn't slept properly, but the cocktail of antidepressants, anti nausea, Ativan, and Benadryl that are standard pre-meds for chemo make for one heck of a medically induced power nap. 

Then the drugs wore off. 

I couldn't stop vomiting. Food. Medication. Water. Nothing stayed down. It lasted weeks. I ran the gauntlet of anti-nausea drugs (they offer seven. I tried them all.) but nothing touched it. 

Finally it started to ease. My nieces birthday was coming up and I desperately wanted some sense of normalcy. When my parents brought up the possibility of them going back to NC to celebrate, I pushed them to go. I didn't want her to miss grandma and papa at her birthday.

I had been staying in my parent's apartment across town so they could provide the 24/7 care I initially needed. However, now that the trache and drains were removed, the vomiting had subdued, and I could feed and bathe myself, I was doing well enough to be back at my own apartment. 

It was a couple days before he started hinting. "You know it's been a LONG TIME" 

"I just want to be intimate with my WIFE!" "You said yourself you missed spending time together"

I understand now that was absolutely coercion. Intimacy and quality time do not have to be sexual. It doesn't matter how long it's been, or if you are legally married. If both parties aren't fully informed, coherent, and enthusiastic at the prospect, it needs to stop before it begins. 

But I didn't want to fight. I didn't have the energy to. I felt guilty. It HAD been a long time (because I was in pain and then recovering from a 20 hour cancer surgery). And I wanted intimacy and quality time (because he was largely absent for my recovery).

I still felt like a stranger in my body. I was covered in scars. None of my clothes fit. I had lost all muscle tone. Walking upstairs had me winded. I couldn't fold a load of laundry without taking breaks. My weight was in a rapid free fall. Its hard to entrust your body to someone else when it isn't even serving you as it should. 

As I undressed, he huffed and impatiently drummed his fingers. Laying flat on my back makes it difficult to swallow but he kept reminding me I wanted things to be normal, and this was normal. So I didn't argue. But as he continued I could feel myself choking. Even though the panic was rising, I tried not to cough to clear my lungs. I didn't want to upset him.

He kept asking "ya like that?" I was baffled. Couldn't he see that I was choking? Couldn't he see that the weight of his stomach was pulling on my feeding tube and making me flinch? I searched his face for an answer and realized he didn't see it because he wasn't looking at me. Our bodies were connected but his mind was obviously miles away.

I remember thinking "oh my God. It doesn't matter. This could be anybody. It wouldn't matter to him. Why doesn't it matter? It should matter! Why don't I matter?!?" I wanted to scream. Instead I asked to change things up because I was in pain. He agreed but made his irritation known. I climbed on top but realized immediately it was too much for the leg where the skin graft had been taken. 

The graft site left nerve damage in the form of hypersensitivity. That picture was one of the first times wearing pants after surgery because even the weight of fabric was painful on it. As I put my weight on my knees it felt like a painful version of the static electricity you can feel if you run your fingertips across an old TV screen. It ran through my knee and up my thigh. 

I knew I couldn't ask to change something again. He was already upset. So I did my best to shift my weight off my bad leg, close my eyes and wait for it to be over. He used my body, and when he finished I all but ran to the shower.

I set the water as hot as I could bear it and scrubbed. I felt disgusting. I sobbed and clawed at my skin. I felt ugly. I felt used. I wondered what was wrong with me. This thing that was supposed to foster intimacy and affection left me feeling alone and broken. When I came out of the shower, and confided how I felt to my husband (in much kinder, toned down terms so as to avoid being screamed at), I was told "It's whatever. I mean the tube thing is annoying, but I still finished. It's all good!"

...

So let's play the what if game for a moment. What if there had been an "oops" in there?

What if I had gotten pregnant in the time we were dating? 

I was 4 hours away from him. Just barely making ends meet. In a job that had no paid maternity leave. A job which I would lose if I didn't have adequite vacation time saved.

What if I had gotten pregnant in the time after I moved to be with him?

I had no insurance, I wouldn't be able to get prenatal care. We were barely getting by, and I had no support system to speak of near me. 

What about before my cancer treatments?

I would've had to choose if I wanted to keep the pregnancy and delay life-saving surgery and treatment. Knowing that there would then be a newborn to care for that needed 24/7 care in addition to myself. 

Who would look out for that baby? My parents who were acting as a round the clock nursing staff? My husband who couldn't be bothered to make a 10 minute drive after work to see me? His mom who was frequently occupied with his nephew? 

Or I could choose to end it. Increase my chances of survival. Do it knowing that I wanted children. Knowing that the high-dose chemo could affect my chances for having a child in the future.

What about after? 

That one I thought about. 

A friend and coworker of mine once said the thought of my ex with a baby gave her the same jolt of panic as when she would see a 6 year old manhandling a baby before realizing it was just a realistic doll. 

It happened once or twice a month so I knew exactly what she meant. The initial jolt of anxiety. The urge to dive in and scoop up the baby. The thoughts of "Who let you have a baby?! Where are your grownups?! This is just plain dangerous!" 

Except the relief of "it's just a doll. Of course it is. How ridiculous of me. Nobody would intrust them with the care of an infant" would never come. 

I could handle him screaming that he hated me. Telling me I was a coward for locking myself in the bathroom when he was physically intimidating. Screaming at me for hours then telling me I needed committed to a psych ward for crying. I had a sort of detached understanding that he was saying these things to get a reaction from me.

But I couldn't bring a child into that. I couldn't trust him to control his temper. If he was fine with screaming "I hate you" because I frustrated him, fine with rearing back to hit me over an $8 laptop charger, what would happen if it was a child?

Infants request their needs be met through crying. Two and three year olds explore the world almost exclusively by testing boundaries and watching for reactions. I couldn't bear the thought that might not be safe. That simply existing and exploring as a child should, could endanger them.

In the back of my mind I made a plan. I told nobody. I didn't know what way it would go at the time. 

I wouldn't tell him. Go to visit one of my friends in another state. End it. Come back. Never speak of it. 

Or 

I would run. Pack a bag of essentials. Leave while he was at work so I had a head start. Make my way to NC to my family. Have the baby. Not put his name on the birth certificate. Divorce him over video call so he never knew the child existed. 

It sounds extreme. I know. But in the process of divorcing him, I was told I didn't have enough evidence for a protective order. Legally there would've been no grounds for a custody split to be anything but 50/50. 

It's a disgusting reality that there are women who stay in abusive relationships long after they know they aren't safe because they have to wait for something bad enough to happen  that would provide grounds and evidence to ask for a protective order and full custody. There are even more who, like me, didn't have the legal evidence and therefore have to send their babies to their abuser over and over again. Hope and pray that they come back okay. 

...

So what if the laws had been different? 

There would've been no backup plan.

One slip up and I would be forced to give birth no matter how dangerous it would be for me. Depending on timing, I would have had to delay life-saving surgery and treatment for about a year. Allowing the cancer to spread in the meantime. 

One oops would mean being tied to my abuser forever. It would mean subjecting a child to his unpredictable moods, his cruel words and his physical threats for the entirety of their upbringing.

If that assault had resulted in a pregnancy that child through no fault of their own would be a living reminder of how desperately I wanted a connection and just how little I mattered to him. 

I know Roe v Wade takes on abortion, not birth control. But, it's being used as the first domino in a very long line. 

In Louisiana they're currently trying to pass legislation that would make the IUD that provided me protection when I had no insurance illegal. 

I would've had to go through cancer treatment without the safety net of birth control.

That in combination with an overturning of Roe v Wade, would have allowed me to be charged with murder for preventing pregnancy by using birth control (even during my cancer treatment). And then be unable to do anything about it (felons can't vote).

I can only speak to my experience, and had I conceived, I'm not sure what my choice would've been. 

But I did have a choice.