My Experiences with Birth Control
By Rea
As a young wife, still trying to struggle my way though college, finding an apartment to share with my husband, one cat and two lizards (the furkids), having a baby is not on the menu right now. Birth control is important to me, but it's a tough choice for me, being as holistically minded as I am. I have never used birth control before I got married, so I'm still pretty naive, but making the decision to use a chemical that altered the natural way my body functions was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. I was hesitant, but relented and tried the standard pill. It worked, to say the least, but the first month was absolute torment for me. I immediately swelled and bloated, and my emotional response was through the roof. A normally calm, easy-going person, I became a raving rage-monster attempting to adjust to my new husband and the strange things my body did. The incessant nausea and irrititibility was NOT what I had expected. Also my erratic memory made taking the pill on time everyday a challenge. So after two months, I decided to change to something less-invasive.Depo Provera, a hormone injection birth control, was recommended to me by a doctor. I was promised no monthy visitor, no PMS, no side-effects. Again the thought of using something that serious altered the way my body should function, like missing the integral ritual of the monthly period, made me balk. But after pressure from my friends and family, positive feedback and yet another episode of "Oh no! Where have my pills gone?!", changed my mind. How bad can one shot every three months be? I have terribly regretted this decision for the six months it has been since using Depo Provera. Not having your period does NOT mean that you are not gonna get all the nasty parts associated. My bloating had never been worse in my entire life. The drastic mood-swings were borderline bi-polar. I still can't shake the fat from the massive weight gain. I felt terrible and depressed. I stopped completely using and sort of birth control and waited the chemicals to leave my system. Also once I stopped using Depo Provera, my cycle has been completely abnormal in multiple ways, including an extended cycle over two months straight.
