In our Coming Off the Pill series, we publish testimonies from real women who took hormonal birth control and then found a better way forward for family planning, cycle management, or a combination of the two. Below, we share the experience of Kaleigh van Middendorp. Kaleigh is a passionate fertility awareness advocate and the Executive Director of Guiding Star Siouxland, a nonprofit women’s clinic dedicated to building a culture of life through women’s healthcare.
When did you start taking birth control? Was it for symptoms or pregnancy prevention or both?
I struggled a lot during my periods since I was thirteen years old, having symptoms like heavy bleeding, bowel symptoms, migraines, and extreme fatigue. I ended up missing at least one day of school every time I would get my period, and eventually was going to the ER due to pain. The ER doctor “diagnosed” me with endometriosis due to my pain level, and after performing an ultrasound, said I had polycystic ovary syndrome as well. They said that I should begin taking hormonal birth control to regulate my periods and decrease my pain symptoms, and they also prescribed a strong pain medication for me to take during my periods.
Did you have any reservations about it or did anyone you knew think it wasn’t a good idea?
I knew that birth control was used to prevent pregnancy, and since I wasn’t sexually active, it felt embarrassing to take. However, the doctor encouraged me to do so, telling me that this would help relieve my symptoms and make life more manageable for me. I didn’t speak with anyone other than my mother about taking birth control, but she was hopeful that the medication would help me stop feeling so sick during my periods.
Did you experience side effects? What led you to start thinking about coming off birth control?
For the next five years, I was bounced around to multiple birth control options because my symptoms were continuing, and now I was experiencing new symptoms like pelvic pain outside of my period, weight gain, acne, and depression and anxiety (all of these were written off by doctors as “common side effects”).
When did you first hear about fertility awareness methods/natural family planning?
When I was twenty years old and in college, my older sister and her husband were walking through infertility. She was learning about the Creighton Model, and the more she read, the more she realized that my cycle was full of red flags. She had been doing research after a fertility doctor told her that going on birth control could help her achieve a pregnancy, which she thought sounded really backwards (and she was right). At my sister’s urging, I went to the 90-minute Creighton Model Introduction Session and for the first time in five years, I was excited and hopeful.
Where did your information about sexuality and family planning come from prior to learning fertility awareness?
I figured I knew a lot about women’s fertility since I grew up in a family of four daughters, but my eyes were opened during the Creighton intro session to the wonder of my cycles. I could finally see behind just the bleeding and realize the beauty of what my body was actually doing each cycle. It was amazing!
Not only that, I learned about the true dangers of birth control. From that moment, I never looked back. That night, I stopped taking it and started charting my cycle with the Creighton Model. I had originally thought that family planning methods were just for couples trying to conceive, but I quickly realized that this method of fertility appreciation truly was for any woman who wanted to be empowered to embrace how she was created and to be an active participant in her own health.
What did you come to see as the benefits of utilizing fertility awareness?
After just one cycle of charting with the Creighton Model, my practitioner validated my experience. I remember her saying “Wow, that’s a lot of bleeding! Is this every cycle for you?” And I finally felt heard.
Not only that, but I learned so much more during the followup appointments with my practitioner about endocrine disruptors, and what the red flags in my cycle could mean. The bleeding, pain, and limited cervical mucus I was experiencing for years were signs of deeper problems that needed to be resolved, not only for my fertility, but for my ability to live in a healthy way overall. When I got my referral to a Natural Procreative Technology (“NaPro”) doctor, they were so reassuring that I wasn’t broken–like I’d always felt. They let me know that there were actual treatments for the symptoms I was experiencing, and they helped me to feel like there was hope for a solution.
How did your health, marriage, relationship or view of self change?
I finally began to understand the intricacy of how I was created. I had my eyes opened to all these little pieces working together every cycle to prepare for life. It was such a beautiful experience to value myself more than I ever had before.
What do you wish others knew about birth control?
Birth control can make the womb inhospitable to new life
I wish I had known first and foremost that hormonal birth control can be an abortifacient. Like many other women, I understand life begins at conception, but I wasn’t told the exact functions of how a birth control method works to make your body inhospitable to a baby and how if a baby is conceived, they are unable to remain in your uterus. It broke my heart to learn this and feel like I had been lied to for so many years by medical providers that I had trusted.
Birth control can impact the body long-term
I also wish that I had known the lasting effects that the birth control pill would have on my body. When I began charting, I had only one or two days of cervical mucus per cycle, which is a clear sign that something in my body wasn’t quite right. The birth control I had taken for five years had actually damaged my cervical crypts, and I was unable to produce cervical mucus (which is needed to achieve a pregnancy). This ended up being a contributing factor to my infertility journey after I eventually got married.
If someone had told me this when I was fifteen years old that my long term ability to conceive would be affected by taking birth control, I never would have begun taking it. This is why I am passionate about educating not only young girls, but their parents as well, about the truth and dangers of hormonal birth control.
What do you wish more girls and women knew about natural family planning/fertility awareness methods?
We may think that we can just hit the “easy” button and prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution, a Band Aid approach to any women’s healthcare issue. Instead, we are creating a culture where girls are not valuing their bodies, women are not active participants in their reproductive care, and couples are sold lies about their fertility. Women deserve better, and I’m so appreciative that fertility appreciation methods exist to create a cultural change!
