The first time I almost died, it was a surprise. I woke up on a Saturday morning and did a double take at my reflection. Did my left leg look… purple? I phoned my mom, who’d recently had a superficial blood clot caused by hormonal birth control. What she described, an isolated area of hot red skin, didn’t sound like what I was seeing. I called my doctor, who advised an immediate trip to the ER. Then I called my future mother-in-law for a ride; her son was borrowing my car. By the time she arrived ten minutes later, I barely made it down the three flights of stairs from my apartment; the swelling and pain in my leg were so overwhelming.
I started taking hormonal birth control when I was 13, and took it off-and-on in the years following. I suffered terrible pain from endometriosis, and took to my bed monthly with a heating pad to escape. Birth control made the pain better, but even in combination with pain killers I still missed school and athletic practices often. Thankfully, I was a good student, so my absences didn’t matter much.
Even in college, when I converted to the Catholic faith and stopped taking contraceptives for religious reasons, missing a few classes on a monthly basis didn’t impact my performance all that much. But as I graduated, it dawned on me that as an employee, missing one or two days of work a month wasn’t going to win me any awards. I’d be lucky just to hold down a job under those circumstances.
I tried a few of the stronger painkillers; one made me too drowsy to work, another brand made me too nauseous. A coworker even spread rumors that I was coming to work hungover after I threw up one morning. So, I started the Pill again.
Hormonal birth control contributed to my DVT
Less than a month after restarting the Pill, my mother-in-law was driving me to the ER, where I found myself having a thrombectomy to remove the deep venous thrombosis (DVT) causing my purple left leg. I also had a temporary inferior vena cava (IVC) filter inserted into my chest, which was removed 6 months later. The filter sat like an opened umbrella in the major vein that returns blood from the lower half of my body to my heart, to prevent bits of the DVT breaking off and migrating to my lungs (which would have caused a pulmonary embolism) or heart (which would have caused a heart attack). I spent Valentine’s Day that year in the hospital relearning to walk on the leg that had clotted.
I eventually discovered that the cause of my DVT had been a perfect storm of anatomical, genetic, and pharmaceutical factors. After testing, I found out that I have not one, not two, but three genetic markers that increase clotting risk. Genetics, contraceptives, and a nine-to-five desk job put me over the edge risk-wise, and a clot formed, causing a roadblock in my blood flow. The major vein in my left leg collapsed under the weight of my artery; all the blood was flowing in, and none could get out.
Hormonal birth control use is off the table for me, permanently
My conditions and history of a DVT mean that any type of hormonal treatment is contraindicated for me. Contraceptives are out forever.
When my husband and I became engaged about a year after the clot, we began learning the Creighton Method, an evidence-based fertility awareness method (FAM) that we hoped would not only help us plan our family, but might also provide a path to relief from the debilitating pain I experienced with each monthly cycle. After just a few cycles, a NaProTechnology doctor correctly identified endometriosis from a moment’s glance at my Creighton chart. I had a laparoscopic procedure to officially confirm the diagnosis and to remove endometriosis tissue, and since then, ibuprofen and a little heat are all I need to manage my periods each month.
I developed more blood clots, this time during pregnancy
The second time I almost died was not from contraceptives, but from pregnancy itself. During my second pregnancy, I felt a burning sensation in my left lung. When I began coughing up blood, I drove myself to the ER, praying all the way. If it was what I thought, there was a very real chance I could die.
After a rush to radiology for a CT scan confirming the presence of bilateral pulmonary embolisms (clots in both my lungs), I stayed in the hospital to receive IV Heparin for a few days before being released home on a twice daily dose of Lovenox injections (a prescription anticoagulant) into my abdominal skin. Several months later, we welcomed a healthy baby boy via an uncomplicated, unmedicated vaginal delivery.
I’m a poor candidate for hormonal birth control use- and I’m far from the exception
Some people like to pretend that opposition to contraceptives is always politically or religiously motivated, but I’m proof that this is not always the case. The evidence speaks for itself. I am so grateful to Natural Womanhood for the work they do to share the real risks of contraceptives; women need to be able to make informed decisions for themselves. The only way this is possible is if they have access to the kinds of data that the FDA and pharmaceutical companies seem to be suppressing, and about which OBs don’t provide enough education to patients.
When I share my story with friends, family, and even some medical professionals, I am often met with suspicion. They seem to believe that I am a rare exception, and that my case doesn’t represent a real risk to the general population of women at large. If hormonal contraceptives were dangerous, they would have heard about it from someone other than the Catholics by now, right?
And honestly, I don’t blame them; I was them all those many years ago when I began placing a hormonal contraceptive patch on my skin weekly at the age of 13. The only person in my life warning me of risks was my Catholic school religion teacher. She couldn’t be right if my mother and my doctor were both telling me this medication was safe.
If the risks of hormonal contraceptives and benefits of fertility awareness and NaProTechnology were made more widely available, perhaps I could have avoided all those years of monthly debilitation from undiagnosed, untreated endometriosis. If women were routinely screened for risky blood clotting disorders prior to the prescription of drugs that might have serious side effects (including death), perhaps I might not have woken up to a life-threatening emergency that Saturday morning.
Insurance coverage of fertility awareness instruction is on the chopping block
Earlier this year, Natural Womanhood reported on the current Presidential Administration’s attempts to remove insurance coverage for FAMs by the end of the 2022 calendar year. Thankfully, the Alliance Defending Freedom was able to persuade a federal court to block the Administration’s attempt to eliminate this coverage, while a lawsuit filed against the motion proceeds. However, the fight is far from over.
If the lawsuit is ultimately unsuccessful and this Administration is allowed to eliminate coverage for FAMs, this will be a blow not only for women with religious convictions like mine, but also for women with medical conditions like mine. For women like me, FAMs are among the best options for spacing births or avoiding pregnancy. That isn’t political; it’s just good healthcare.
For an Administration that claims to promote “choices” for women, it seems a strange move to narrow the range of options women have for monitoring their fertility, diagnosing ailments, and healing the root causes of infertility. Removing coverage of natural options that work with women’s fertility while simultaneously insisting that private companies provide contraceptive coverage and working to codify a national right to abortion serves only to protect the choices of women who wish to avoid motherhood–and only in a way that puts dollars back into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies. Women like me who either object to contraception on moral grounds or who cannot avail themselves of hormonal treatments for medical reasons have been sidelined in the discussion about “what is good for women.”
Authentic women’s healthcare should address the needs of all women. Women should not be coerced into risky medical treatments because of financial or logistical challenges.
Editor’s Note, from an email to Natural Womanhood supporters sent on December 29th, 2022: On Tuesday, Dec 6, a federal court issued an order restoring fertility awareness-based methods of family planning to health insurance plans nationwide! Thanks to the indomitable Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), millions of women and couples who rely upon insurance to afford fertility awareness instruction and assistance will still retain coverage—despite the Biden Administration’s shameful, illegal attempt to eliminate it on the sly. Natural Womanhood is proud of the small part we played in bringing about this victory, as we strove to bring light to an issue that foes of FAM wanted to keep shrouded in darkness. From consulting with ADF at the outset of the case, to writing about the issue for the NW site and other outlets, to giving interviews on the case, our goal was, as always, to bring clarity and light to these important issues in women’s healthcare.
Additional Reading:
Should you put your teenage daughter on hormonal birth control?
Blood clots and hormonal birth control
“The Business of Birth Control” Review
FAM Basics: What is a Fertility Awareness Method, and how do you start charting with a FAM?
