Or in other words, hormones are an incredibly finicky part of the body.
When you get married, most doctors assume you want to go on birth control (if you can pay for it, which is another topic for a different day), but in some instances, doctors prescribe birth control to help with erratic or heavy periods. I was in the exception category and was put on birth control to help with my heavy and fairly painful periods in August of 2009. There was one particular month where I was curled up in the fetal position on the floor, holding my legs as hard as I could and in tears for about twenty minutes because it hurt so bad. No girl wants to experience such pain, and the idea of taking a pill to make it disappear sounded like a great deal.
I'm not sure what everyone else does, but I like reading the instruction pamphlets all the way through, so I read about all the different affects it has, but somehow it didn't click that it could happen to me. I had no idea how much the medication affected me until after I went off of it. I feel so bad for Steve, I was a wreck! Ok, maybe not quite a wreck, but it was amazing how much birth control exacerbated my anxiety. It was also interesting how the anxiety was expressed in different ways over the years (including hair loss, and that was awful!). One of the more consistent symptoms I had was a fear of sleeping. It sounds strange, but there have been many nights that I have kept myself awake simply because of the anxiety I felt about the next day. I knew the next day would come no matter if I slept or not, but I wanted to prolong the day from coming for as long as possible.
As you read in the last post, on Mother's Day I decided to become a mom, and it just so happened that it was the last day before I was to start my next cycle of birth control. It's amazing how God's sense of timing seems to work out so perfectly even when we can only see that from the rear view mirror. As the days went by, I found myself going back to normal even though I had no idea I was off balance.
The biggest symptom I was facing was problems with sex (both physical and emotional). Yes, I just said that out loud for people to read. Right from the beginning, sex was not what it was supposed to be for us, and it was incredibly hard trial to overcome. I became very ambivalent towards sex and wanted nothing to do with it (since it was at best uncomfortable and at worst incredibly painful), but I knew it meant a lot to Steve so I just sort of gritted my teeth and tried to tough it out. I think Steve understood much better than I did how such intimacy is meant to bring a couple together, and while I was ready to accept the situation as "just the way things are," he was always hoping that we could find a solution. This meant plenty of doctor's visits despite my stubbornness. At one point time the doctors thought I had endometriosis and one recommended I go on a treatment that would induce a menopausal state for 3-4 months. If a normal prescription of birth control screwed me up, image what THAT chemical imbalance would have done!! I opted to get a second opinion and much preferred his option of doing exploratory surgery to see if there actually was anything wrong. That was last summer, and all we learned was that I was perfectly healthy, though my somewhat large veins into my ovaries were the source of my menstrual pain (really, the one thing about me that has to be abnormally large are veins? Talk about bad luck...). On the plus side, I did find a really great doctor that I appreciate and is probably the best gynecologist I have had. Over the past three years I've had five different people assigned to me, and it's nice to finally have found someone who knows how to be professional and treat me like an adult.
So we let things be, but like I said, as soon as I went off the birth control, my anxiety went away, and for the first time in my married life, I got to experience how sex is supposed to be enjoyed because my body could relax properly. It amazed me that the answer was so simple and right in front of us the whole time. Poor Steve didn't know what to think after that first week, I was a completely different girl than he was used to working with. I think the nicest part is how much closer I feel to Steve because of it. He tries so hard to make me happy, and this trial had been just as hard on him as it had been on me. Knowing that we can fulfill the needs of each other has brought a warmth into our relationship that hadn't quite been there before.
Needless to say, I'm very glad Steve and I are trying to have a baby and can appreciate each other more fully. I also have no intention on trying any kind of hormonal birth control after having this baby, even if it means being knocked out for a day thanks to my horrid periods. Balance is a wonderful thing.
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