I was fourteen when I finally got my period, a flurry of excitement brought on by far too many readings of Judy Blume’s beloved Are You There, God? Margaret, it’s me. Menstruation was marketed in junior high health class as the gift that would unlock the door to motherhood, making the cramps, bleeding, and missed pool parties completely worthwhile.
However, I perceived menstruation as akin to a ticking time bomb, a fuse that my body ignited each month. I tried not to get pregnant for the next 38 years.
Many people, including my friends and relatives, have spent years trying to get pregnant. However, I’ve known since high school that I didn’t want kids because I knew they would laugh at me for having children at such a young age. Although it has defined my life, I didn’t start discussing it until a few years ago when I was producing a documentary titled “My So-Called Selfish Life.” After speaking with other people, I came to the startling conclusion that, merely by not using my reproductive system as intended, I had been fighting it for decades.
My first form of contraception was self-imposed abstinence, primarily due to my fear of becoming pregnant. I was an awkward, nerdy teenager with few opportunities, which helped, but occasionally, I was approached by people. I don’t regret not being a parent, but I do regret being so shy around sex when I was a 19-year-old backpacker in Europe and didn’t accept that flirtatious Australian dude’s offer.
At 23, I had my first sexual experience completely unprepared. My casual date assumed that, by now, I would be an experienced user of contraception and a seasoned sex-haver. This was just the first letdown of the evening for him.But despite the lack of protection, he seemed happy to put his unsheathed penis into my vagina, and I said fine, because, well, Let’s just get this virginity thing over with. It was my first, but certainly not my last, encounter with men’s lack of interest in bearing some of the burden of potential childbearing.
I emerged from the liaison unfertilized, which is miraculous (maybe because I wasn’t in an after-school special where every act of first sex ends in pregnancy). I started taking the pill the very next week when I went for my first-ever gynecologist appointment. I quickly started to experience some of the potential side effects, including weight gain, headaches, and a slight increase in blood pressure.
Positively, after four uneventful days, my period, which had been so dreadfully heavy and long that I was diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia, reduced to a trickle.
The best part, though, was that I felt in charge of both my life and my body. I always made sure to have my pink compact with me so I could take my medication at the same time every day.
Still, taking oral contraception did not prevent me from panicking when something seemed amiss. I had my first pregnancy scare in my late 20s, when my period was over a week late, despite still being on the pill. Even though my home pregnancy test came back negative, I didn’t think it was true until I started getting my period a week later. Ironically, the thing whose arrival I most celebrated was also the thing I detested the most.
For my documentary, I spoke with a 21-year-old college student named Lauren, who told me that she used to test positive for pregnancy even though she wasn’t sexually active for extended periods of time because she was so worried about getting pregnant. When I first met her, she was already two years into building a case to get her fallopian tubes tied or removed. (These procedures can be more difficult for younger or child-free women to obtain, as some doctors worry that you’ll change your mind.)
By my late 30s, after 15 years on the pill, my blood pressure had reached dangerous heights, but every time my gynecologist told me to go off the pill, I refused. Birth control pills that contain estrogen, especially at higher dosages, have the potential to elevate blood pressure in certain individuals, increasing the risk of heart disease or stroke. She gave me a blood pressure cuff to take home and instructed me to check it daily. I didn’t stop taking the pill until I was forty years old. I realized that my blood pressure was too high, but more than anything, I was sick of always being the only one with birth control.
Now it was my partners’ turn to take responsibility. Over the years, I had heard so many excuses from guys who didn’t want to put on a condom, like it didn’t feel as good, or it killed the mood. They wrapped up nicely when I stopped taking the pill, and I kept the last pill compact I didn’t use as a memento.
I became dependent on condoms and my aging ovaries as I eased into my 40s.Sure enough, one day I found myself sitting on the toilet seat waiting for a little stick to tell me if I was pregnant or not. As time crawled by, I thought about where I’d go for an abortion: The clinic in New York City where I regularly escorted women past half a dozen protesters from a nearby Catholic church. As they offered prayers, they pressed pamphlets full of inaccuracies into the hands of these young women, telling them their grandmothers were ashamed of them. Even though my test was negative, I continued to work as an escort until the clinic completely stopped performing abortions.
Many women who don’t want children can rattle off a list of things people have accused them of being: selfish, immoral, cold, greedy, unable to experience real love—just to name a few. However, I have never found the name-calling or the threats of dying alone or with regrets for the rest of my life to be the worst part.
Rather, it’s been witnessing the erosion of my right to access reproductive health care right before my eyes. Individuals who have access to contraception, voluntary sterilization, and abortion can make their own decisions at their own pace, regardless of their desire to have children. The patriarchy is seriously threatened by such misbehavior, especially since many of us childless women have more free time to subvert it.
My ovaries faithfully released their eggs for more than 38 years. Then the bleeding stopped in the spring of my fifty-second year. Fortunately, menopause was the cause of this scare instead of another pregnancy. Menopause can make some women feel as though a chapter in their lives has ended, but for me, it was a relief and a wave of happiness. My societal usefulness as a woman was defined by the long arc of presumed fertility, and I always fought against it. I could finally unwind.
I wouldn’t have had much control over the operation of my reproductive system if I had lived 100 years ago. But now that I do, I want to say it out loud how appreciative I am that I was able to choose not to have children and how happy I am that I no longer have to spend energy maintaining that decision. The menopausal woman is the most creative force in the world, according to anthropologist Margaret Mead. And I want to take full advantage of it.