I had been feeling nauseous, fatigued, and out of sorts, and it wasn’t going away like being sick usually does. I told a coworker at my office, and she said, “Maybe you’re pregnant!” I thought, *ding!* “What if I am?” As I thought more and more about my symptoms, it seemed to make sense, especially since my last period never really happened. It was all spotting and I never even used a pad.
I took a home pregnancy test on Saturday, December 15th and it was a strong positive. I couldn’t believe it. I threw the stick away, but kept fishing it out of the garbage to look at it again. Finally I just kept it on the counter so I could see it any time I wanted. The evidence was there, but it took a while to sink in.
On Monday I called my OB-GYN and got a prescription for pre-natal vitamins. I also went to the lab to have my blood drawn to confirm the results of the pee test. On Tuesday a nurse called me to tell me I was definitely pregnant, and perhaps even more pregnant than I thought. I had been thinking that we conceived around Thanksgiving, but perhaps it was earlier in the month. Today, Thursday, I have an appointment for an intravaginal ultrasound to help determine more exactly the age of the pregnancy.
K and I hadn’t been trying to conceive, but on the other hand we had talked about starting a family and had been, as a rule, very careless about using reliable methods of birth control. While the news came as a surprise and even a shock, it was very easy to see how this could have happened.
Telling people has been interesting. It makes it feel more real, and more exciting, for people to know about the pregnancy. At this point we have told our families, coworkers, and close friends by phone, and announced it to the world via gmail chat, livejournal and facebook.
I do have to say, though, that there are a lot of things about being pregnant that I already don’t like. Our culture has a lot of bad ideas about what it means to be pregnant. I have known that I am pregnant for all of six days, and already I have a long list:
- Pregnant women should eat whatever their bodies tell them to; their bodies know what they really need.
- When you are pregnant, your body is not your own any more.
- Being pregnant means that you need to follow a strict regimen of diet and exercise, and if you don’t, your baby will suffer.
- Pregnant women don’t know what is best for themselves, and need experts to tell them.
People blithely make the most insensitive comments. I’m sure I’ll have more to report on the subject.
January 2, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I am curious as to what methods of birth control you think of as unreliable. I am not ready for a pregnancy, but I dislike condoms and consider them unreliable. I am about to get a diaphragm, but I am worried that it too will be none too reliable. Also I dislike hormones and don’t want to use the pill/patch/shot/ring etc.
January 2, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Planned Parenthood’s website lists the following effectiveness rates for various methods of birth control:
100% – Abstinence and Outercourse (perfect use)
97% – The Shot (typical use)
90% – The Pill (typical use, perfect use is 99%)
85% – Condom (typical use, perfect use is 98%)
85% – Diaphragm (typical use, perfect use is 94%)
80% – Fertility Awareness Method (typical use, perfect use is 99%)
70% – Withdrawal (typical use, perfect use is 96%)
70% – Spermicide without condom (typical use, perfect use is 85%)
When we got pregnant, Kelly and I were using the withdrawal method, and frankly not with great commitment. Before that, I was using the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), which I enjoyed and found to be very effective. Once I had charted my temperature and cervical mucus for a few months, it was clear to me when I was ovulating and we should use condoms. The reason I stopped using this method was that my basal thermometer would run out of batteries really quickly, and I would never have extra batteries, meaning my chart would have blank spots and I couldn’t use it for the month. I also didn’t like that the responsibility for birth control was all on me. (I know, I know, it’s always on the woman. Stupid patriarchy funneling money away from male birth control.) The FAM books all say that this is one of the few methods that can be collaborative because a couple can fill out and interpret the chart together, but Kelly wasn’t interested in charting with me.
FAM is very effective when used consistently, so if you have the motivation you will want to check out the FAM omnibus, Taking Charge of Your Fertility.
I’ve never used a diaphragm. Let me know what it’s like!
January 3, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Yeah, it really is a shame that there are barely any birth control methods for men besides the condom and a vasectomy. And the only methods for women are hormonal (and they’re all the same hormones, what mess you up), barrier or keep-track-of-stuff-y, which I don’t really trust myself to do very well. Once you take out hormonal options, there’s really not a lot of appealing options left.
I’ve spent more time researching birth control at this point than I spent looking for colleges…and they all, disappointingly, seem to have the same information with little new insight. Looking at those statistics from Planned Parenthood freak me out, esp. when you look at average use, and figure that and 85% success rate means that out of 100 women using it, 15 will become pregnant. That seems like a LOT to me.
January 3, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I couldn’t find the statistic for the “effectiveness” of using no birth control. I have heard that unless a couple fails to become pregnant after a whole year of trying, they are not considered infertile. So I wonder what the chance of pregnancy is for just using nothing.
When you think that the percentage of women who experience difficulty getting pregnant or carrying the baby is about 12% (gotten off an unreliable website), the spread seems much worse. Like, using nothing is 12% effective, using barriers is 70-85% effective, using pay-attention-y methods is anywhere from 75-99% effective, and using hormones can be 97% effective. It’s clear what is most effective, but the SIDE EFFECTS! Hormones are no small thing, I can tell ya, from all the nausea.
I wonder how they can create those statistics since people have such different patterns and amounts of sex. Maybe it doesn’t matter?