Tell Me Your Story
Tell me a story. Tell me your story about how you value the life of the pre-born and sacrifice to ensure that you have done your part to avoid preventable miscarriage. Please tell me about how you really care for others in the earliest stages of life.
. . .
As a teen I was surrounded by pro-life friends. We all “knew” that the pill was evil because it caused abortions, and we would never choose abortion in any form. When it came to the logical ramifications of supporting nascent life though, I was all alone. I sometimes poked fun at myself for my beliefs. If I drank a carbonated caffeinated cornsyrupated beverage I might declare that I could not have sex for at least five years to give my body time to cleanse itself and not risk harming my baby. My friends could roll their eyes at my hyperbole, but I not-so-secretly believed the assumptions behind most of my own jokes.
As an adult I am surprised to realize that not much has changed. I still have an inordinate amount of pro-life friends, and when it comes to the pre-born, none of my pro-life friends seem to care about much beyond direct abortions and the hypothetical tendency of the pill to increase the chance of miscarriage.
This does not usually concern me, because I recognize that we’re all in different places and I have enough of my own issues to worry about. But it boggles my mind when people start talking about the supposed abortifacient aspects of the pill without giving any attention to the very real issues that we have things like, oh you know, studies to support. The pill=abortion view is an unsubstantiated hypothesis, but we know that changing the way we eat, the chemicals to which we are exposed, the medicines we take for headaches, changing these things does have an impact on whether an embryo lives or dies.
So I ask you to tell me your stories. You can go anon in the comments. You can email me your story as a guest post. Use whatever form you like, but please tell me about how you care about protecting new life.
Tell me about how you suffer through incredible backaches because you would never dream of taking an anti-inflammatory drug. Tell me about how you always abstain for months when weaning your babies because you would could not live with yourself for having sex when you knew that it is highly unlikely that your first luteal phase would be adequate to sustain pregnancy, should you conceive from your first ovulation. Tell me about how you avoid all home remedies unless you first extensively research their safety for the early stages of pregnancy. Tell me about how you urge your friends to reconsider their jobs which require exposure to chemicals which damage reproductive organs and thus lead to increased rates of miscarriage.
Tell me your story. Show me that it isn’t just about a love for the shock value of claiming that the pill causes abortion. Tell me about how you actually care about young life and preventing miscarriage.
I refrain from diet/soft drinks during the first trimester.
I have had to supplement with synthetic progesterone (Prometrium). And I have had to take shots in my bum of progesterone because my body doesn’t make enough to get through the first trimester.
Even when the chance is low that I have become pregnant, I test if there’s even the possibility about 3 days before my period is due to make sure I don’t need to get into the doc for progesterone level check. And I follow my doctor’s recommendations for medicine (Tylenol is okay, Advil and Ibuprofen are not)
I am probably not the person you hoped to hear from though as I have not experienced the pain of a loss of a baby in the early stages of gestation. But those are some things I do/have done.
This is a great comment! I was directing the post at everyone who cared (though, I guess, especially women). I really like the fact that you test even when the possibility of pregnancy is low. It bothered me that a few of the progesterone regimens I encountered actually set women up to allow ovulation and then risk miscarriage if they weren’t careful about knowing for certain that they were *not* pregnant prior to completing that cycle of pills.
I didn’t take medication of any kind while I was pregnant. I know that there are several medications that are considered “safe” during pregnancy by the medical community, but I just didn’t trust them. How many medications are considered “safe” at one point only to find out years later about the harm they actually caused?
I will admit that I had a very healthy and mostly pain-free pregnancy, but I spent the last few months unable to sleep because of severe heartburn, but I wouldn’t even take a tums. Unless I had a medical problem that had to be treated (that couldn’t be suffered through), won’t take any medication during pregnancy. The baby’s life and health is too much to risk.
While I don’t like the idea of pregnant women suffering needlessly, that is an excellent point about medications being considered safe, only to later be removed from the market because they caused horrific birth defects etc.
And thank you for pointing this out. I feel like “pro-life” only means anti-abortion, not the support of life.
I can tell you the story of our twinnies. When I was newly pregnant with our twinnies I had gone to bed very early and was awaken a few hours later by intense pain in my side/stomach/lady parts. My hubby and I were concerned that I might be having an ectopic pregnancy. We rush to the hospital and learned that it was gall bladder and that we were carrying twins!
It was suggested that I have my gall bladder removed but I chose to not have it and went with eating very healthfully and waiting until the babies were born before I did anything that drastic to them and me.
That is such an intense way to find out that you were pregnant with twins! And I’m glad that you were able to adjust your diet to work things out for all involved.
When I first read your post, I thought you were asking for stories where women NEVER take ANY ibuprofen or drink diet colas because they might get pregnant SOMEDAY. I was going to say, who is THAT careful? as I sip on a diet Coke…and contemplate taking ibuprofen for sinus pain…
I am on a bunch of meds right now for a variety of things; I want to get off of them before TTC, but first, I need to get healthier (with the meds and in other ways). My GYN is a joke, she’s like “meh, there are ways to get you PG even if you’re still really really overweight” and “don’t worry about this med, or that one, or that one because the risks are pretty low.” She’s more worried about my age (almost 32) and me NEVER getting pregnant, versus me getting healthier.
WHO SAYS THIS??? Granted, she’s a CNM, not an MD but jeez. I was surprised to hear her say this at my annual this year. I know I have to balance my age with my health, when it comes to when to TTC, but I don’t know, it threw me as a little bit irresponsible. I don’t want to harm my baby, no matter how “young” s/he is in the womb. There’s enough crap in the environment that could harm a fetus as is.
My endocrinologist is AWESOME and wants me off everything for 3-6 months before TTC, to get me nice and clean. AND lose weight. I’m happy I have her, even though, if I have issues and need low-level treatment, she’s not a reproductive endocrinologist.
Ha, no! I don’t think that women actually need to avoid all painkillers and soda… I just would expect that if all the people who are concerned about the pill “causing abortions” are actually concerned about life, they must have a lot of really impressive stories about what they do to protect potential life.
And it so bothers me that everyone seems to overlook the importance of being a healthy weight prior to pregnancy. I am overweight and no one, absolutely no one, has so much as hinted about the issue of me getting in shape before pregnancy, even when they were counseling pregnancy ASAP.
One of the things that I really liked about some NaPro doctors is that they theorize that the older you are, the more important it is for you to take a few months to maximize health prior to TTC. That way you can minimize the risks that come with age, rather than pushing ahead and going through a lot of unnecessary heartache. That sounds like your plan and it makes me very glad to hear it! And thank goodness you have at least one good doctor!
You are wise to consider. I am overweight, but not nearly as overweight as I was before my first pregnancy. It is difficult to get through pregnancy, labor and delivery with extra 20-50 pounds that are not related to pregnancy.
Someone with whom I am very close told me this, besides my endocrinologist. Everyone else is all la la la, bury your head…I think it’s horribly irresponsible of ANY medical professional to NOT counsel a woman on weight loss prior to TTC. ALL the books and articles say to do so.
I say it’s because these drs want you to take advantage of costly fertility treatments, which of course are against church teaching. I dont know how far I’d personally go, but I wouldn’t do IVF.
If I was “too old” for pregnancy, I’d rather adopt and be healthy for the children I raise and love, versus spending my 40s chasing down a dream that might not come true. But that’s just me.
Wow, so it’s doctors all over the place then? Interesting…and sad. Especially when babies born to overweight moms often have more health problems than babies born to normal weight moms.
What the NaPro drs say makes a LOT of sense. And honestly I wouldn’t begin to worry until I was, say, 36 and I wasn’t pregnant yet. Sometimes I wish I’d gotten married/had kids much younger, but hey, life is funny like that!
When I was researching all of the symptoms I was having and I also found out that I could have been killing tiny tiny babies for years I was literally sick to my stomach. And honestly it was one of the many things that shoved me from the “pro-life for myself, but who I am to tell someone else what to do” camp into the unashamedly pro-life from natural conception to natural death camp.
SO, as we’ve been TTC, each month during the 2WW I drink lots of water, avoid caffeine (as much as possible, I don’t think a cup of tea in the mornings is bad), and avoid medications. I struggle with UTIs, so a few months I’ve had to take antibiotics during the 2WW and I worry the entire time. Mostly because I know I need the antibiotics or else I’ll end up with a kidney infection, but the ‘what if’ is always there.
Avoid alcohol as soon as soon as we are actively seeking a pregnancy. Avoid caffeine during the first months and limit throughout, but since I can’t take any migraine medication I opt for a little caffeine in the 2nd & 3rd trimester.
And as you posted we abstented until the current nursling partially weaned.
This is interesting because at the moment I find myself surrounding by fanatical health nuts who do, in fact, believe one ought to exercise and stay thin and eat only organic and healthy and definitely eat no refined sugar in any form whatsoever while preg. (and preferrably when not). It all seems rather extreme and oppressive, to tell the truth.
What is more mystifying is that I don’t hear anyone talking about how important mental health is for mama ONCE the baby(ies) is (are) born. It’s very much a: “We’re healthy in body, therefore we need to be open to life.” The fifth, sixth, seventh time in as many years.
And I think: What about finances? What about the health of a marriage? What about mama’s overall wellbeing (not just the sugar thing)?
It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just I don’t hear it spoken of and I find that strange.
Here’s one I just learned – lube kills sperm motility. On the bottle it says “not a spermicide” so I figured it was okay (since we have to use the stuff or things just don’t…go). Turns out, it stops them swimmin’. I guess they’re more worried about a lawsuit from an unexpected pregnancy than unexpected infertility. Grrr. Canola oil is fine though.
But if the idea behind NFP is that you are open to pregnancy at any time, you know, in case you ovulate irregularly, shouldn’t women avoid alcohol, OTCs, caffeine, prescriptions all the time?
Uh, you sound brainwashed. Get some help.