There Is No Wealth But Life

Welcome to Crazy Town

By Rae February 15, 2012 Endometriosis 2 Comments

A reader kindly inquired about whether I am certain that my post about thoughts on death and the pill was not just another example of my anti-pill egoistical self immolation. I told her that of course I cannot really be certain about such things, but regardless of the psychosis behind my thoughts in the night, my reason for posting such things is quite clear to me. Yet how can I explain my thinking when so many people have so little experience with the uber-anti-pill crowd?

I cannot show you the world in which I grew up. I cannot introduce you to my virgin friend who was afraid to take the pill for health reasons because she worried that she just might get raped, and then the pill would kill her baby.

But I can give you a few links, if only you will promise to not ask me why on earth I read such insanity (I have good reasons, I promise!). Promise? Okay, let me show you a whole new world!

Oh wait. Not that type of new world! Let’s try this again.

Check out this post, but mostly read the comments. These women are so incredibly confident that there is no good reason to ever take the pill, and that doing so is so dangerous that no woman could reasonably choose to take the risk. And sometimes reading such comments almost makes me wish I could return to the place where I was also that confident.

There is no way that I can convince these women, but at least I can put an alternate view out there. They expect me to be horrified at the idea of increasing my chances of death in ten or twenty years. I live in a world where when I am tired and confused and think I may die immediately it still does not occur to me to regret taking the pill.

And check out this post:

If you have no period, SOMETHING IS WRONG! If you think you have a period on the pill, think again. What you are experiencing is a withdraw from the drugs you have been taking the rest of the month. Are you really okay with just taking a pill instead of dealing with the issue at hand?

Hormone issues & acne – Read the fine print that comes with your beloved pill. You have got to be ridiculously stupid if you think that low doses of the pill is going to fix your hormonal problem!

Painful Periods-more then likely you have endometriosis. AND if you think that the pill is going to take away the lesions that invade your pelvis, think again. You will be a slave to the pill til the day you die. But a surgery that excises the endo will take away your pain.

That is kind of outrageous, right? But here’s the thing: when I read such posts I don’t automatically think “this is insane!” Instead I start tearing it apart analytically, as if it were somehow rational enough to be worth actual thought.

I don’t stress myself by reading too much of this stuff. But it is still a part of my world enough that I cannot escape it entirely.

And that is why I feel the need to post such random, rambling thoughts about the pill. Sometimes I just need to give Josh a break from listening to me talk about how no one actually cares about women’s health, or the preborn, or logic, or the Church’s teaching. And you, my dear blog, are the very best replacement for talking off Josh’s ear.

Aren’t you glad you don’t live in my world of crazy pill-fearing women who can’t comprehend a reality painful enough to justify the pill?

Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils

By Rae February 11, 2012 Endometriosis 4 Comments

Last night I woke up to a horrible cramp in my left leg. As I tried to make it stop I reflected with severe negativity on the magnesium I recently started taking before bed as a part of my ongoing “I really hate the pill so let’s pretend we can fix everything with food even though food isn’t God” project. Because we all know that magnesium pills count as food rather than pills. Right?

Anyway, my thought was that the magnesium must have messed with my calcium : magnesium ratio and caused the cramping. Hey, I had just woken from a sound sleep to surprising pain, forgive me if my logic isn’t exactly sound.

But as I stood by the bed and the worst of the cramping stopped I realized that there was still a distinct very localized pain in my calf. The sort of pain that I have only heard about in association with blood clots. Death was my next thought, so I immediately prayed a “Jesus, I love you, I’m sorry” sort of prayer and sat down to try to determine the best course of action.

I thought about the fact that bed rest/lack of activity increases the chance of blood clots and how I had been especially sedentary yesterday, so presumably lying in bed was part of what had caused the clot to form. But I also remembered something about how blood clots in the legs are most dangerous because they break off, and wasn’t the best outcome for it to dissolve, and maybe that would be most likely to happen if I avoided much movement?

I was very tired and uncertain and not in the mood to turn on the computer since I was pretty sure that I’d researched all of this before, and if I couldn’t remember anything useful at a time like this, it was probably pointless to try to search for more information.

So I laid back down and told Josh that I might have a blood clot and that if I died or were mentally incapacitated that I loved him. Then I thought about how that was a silly thing to say since I loved him even if I was alive and well, but I was too tired to correct myself. Josh asked if we should call a doctor, and I told him that I didn’t think so. Either I was going to live or die and there was no way for a triage nurse to tell if it was really a blood clot over the phone, so we’d have to go to the emergency room, perhaps over nothing, or perhaps walking up the stairs to the car would cause the clot to break loose whereas I might be just fine in bed.

In any case, I would be well, so I fell asleep thinking about Josh and how I hoped that if there were an issue I would die rather than being incapacitated because I did not want him to have to deal with that.

The spot in my leg still hurt some this morning, but I wasn’t concerned since I felt rather alive. Josh asked again if we should seek something resembling professional medical help, but I am not a fan of wasting medical resources over potential neuroses. We reasoned that it could have just been a spasm that somehow hurt that one spot in my leg.

But of course I am still aware of the fact that I had been taking 3rd Gen progestin and this could be an indication of a problem. I have been needing to switch to different formulation anyway, so it seemed reasonable to discontinue use until I got a new prescription.

This sort of story would make me incredibly upset when I heard it in the context of a woman suppressing ovulation for the sake of contraception. How could they risk their lives for “consequence-free” sex? How could their husbands dare pretend to “love” them while asking them to risk their lives for the mere purpose of avoiding barrier methods or abstinence?

It still bothers me to think about women facing unnecessary risks for the purpose of suppressing their fertility. But I am much more relaxed about the absolute risks themselves.

I would never tell a woman that she should avoid pregnancy because pregnancy increases the risk of deadly blood clots. And I can’t tell myself that I should live in blurry pain because the thing that seems to help is to mimic pregnancy and thus risk blood clots, among other things.

I was raised in New Hampshire, where the state motto is “live free or die.” That just so happens to be the shortened version of “Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst of Evils.” I do not believe that artificial hormones used for contraception is freedom, quite the opposite, in fact. But I am still too much of a child of New Hampshire to live my life in fear of death.

I know that taking the pill increases my chances of dying from a blood clot, or cancer, or who knows what else. I also know that it increases my chances of living today.

I don’t want those who love me to lose me too soon, but the truth is that they have lost most of me already. So tomorrow I will call the doctor about starting yet another pill which will increase my chance of death, and hopefully, of life.

Tell Me Your Story

By Rae February 10, 2012 Life 17 Comments

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.

3.5 is half of 7

By Rae February 9, 2012 Happy Days No Comments

Each time I saw the date today I knew that it was significant but could not remember why. I knew why February 7th mattered, but February 9th? Nothing there.

Then Josh arrived home with a bag of what he proclaimed to be “an early Valentine’s present.” And soon I remembered what it is: today marks 3.5 years of marriage. Neither of us remembered. Both of us remembered in our own way.

I am keenly aware that people do not feel the same way on their seventh anniversary that they did on their wedding day. There is the whole “seven year itch” and dreadful divorce rates.

But it has been steadily uphill these 3.5 years, so I figure if it is all downhill for the next 3.5 that will put us exactly where we were on our wedding day. That is certainly miserable compared to today, but for goodness sake! I chose to marry the man!

The Pill, Me, and NOT the Catholic Church

By Rae February 7, 2012 Catholicism, Endometriosis 13 Comments

People generally accept that the Catholic Church is unreasonable, so they are shocked to find that she allows doctors to use scalpels to cut people! Can you believe that?! A Church which supposedly opposes physical mutilation has no objection to people being chopped up if they have a measly little excuse like surgery necessitated by disease.

Oh, no, wait. No one is shocked by that. Because as unreasonable as we may think the Church is, we know it isn’t really that crazy.

But somehow reproductive issues throw people into utter confusion about what the Church teaches. Let’s do a quick refresher:

The body is good
The natural reproductive system is a good part of the body
Deliberately suppressing any aspect of the reproductive system for the sake of being able to engage in sexual acts without the natural reproductive consequence (babies!) is bad
Pregnancy is not a disease

This does not mean that the Church teaches that disease is good or to be passively accepted as part of the good of the body. The body is good, disease is bad. We should do what we reasonably can to eliminate disease.

This holds true in the case of the reproductive system just as much as anywhere else in the body. And sometimes this means that the ultimate function of the reproductive system (reproduction, in case you were wondering) must be compromised in order to combat disease.

We are not supposed to run around cutting out Fallopian tubes or suppressing ovaries just for fun, but it is perfectly legitimate to do so if needed for therapeutic reasons. The Church stipulates that suppressing fertility to avoid pregnancy (which remember, is not a disease) can never count as therapeutic, but there is not a problem with fertility being hurt by treatment of a disease.

This rule holds true for all people–men and women, celibate and sexually active.

Because I went to the source of modern Catholic teaching on contraception from the very beginning, I have known that the pill is allowed for therapeutic reasons for as long as I have believed that contraception is significantly less than ideal.

I have many qualms about the pill, but none of them are religious.

Perhaps because I am a practicing Catholic people tend to assume that I feel guilty about the pill for Catholic reasons. I don’t.

In fact, almost a year ago I went to confession to deal with the issue that I was failing to live a good Christian life because I was avoiding the pill for selfish reasons. You read that right, I confessed my sin of not being on the pill. The priest hearing my confession was completely in line with the Church’s teaching on contraception etc. I won’t tell you all that he said, but I will tell you this–he is completely in line with the Church’s teaching. That means that his concern was for my underlying sin, and he left the specifics of medications to the doctors.

I made a deal with my conscience (I never make deals with God, that is too dangerous!) that I could stay off the pill for half a year as long as I spent that time pursuing alternatives. I did. They didn’t work.

So why am I concerned about being on the pill if there is no Catholic guilt involved? Because taking the pill is a sign of failing myself. I’m not failing God or the Church, I am failing me.

I don’t like the idea of suppressing my fertility, and I like the reality even less. I hate the thought of slowly poisoning myself. For so long I bought the story that somewhere out there was a natural cure. And it is distressing to read about women who were able to eradicate their pain with lifestyle changes such as taking vitamins and avoiding wheat and then get to the end of the list of the changes and see that this included taking the pill.

I cannot escape the nagging thought that somehow I am missing something I should be doing to heal myself. If only I found the magic supplement or quit my job and did yoga… if only… I would be able to function without the pill.

So there you have it. My aversion toward the pill has nothing to do with the Catholic Church, and everything to do with me.

Yoga and Children

By Rae February 3, 2012 Good to Know 1 Comment

Children are the orgasm of life.

Just like you did not know what an orgasm was before you had one, nature does not let you know how great children are until you have them.

-lululemon

Josh was rather shocked to learn that this is part of lululemon’s manifesto. Because who knew that yoga-loving earth-friendly liberals like children?

Oh wait, I knew that.

Support life. Babies are awesome.

Physical Food Budgeting

By Rae February 2, 2012 Food 7 Comments

I stink at the sort of budgets which are a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet somewhere. I especially stink at grocery budgets.

You see, grocery budgets never exist alone. They always exist in columns (or envelopes, or whatever) right next to another column. And that means you can take money from the other column to spend on groceries. Yay! More groceries! Less gas and laundry detergent!

Ehem. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that traditional grocery budgets are a challenge for me.

So I use a more, um, physical budget. I only buy what I can carry.

Rather than having Josh carry groceries I make him take pictures of me holding my grocery box. Smart, right?

You know my second-favorite grocery store in the whole world, Aldi? That purveyor of fine savings where they cut costs by charging for grocery bags? Well, I learned as a child that one should never, never pay for grocery bags.

Of course this is sort of a joke since half the stores we visit are in DC where they “tax” rather than “charge” for grocery bags, but still. All eco-friendly feelings aside, one must not pay for grocery bags. It is simply a rule. Sure, it is a rule which everyone else seems to ignore, but it is a rule nonetheless.

So when I go to Aldi I grab a large box and then carry all chosen items around in it. Of course I could technically put the box into a grocery cart (if I wanted to give Aldi the use of a $0.25 interest free loan for the course of my shopping adventure!) but that would cause problems. You see, if I have a cart, then suddenly my box overflows and becomes to heavy for me to lug around after I return the cart.

Josh claims that I could take the fully laden cart to the car, move the items in the box to the car, drive home, walk empty-handed into the apartment and announce to him that he must bring in the groceries. But that is silly. I couldn’t do that.

Besides, if I did? I’d spend at least twice as much on groceries.

So I convince myself that limiting myself to what I can carry is my form of budgeting. Others might look at the larger issue of choosing cheaper grocery stores in order to save, but I know that is almost as silly as Josh’s idea of making him carry groceries. After all, when I go to the organic market I am limited to a shopping-basket even smaller than the boxes at Aldi, and then I have to fit everything into one tiny cloth bag.

It doesn’t matter where I shop for groceries, all that matters is that I can carry the weight of my purchases rather than the guilt of buying too much food.

Food Ain’t God

By Rae January 31, 2012 Food 9 Comments

Food isn’t God.

I’ve long been disturbed by the tendency of some religious people to turn food into religion and preach “food isn’t God” with the meaning that if you are less than svelte you clearly are worshiping food and less of a Christian than your skinny sister.

But I am still working on my lingering unrealistic expectations for food. You see, I was raised in the religion that follows the teachings of the prophet Hippocrates. You know, the one with the bible that says things like: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

For years I internalized the idea that one could control one’s life by controlling one’s food choices. I accepted as gospel truth the teaching that disease was the fitting penalty for poor diet. I knew that if I got the flu it was my fault for eating white flour. Every headache was my just desert for eating dessert.

And then I grew up.

I gained the cynicism of a skeptic and questioned the faith of Food.

And, oddly enough, it seemed that my beliefs were justified. The stats held up the idea that Americans are making ourselves sick with downright stupid food choices. If only we would eat more vegetables and less meat we would chop healthcare costs and grow life expectancy.

But stats aren’t everything, and food isn’t God.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot determine my fate through food. I cannot heal myself by eliminating tomatoes, wheat and caffeine. I cannot free myself from pain by eating elderberries and salmon. Sure, I can make things a little better with vitamin powder etc., but “better” is not the same as healed.

This is the truth, but somehow I cannot really accept it. My sickness feels like failure because I know if only I got food right, I would be healthy.

Sure, I am enough of a pragmatist to realize that I gain more by reducing stress. I know that it is better to eat canned beans than to spend my days obsessing over which grains I should completely eliminate, and which seeds I should soak.

I know this.

But I still feel the guilt of the prodigal child.

Because as much as I rationally know that food isn’t God, the religion remains a part of me.

People all around me are embracing it as the hip faith of the moment. They are thrilled to lose a few pounds and gain some energy, and I am happy for them. But I am envious of their innocent faith. They can truly believe that all they have to do is follow a few simple rules and they will be healthy.

Somehow though, the rules were never simple for me, and I have never been able to get.it.right.

Rationally I know that this is because food isn’t God. Food choices matter, but they aren’t everything.

But deep down inside me I cannot help believing that my body is punishing me for failing to dig deep enough to find and follow the mysterious food rules that would bring health. So I add cod liver oil, because maybe they were right that flax just isn’t good enough. And I determine to stop drinking soy milk because maybe, just maybe it is the problem even though all evidence points against that conclusion.

Food isn’t God.

I know that.

I just can’t believe it.

Adele and the Married Woman

By Rae January 30, 2012 Funny Thing Is, Uncategorized 14 Comments

You know what is cute? Babies who love Adele.

Cute, right?

You know what is odd? Married women, ostensibly happily married women, who love Adele.

Seriously, folks. Adele’s music is beautiful, but it is the sort of music that requires one to appreciate the lyrics. And the lyrics simply do not resonate with me as a woman who is not only married, but deeply content in love.

It is crazy cute for little girls to sing along with Adele precisely because the music does not match with their lives. But that dissonance is confusing rather than cute when seen in my peers.

I am continually surprised at all those whom I see gushing about Adele. Because they just so happen to all be married women who present themselves as happily married. So what is the draw? Why would you want to spend all day listening to lyrics about how we “could have” had it all if you do have it all?

My first thought was that perhaps all the stories about how you never get over your first love are true and all of these women are still pining for Mr. Ex even while portraying themselves to the world as happy with Mr. Perfect.

Then I heard “Rolling in the Deep” yet again and realized that maybe these songs are appealing because these women have gotten to the point where they are completely disillusioned with marriage. It may be perfectly normal to have times where you think of your husband as something of an ex considering how different your relationship is from what you could have had.

What say you? What am I missing here? Should I give up my deeply romantic Over the Rhine in exchange for some upset Adele?

Depression and Pure Joy

By Rae January 28, 2012 Health 4 Comments

One of the downsides of the pill–for me, at least–is depression. It is not the debilitating depression that I endured with one of the experimental¹ drugs I tried while attempting to avoid the pill. But it is still depression.

It is a dramatic lack of any sort of emotion. It is the inability to think of anything with which to bribe myself because nothing interests me. It is the reality of being shocked to see tears in Josh’s eyes because I did not feel anything as I rambled on with hurtful words. It is in the sudden absence of the happiness in which I have stood in awe for over a year.

Sometimes Josh asks what he can do to make me happy. I raise an eyebrow. You’re good man, but nothing can compete with these soul-sucking hormones.

I plan to put up with it for as long as possible because in the pill I trade feeling for doing. What I lack in motivation I can make up in action, if only I choose. I can get things done, and I know that is good, even if I cannot feel it. I may not care much about what I do, but at least I know that I will appreciate it later.

As the pill kicked in and I first thought about all of this, I was thankful for evidence that I wasn’t just an insane religious person for running from the pill before. I may discuss some things in religious terms, but depression is something any reasonable person should should want to flee!

Several times I have tried to figure out how to explain it to Josh. I thought that the word “numb” was inappropriate because I’ve had a lot of dental work recently, and numbness involves surrounding areas of tingling and “off” but very real sensation. My experience on the pill is closer to a little death.

But then it turned out that it is actually numbness.

In the midst of the depression I have liked one thing, and felt one thing. More precisely, I have liked one person, and felt for another.

I like Josh. A lot. I am immensely thankful for this since I know from experience that it could just as easily go the other way. I do not feel able to actually connect with Josh, but I still like him. On most days when I try hard to think of something I might like I am able to conclude that I would like to be with Josh. That is grace.

And then there is the burst of heart-stopping feelings which have played around in these past two otherwise emotionless months. It is renidemus. Every time I read Anne’s posts or tweets my heart is suddenly back, and I know the crushing feeling of life and death exploding within me. Anne is pure beauty.

I can’t describe why she is so amazing without offending those who simply cannot understand this beauty. So I will not try. But oh, God. Somehow I can still feel this, and it is incredible to share in such emotion when I feel nothing else.

And tonight I turned on my computer to check her blog for an update. And it is nothing less than joy.

1. Well, the drug itself isn’t experimental, but the off-label use certainly is. One of the things that infuriated me about NaPro was finding out that so many NaPro fans don’t even realize how much is experimental and what is and isn’t normal. Seriously, how could you recommend that people try drug x when you haven’t even bothered to research the uses for which it was FDA approved? Oh, right. Normal people don’t associate fan-dom with research. I’m odd.

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