lady rant

so i am all about being happy to be a lady and being proud of myself and how i’m doing at life, and last summer/fall, i was all about posting weight loss goals i was hitting and surpassing and being really psyched about it. and then something changed. something i am really, really bummed out about. with myself and the world and being a girl in general.

and i can and maybe should go on and on about how side effects suck and how it is really unfortunate that the burden of birth control more often than not falls on the shoulders on women and how that is unfair, but what i mostly want to say is that my (now former method of) birth control made me fat (well not actually, just made me gain back the majority of the weight i’d spent the last year losing), made me crazy and made me miserable.

i’d been suspecting it for awhile, but i’d done such an excellent job of eating better, exercising and just having a better overall lifestyle that i assumed it was just my normal amount of winter weight gain. then it didn’t go away. and my clothes weren’t fitting. and i felt lethargic and bloated ALL THE TIME. and the only thing that had really changed in my lifestyle was the form of birth control that i’d been using (for full disclosure here, i’d switched from a progesterone only pill to depo provera because i was without health insurance and it was the most cost effective choice).

anyways, this week, it was time for me to go and get my next dose (with depo, you get a shot every 3 months) but when i went into PP (seriously, support PP, that place is the BEST) asked about my weight gain, if they thought it was attributed to my bc and what other options i had. the nurse told me that when she was on depo for a year and a half that she gained 60 pounds and that it literally all melted away within 3 months after switching methods. that it was likely all due to my bc that i’d gained what ended up being 29 pounds (and this was where i started crying in the PP office because i’d lost 35 pounds last year and it was basically all for nothing and also cause synthetic hormones MAKE YOU INSANE.)

anyways, i’m back on progesterone only pills in the meantime and have an appointment to get an IUD next month. because there are no hormones in a paraguard. for the first time since i was 15 and was put on bc to regulate my periods, i am looking forward to a hormone free life. and look forward to me hopefully getting back to giving weight loss updates cause i looked SO HOT at the end of last summer when i had gotten back to my HIGH SCHOOL weight, was wearing size 8 jeans and felt really cool about myself in a bikini, which was kind of a first since i’ve always been really self conscious.

and all of that said, could you even imagine a dude having to take some sort of hormone daily to prevent pregnancy in his partner? the dude crying for no reason or NEEDING ice cream like us ladies do? i’m all for taking charge of my own reproductive health, but living my life for the last 10 years full of synthetic hormones has taken its toll and i seriously cannot wait for you, paraguard.

i guess also i want to point out here to dudes: if your lady is acting crazy or getting fat all so you guys can raw dog and not have to worry about getting pregnant, you should probably hug her and tell her she’s awesome, cause that is shit that you don’t have to deal with.