I always knew I wanted to be a mom.  Even when I was a little girl, I knew.  I’d look at my mother’s friends with young babies just longing to be at that point in my own life.  I constructed this fantasy future, where I had the perfect guy who would marry me and we would buy a beautiful house in which to raise our 2.5 kids.

The very night my husband and I met, we talked about having kids, even though we were college kids ourselves.  My husband picked a speciality in medicine not only based on his passion for pediatrics, but also his desire to have a strong work-life balance.  I went into dentistry partly for the same reason.  We would go to the mall and I’d beg him to go into Pottery Barn Kids, even though we weren’t even married yet, so I could look at the beautifully-curated nursery and playroom set-ups and daydream.  I remember one time, I actually cried in the store because it seemed my uterus was hurting so badly, just aching for a baby.  We were nowhere near ready—still years before we could call ourselves doctors with actual jobs. So, my sweet then-boyfriend snuggled me and let me cry, and then he reassured me that one day, we would get there.

We just kind of assumed it would happen.  Like turning on a light switch.  As a young, inexperienced couple, we just figured I’d stop taking The Pill when we were ready, I’d ovulate, and that would be that.

I had been prescribed the birth control pills at the young age of 18 to treat acne and irregular, painful periods.  To prescribe birth control for those reasons was such common practice that I readily and faithfully allowed large doses of synthetic hormone to be pumped into my body unquestioningly—for YEARS.  If you had asked me at age 20 what I thought of being on birth control, I would have sung its highest praises.  I loved knowing exactly when my period would be and that I could control when I got my period.  If I didn’t want to deal with a period while on vacation, I just had to plan ahead and change up what pills I took to make that happen.  My skin was sooo clear.  And my periods were never, ever painful.  Amazing, right? Who wouldn’t want to do this?!?  If only I had known just how difficult it would be to adjust to life off of The Pill.

I remember deciding when my last round of pills would be.  And things were fine—for about three weeks.  Then it started—the oily skin.  And not just a little oily.  Like, my skin would produce so much oil that it would literally roll down my face like sweat during a workout.  And then, of course, came the out-of-control acne.  But those were just the superficial, tip-of-the-iceburg “problems.”

My emotions were all over the place.  And when I mean all over the place, boy, do I mean it.  My behavior was so erratic and unpredictable.  I would wake up feeling fine, but as soon as I would go into the bathroom, something so incredibly small would set me off like a volcano erupting.  I’m not talking a common complaint women have, like the toilet seat being left up.  I’m talking like if there was a smudge on the mirror, or the cabinet was left just barely open.  My anger would come out, much how Te Ka from Disney’s Moana would spew with fire and angrily rage toward anyone who dared to go near her.  It certainly felt that way at least.  And then, as if nothing ever happened, a few moments later, I’d be just fine, hugging my husband and making plans for the day.  It was like an out-of-body experience.  I would cry at dinner, in front of people.  I would have issues sleeping.  Moment to moment, day by day, my emotions were on a roller coaster, making it impossible for me, let alone anyone else, to hold on.

And then, the periods,  Ohhh, the periods.  My cycles became so irregular, so unpredictable.  I’d go three months without one, and then, inevitably while it was inconvenient, Aunt Flo would show up.  Which only exacerbated the aforementioned anger.  

Because I’d go months without a cycle, when I did get them, they were beyond painful.  I went from barely noticing my scheduled period when I was on the pill to having to stop my entire life just so I could endure the pain of the first few days of a period that showed up whenever.  I remember one early morning being in so much pain that my husband debated on taking me in to urgent care. But we both knew urgent care would only tell me there was really nothing we could do except take the prescription-strength doses of the OTC pain meds and wait it out.  How I wish I had known about the power and efficacy of acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and the magic of Young Living essential oils back then.

I was getting yeast infections seemingly just by breathing.  I went from never having had one to getting them almost once a month. My infections responded to nothing except fluconazole.  So, on top of large doses of OTC pain meds, my ob/gyn prescribed refills of the prescription anti-fungal pill just so I wouldn’t have to call in every few weeks to get a script.

Basically, what had happened was that I allowed for years my body to be pumped full of artificial hormones, and when I stopped, it was like my body didn’t know how to make it’s own to self-regulate.  So I crashed. And it wreaked havoc on my life. It was like that for over a year.  

Somehow, my body figured it out enough to get pregnant after some time, and my husband and I were fortunate enough to conceive our son.  But immediately (and I mean immediately) after birth, I faced more issues.  Looking back, it was due to a combination of things, but one of the contributing factors was a gross hormonal imbalance.  I went from a hormonal crash pre-pregnancy to a surge of hormones to become and maintain pregnancy.  And then a similar crash as the pregnancy hormones fled my body. So, I never really had a chance for my body to acclimate to a state of just existing—it was just surge and crash and surge and crash.  It is my firm belief that the hormonal craziness was a major contributor to my postpartum depression, though there were other contributory factors that put me at predisposition for it.  You can read about that particular experience here, but the end is this: I found a combination of eastern medicine and yoga as treatment for PPD, because my medical doctor never even gave it the time of day.  To her, since my blood work checked out, the only reason I felt “tired” and “touchy” was because I had a baby eighteen months ago. 

But here’s the kicker—the epiphany that made me so angry.  I spent years learning to be a doctor of dental surgery.  And nowhere in my training did anyone mention the value and validity of eastern and alternative medicine.  No one had discussed with me anything outside of pharmaceuticals and procedures and surgeries.  If a patient had a problem, the answer was surgery (or a procedure of some kind), meds, or, if nothing else, refer to someone else.  Granted, in dentistry, a field that is highly procedure-based, this makes a little more sense.  But for medicine as a whole, I feel that because alternative medicine is not taught in conjunction with western medicine in medical/dental/pharmacy/optometry/vet schools, the doctors that are made are ones that don’t have the whole picture.  And in the end, only the patients that have the means and exposure to alternative medicine can reap the benefits of a truly whole medical practice—one that recognizes that both eastern and western medicine are of equal value and can work synergistically rather than competitively.

Let me be clear: I believe in western medicine.  I believe pharmaceuticals have their place. I am not saying that it’s wrong to take birth control.  I wrote this article to depict just how impactful the decision to take or not take birth control can be, even though the doctors prescribing them do so routinely.  I wrote this article in hopes that if someone else is going through something similar, it reassures them that they are not alone, and that this has happened to others.  In hopes that people learn that there are treatment modalities outside of pharmaceuticals to treat a myriad of conditions with far fewer (if any) side effects.  In hopes that people find doctors that really listen to them, doctors that know and understand the value of a truly complete medical practice—one that marries both eastern medicine and western medicine rather than one that dismisses anything outside of pills and procedures as “not medicine.”  In hopes that they can’t find that doctor, that they know enough to advocate for themselves and supplement their treatment safely with qualified professionals such as acupuncturists.  In hopes that those who read this find comfort and validity in my words, or at least gives them food for thought.