Birth Control

“Wow. Your mom just took you there?” I blinked at my girl friend in disbelief. “That’s the kind of mother I wanna be one day. She finds out you lost your virginity and she takes you to a clinic to get birth control. That’s just beautiful.”

Waves of envy crashed over me, waves apparently invisible to my white girl friend’s big blue eyes. I sighed heavily and sank into the passenger seat as I thought about how to cover up my prescription when my parents checked their insurance charges. My fingers grazed the little blue zipped pouch inside my purse as she drove me home from the clinic.

I hated the NuvaRing. It was uncomfortable to insert, shifted too much, got tangled with tampon strings, fell out during sex in any position that wasn’t missionary, and it was making me feel slow and drowsy. But I was too afraid of the pill so I stuck with it anyway.

Once at home, I ripped up the labeled box and hid the wrapped rings deep inside a box of tampons. I thought of my classmate Neha and how endearing and pathetic she found it that I was still a virgin when we’d met at the beginning of the school year. Her best friend was a white girl who couldn’t care less for the cross-cultural pushing of envelope that was happening before our eyes and ears. I couldn’t believe it, Neha was Indian, living in her family home, and every bit the confident and sexy desi party girl I wanted to be. I didn’t care that what she engaged in most probably defied the decrees of her own community too; they let her be. I wanted that freedom, even if I didn’t necessarily want to have sex yet.

Writing this story has been akin to squeezing the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube, which is why it needs to be written. Every young woman I’ve ever spoken about it with has an estranged relationship with contraception. When it works we worry that it might work too well, and when it doesn’t work we worry that it never had.

Two pregnancy scares later, I switched from the NuvaRing to the combined pill. I became one of those betches who made jokes about smoking or drinking while on the pill resulting in an unlikely brood, manipulating the cycle to disrupt the length of periods, and the morning after pill clean sweep. All terribly unhealthy and unadvisable scenarios, it must be said.

Though I gained admission into this new clique of Amy Schumer wannabes, no one could relate to me desperately hiding it from my parents. Among my few brown girl friends and the fewer among them that had sex, nobody used birth control. There seemed to be a strange superstition around it; a fear of infertility, of changing your temperament, and even a fear of altering your IQ. Was I being more cautious than they, or more harmful to myself? What hurt most was that I could not consult my family about my concerns.

To this day I get a sinking feeling of alienation when I go to a sexual health clinic. There would be a toxic poison of shame, hypochondria, and loneliness in the air when I took my seat in the waiting room. Our family doctor whom I first saw for my sexual health testing was a Pakistani woman from the community, and her husband was my cardiologist. She was in awe of, or rather, feared me for disclosing all and asking intimate questions about my sexual health; she would become visibly nervous and vague with her answers when I did so.

When I wanted to switch my method of birth control to the combined pill I asked about the contraindications and interactions with other substances like alcohol and marijuana. Admittedly, that was a lot to ask a Pakistani woman, though not a lot to ask a licensed physician. She explained at first about the risks involved for girls my age, and then rounded off her answer with a nervous disclaimer that she never gets asked these questions by the other desi girls of the community. Her hands trembled, she avoided my gaze, and her voice trailed off as she said something about girls in the community around my age preferring the abstinence method and how many of their parents were also in her care, like mine. I told her I was disappointed by that and kept pressing her for more information. I asked if I would gain weight, have mood swings, feel depressed. I asked if it would affect my congenital heart murmur, my risk for breast cancer, what the maximum amount I could travel with was, if I still needed a condom or should just use the pull out method. I asked if you could double up and skip a day, manually interrupt your cycle to your convenience, and all manner of similarly inane questions.

The more I went on the more embarrassed I made her. I wanted to tell her that I trusted her as a professional first and as a Pakistani woman second, that I didn’t have anyone to ask if I didn’t have her. Her embarrassment rubbed off on me, however, and I shut up after long. I left with my questions more or less answered, but with a bizarre paranoia that I had weighed her down with knowledge by which I could have defamed her. She was an excellent doctor and took wonderful care of me and my family, but that day I told my parents I wanted to see someone else. When they asked me why I answered openly that I felt I had made her uncomfortable with all my questions about birth control.

I wasn’t terribly happy with the pill because I had so many uncertainties about it. On normal days I was worried it was making me fat or giving me ADD, and on low days I was worried it was bringing me down lower than usual. I didn’t like the idea of having something in my bloodstream that I now had to indicate on patient records forms and blood donor applications. I have never preferred to take medication for any but the most serious illnesses, and so I sought something else. I decided to ask my new gynecologist about the IUD.

When I brought this up with my family, as I am wont to do, they were terrified. My girl friends asked me why I was even trying to discuss it with them when I already knew their stance on birth control. I said Muslim or not, I needed information. My body is my own and if I am to have a contraceptive device implanted in it that would protect me non-invasively from pregnancy, then I would do it. I needed my family’s support on this, I needed to pry that confidence from them.

When I explained to them how the Mirena works and why I thought it was perfect for me, they didn’t withhold their consent. I say it in those particular words because it’s not true that they approved of their unmarried young daughter having sex, albeit protected. However, they would never limit my freedom. Now that I have my information and my somewhat support, it is still a sore topic to broach as a Muslim. It is surprising that almost all manner of substances and medications are tolerated in our culture, even with a measure of disdain, but contraception is something that when asked about is prefaced with an allegiance to piety that prevents any further dialogue.

I have never been happier with my contraception, so why do I feel guilty and dishonest to talk about it in a Muslim context? Every woman is entitled to ask questions about her sexuality despite her religion, especially when these questions concern her health. Contraception is more effective risk prevention than abstinence education, which only serves to force the conversation down a light side versus dark side tunnel. The resulting duplicitousness is a trap set upon women by values cast by the patriarchy, wrapped in the cloak of religion. It is not okay that a woman of the faith should not seek to protect herself in sex, when sex, as we know, is not in her power to begin with, no matter how chaste she keeps herself. Shezaadis, ask all of your questions to whoever you can, and protect yourself. If you think contraception is right for you then ask professionals and your family alike about the right method for you.