Ode to the BC

I don't know if there's anything that defies logic quite as much as eating a little pink pill that prevents you from having babies. For the first couple of months after Sam and I tied the knot I was convinced that I had a rare disease that would prevent Birth Control from having any effect on me. I seriously thought I was pregnant for like three weeks based on my huge levels of paranoia and several pregnancy signs that seemed to have grabbed me. It's also possible that some of these things happen to me from time to time anyway and I just was paying a lot closer attention. Like boobs hurting. Which never happens to me. Unless I'm pregnant. Or think I am in my imagination. And for a couple of weeks there, my boobs hurt for no apparent reason other than there was a little human growing inside me. Turns out they were just hurting.

I can't tell you the kind of silent horror that goes on inside your mind for those couple of weeks that you've convinced yourself there's an embryo in you. I couldn't decide whether to let Sam in on my fear, but then if I was wrong I'd really feel ridiculous for making him worry. So I just whinced every time I had a boob pain, and obsessively checked google for early pregnancy signs "Excessively tired. Am I excessively tired? I'm tired. I wouldn't say excessively. I had a nap yesterday. What does that mean?" and on and on.

You hear those stories about people who were supposedly taking birth control, and accidentally got pregnant, or people who were taking antibiotics with their birth control and they cancelled each other out. You wonder if these people really did get supremely unlucky or were very negligent. I almost hope it was the latter so something like this never happens.

It's so strange 'cause I love children and hope to have lots. It's just the idea of this enormous thing happening to that you weren't ready for or hadn't planned for. Like tornados. Or housefires. Or other natural disasters.

I'm much better now about not obsessing over my imaginary pregnancy. I mostly trust that the little pink pill is going to work as long as used correctly. At least, they say it does 98.99999% if the time.