1. AUTISM – My dear friend’s sister got pregnant while on the pill and took it for at least another month before finding out she was pregnant. Her son is autistic. Since I heard of this there have been many other women I’ve heard of who had the same exact problem. I read a research paper once that proved this very risk is real indeed, but somehow never gets published for long.

2. INFERTILITY – Occasionally women take the pill and are never fertile again. A different friend’s sister had been taking it for a while at the start of her marriage (I talked to this woman personally) she very much wanted a child but after 1 year off the pill she was unable to get pregnant. After about 2 years off the pill God was gracious and finally blessed her with a daughter. She no longer uses it.

A while later a close friend of mine told me she had been forced (FORCED!) to take a shot of depo as a teenager so she “wouldn’t be a teen mom”. She had horrible irregular periods for YEARS and severe pain. Her hormones became so bad she grew a beard! She had at least 2 miscarriages in a row before she was mercifully able to carry to term but she could not start labor naturally, and she can trace it all back to that shot.

These are just anecdotal but since I knew the people personally, it was enough to convince me. Neither their sisters nor I ever went on the pill because of this. Well it really makes a lot of sense. If your system isn’t lacking in a hormone, it can only throw it out of balance to add more of it! It can not correct a well-functioning system.

I am very late in reading this post but I have only just found your blog. Whilst I do not agree with everything you say I do respect your views and if you and your family are happy that is the main thing.

However on this post I do feel a bit het up about it. The way I read it it sounds like you are saying being on contraceptive (whatever form you use, I myself used the implant for a few years for personal reasons between me and my husband) makes it sound that is the cause of the miscarriage because of it making ” harder for a fertilized egg to attach to the uterus”. This is perfectly true whilst you are on the contraception, as you so rightly put it is in case Plan A doesnt work, however dependant on what research you read the BC pill does not increase the risk of miscarriage and some research even suggests that that using hormonal birth control for a long time could preserve the eggs and decrease the risk of miscarriage due to chromosomal abnormalities for moms over 30. Another study found that long-term use of oral contraception led to mums getting pregnant more quickly after deciding to conceive, and the researchers cited additional past research that suggested pregnancies after recent pill usage were less likely to end in miscarriage. Some research disagrees which will always happen in research as that is what science is all about! I had a miscarriage when I was younger (before I had ever used birth control) that I knew about and a 3 others that were not official but I know they were. I have also since I came of the implant had at least 3 or 4 miscarriages in the last 5 years (2 of them was when I went to the hospital and found out my baby had not made it past 8 weeks in my uterus) and 1 or 2 of them have been when I have tested positive on a home preg test and then about a week later started bleeding. I have been for a tests and there is nothing wrong with my “bits” and there is nothing wrong with my husbands “bits” either, it is just one of these unexplained things. If God wishes to decide that I cannot have children because I used BC then that is his choice but I certainly do not believe that I am being punished because I used BC and even if I am then I still wouldnt change what I did. I do hope that when your sister’s friend was having her miscarriage when she would have been feeling awful that you did not tell her that there was a good chance it had been because she had taken the birth control pill as that would just make her feel even worse. Perhaps her doctor believed as you do (although I would hope not) that it was because of her BC pill but didnt want to upset her any further as really what exactly is she going to now? Turn back the clock and never take it in the first place?

Anyway I am sorry for the essay and apologies if anything I have said has offended you as I do enjoy reading your blog (only found it about 3 days ago) and whilst I would not want a family of 10 children I do respect your decision to have 10 and you all seem very happy.

Thanks for reading

Aileen (from Scotland)

What I want to know is, why are feminists not outraged over the risks, side-effects, and complications of these drugs. Women were used as guinea pigs in the early days of these things, and women are still the only ones suffering the side-effects. Is freedom from childbearing to be promoted at *any* cost, even at a cost to women themselves?

Someone mentioned the drugs in the water…my sister’s boyfriend is majoring in something having to do with environmental biology. He’s out slogging through swamps etc every weekend. But interestingly he’s seen the direct effects of bc hormones on the environment up close and personal. It is affecting the fish and frog populations in a very noticeable way.

We personally need to inform ourselves of the effects of anything we put in our body, whether Pharmakia drugs (including BC), foods (especially ones with preservatives or chemical brain toxins like msg and aspertame), or un-foods (like white flour/sugar, hydrogenated oils, etc).

There is so much our there that the big companies make money off and it is not always in doctors best interest (monetarily) to keep himself informed of side effects. Like I said, it is our responsability.

OT: I watched this yesterday. Can we start a new thread and call it “Vaccines and flu shots make me mad?”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktcoJW6mj1U&feature=related

(Thankfully, we have been able to avoid any of this in our family. I was raised being informed about vaccines…this just makes it so clear how unfair to the public they are being.)

The big thing for me, not just because of my faith in Christ, but also because I believe life begins at the moment of conception…is that BC doesn’t prevent an egg and sperm from meeting and conceiving, it prevents the post-conception egg from attaching to the uterus and growing. Instead, BC aborts the baby from your body.

Some here may not agree with me, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with using a condom or charting your cycle to prevent pregnancy. There are a myriad of reasons why one would not want to have a baby at any given time, some selfish, some practical, some medical, some emotional…I just don’t believe that BC is the right way to do it.

Hope this explains it a little better…