Sometimes I read in the news about women in developing
nations, and how access to birth control is a life saver for them. It provides
them with freedom from the incessant demands of motherhood so that they can
pursue an education or career. Or even just simply have some time for
themselves in a world where their health and energy are constantly being sucked
dry by an infant.
And then I recall doing a mental, meditative body scan a
couple of weeks after I got an IUD installed. My uterus told me it was sad that
I’m not letting it do any more of what it was put here in my body to do.
I tried to reason with my uterus. I told it, “It’s not
practical. We don't have room for another kid in this house. We will barely be
able to afford college for one, and certainly not two. Besides I’m too old.”
But my heart took the side of my uterus, and I cried anyway,
logic and reason be damned. I cried for the life I will never know…the life of
a woman who has the freedom to procreate again and again, nurse babies one
after the other, meet each unique child, and mother them so hard it kills her.
I’m trapped in a sea of cultural expectations that demand that I have only
healthy children (not the ones with birth defects more common in older
mothers), that demand that each child have his or her own room, that demand I
be able to provide not just love and food and shelter, but piano lessons and a
college education.
Despite my mild despair over this issue, I am grateful to be
living where I am, and sincerely expect to have no regrets over my decision to
use birth control. I’m grateful for the benefits of living in the United States
of America, with a husband who can provide for us, and as a stay at home mother
of one beautiful daughter.
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