Just Not Ready To Be A Grandma

Looking down at this little pack of pills is surreal. Teenage pregnancy prevention at its finest right here in my hand like twenty-five years haven’t passed. I never thought I’d be in this position to decide, again, what kind of birth control to use. Not for me of course. I’m forty and postmenopausal after a full hysterectomy ten years ago. This little pack of pregnancy protection is for my fifteen year old daughter. I’m just not ready to be a Grandma!

Can you hear my heart beating from where you are? I feel like it’s loud enough for the whole world to hear. Like any mother of a teenage daughter, I had high hopes of her abstaining from sex completely until she is absolutely ready to have children. But, that is not a realistic concept in any generation. So, I had the tough conversations about condoms, birth control, STD’s, teenage pregnancy prevention. Healthy Children.org provided useful information and resources. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/teen/dating-sex/Pages/Birth-Control-for-Sexually-Active-Teens.aspx

After speaking with my daughter, I contacted our primary care physician and made her an appointment. My first gyno appointment flashed in my mind repeatedly over the next week like a movie that I couldn’t turn off. It was traumatic. I was younger than she is when my mother forced me to go for a pelvic exam and birth control. I’d never been sexually active. I told my mom that, but she made it clear that she didn’t believe me. I couldn’t have even dreamt up the relationship that my daughter and I have. Mothers and daughters didn’t connect and talk the way we do. At least, none that I knew. Nobody was worried about the emotional or mental health of assumed promiscuous teenagers. The only objective: prevent teenage pregnancy.

Mother and daughter relationships have changed since the 90’s. The options for birth control have expanded as well. Because of that, teenage pregnancy is down 79% since the year 2000! Here were our options: the implant, (some are implanted into the uterus, others in the arm), the shot, the pill, and the transdermal patch.

I’m against anything being implanted in her body. Honestly, I was not initially on board with medications at all. I got the shot at her age and my mental health declined. I blurted out that the diaphragm is making a huge comeback! Our doctor laughed. My teenage daughter was not amused at all. With the diaphragm or my Seinfeld humor. We discussed the pill and the patch in greater length and decided on the pill.

We chose the low estrogen dose birth control pill that is to be started the Sunday after starting her next cycle. This Sunday. I’m having all of these guilty feelings about pumping her little hormonal body with even more estrogen and medication and hoping it doesn’t cause long term damage to her reproductive organs or her brain development. On the other hand, I know exactly what having a baby at fifteen can do to her development as a whole. It is so hard to be a mom. I am constantly overthinking and overcompensating all in hopes that I haven’t screwed my kids up too bad.