Detoxing from hormones

"Love as distinct from 'being in love' is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will."
~C.S. Lewis
(as tweeted by Alton Brown)

The hubby and I recently made the somewhat large decision that I would go off hormonal birth control.

No, breathe, we are NOT trying for another baby. Quite the opposite, in fact - we do not want to have a second child at this time. Financially, it would doom us. I would, though, like to have a second child at some point so any permanent birth control options are off the table right now.

This decision wasn't easy and took months to make - well, months and a year, really, if we look at it a certain way. And while it solves some problems, it opens others. But for us, the quality of the problems this decision is solving far outweighs the new problems it presents.

What it comes down to is this: I cannot find a hormonal birth control option that works for me. Due to my gastric bypass, I do not trust taking the pill. I've read the results of several studies that indicated that the pill isn't metabolized in a consistent way in patients who had gastric bypass and I'd rather not play that game of roulette, thinking I'm covered when I'm not. I don't want to do injections or an IUD (hormonal or not).

I was on the Nuvaring, which worked well for years, but something changed in the past few years and especially since I had Nate. Basically, it was making me crazy. I'm actually not even really ready to fully disclose just how bad I was feeling, but I will share some.

The most ironic part of the Nuvaring is that its purpose is to prevent pregnancy, but the hormones from the birth control made me not want to have anything to do with my husband. I was cranky. Not just moody, because that implies up AND down. No, I was mostly just down. I would wake up and be fuming angry within minutes and nothing would help that. If you have emotional PMS, imagine the cranky/angry part of that, but all month long - and THEN, during PMS? It was that times ten. I just felt rage coursing through my veins. It took serious, exhausting effort not to snap at some comments and requests - and some times, I didn't succeed. And the person who got the worst of it, continually? The hubby. It is truly, solely to his credit that I even still have a husband after how awful it was sometimes.

So, yeah - the birth control really worked two ways over. It prevented ovulation and it prevented me really wanting to even... you know, spend time with my husband.

When I went off the birth control right before I got pregnant, I felt amazing. I remember thinking at the time that I never wanted to go back on hormonal birth control again. But after Nate was born, I did anyway because we really, really didn't want to take any chances.

And I remember having more emotional PMS on birth control before (as in, throughout my 20s) but it's been different since Nate was born, which I can imagine makes sense considering the hormonal flux a woman's body goes through during and after pregnancy. It makes sense to me that my body may react to things differently now, especially hormones.

It simply became unbearable, though - for both me and the hubby. And I really believe that our marriage was on the fast track to disintegration because of it. The change between how things were two months ago and how they are now is palpable. The whole household feels lighter. There are more smiles, much more laughing, much more together time, much more talking. Much more of all that is good and worthwhile and healthy to a marriage and a family.

So we are, of course, still "being safe" as the ever-present instruction goes and that takes more concerted effort than hormonal birth control requires. But our marriage is taking significantly less effort. In fact, it's really feeling like no effort at all at this point. And the effort required, as all marriages do require work, is enjoyable now and worth far more than the energy required. I've been feeling like I did when we first started dating, something I haven't felt in a long time. And it's wonderful.