How Big Pharma and Your Doc Profit from Ignorance: Knowledge is Power.

Cramming the pillow I'd brought from home a little more to my left, I attempted to placate the cramp that was forming in my back. After years of slumbering on a waterbed, this rock hard hospital bed felt like a torture rack. So there I was trying to create a bit of comfort and counting down the minutes until I could scoop up my newest bundle and check-out when my midwife slid a chair beside me.

Having just given birth to my fourth child several hours prior, I figured she was stopping in to assess my rate of recovery since I'd made it clear that I wouldn't stay a minute longer than the required twenty-four hours. She made a bit of small talk and then she looked me straight in the eyes and asked what kind of birth control prescription I wanted to take home with me so, “I wouldn't have to do this again in nine months.”

Huh? was my first thought. Sure, I'd taken the pill for the first two years of my marriage (and suffered the daily nausea and monthly weep-fest), but in the previous eight years (prior to the baby I'd literally just delivered) I had only practiced Natural Family Planning (and successfully so, I might add). Clearly, this fact was documented in my chart and seeing as she and only one other midwife were my primary caregivers it seemed unlikely she was clueless to my choice. Mind you, she hadn't saddled up to my bedside to chat about my thoughts/desires on family planning options (although as a Catholic there is only one ethical option for me). No, she was there to hawk a prescription and she was using fear to get the job done.

Looking back now it seems easy enough, I should have told her to go bugger off, but something was happening behind the scenes to which she was not privy. My marriage had been undergoing an intense trial, we were actually in counseling at the time, but I hadn't shared that fact with my caregivers. It was like she was my temptress in the desert, come to offer me promises during my weakest hour if only I'd bow down to her plans. There I lie, sore from having just pushed a 7pound-something human out of a normally tiny hole, thoughts swirling with the knowledge of the current state of my marriage and suddenly, illogically terrified that before there was time for mama-birth-amnesia to set-in I'd be back in this very hospital grunting and groaning baby number five into the world.

Planning to breastfeed, I suggested that the Lactation Ammenorea Method LAM had certainly worked well for me in the past (extending my postpartum infertility for more than six months each time). I also inquired how this drug might affect my newborn. No worries she told me, staying the course on her mission to get me contracepting, she'd just write a low level prescription for a progestin only pill. I stammered and stuttered and ultimately caved under the pressure.

Rolling my van up to the drug store drive-through a week later, everything inside of me was screaming NO, but I stuffed those thoughts and handed the sheet of paper to the girl behind the counter. During what seemed like an extra long wait time, I ran over the options in my head again. Then in what I can only chalk up to the grace of God, the pharmacist returned to tell me that they were out of those pills. She returned the white sheet of paper and informed me I'd have to try back in a few days. I never returned.

Comparatively speaking, I should count myself as lucky because a number of my girlfriends faced more egregious treatment during their postpartum visits. One friend's doctor found it hard to take no for an answer, so he tried five times in the course of one conversation to strong-arm err I mean persuade her to allow him to stick an IUD in. But the prize for un-professionalism goes to the doctor who upon being told no, threw the woman's chart in her lap and said, “I'll see you back here in nine months” as he stormed out of the exam room. I guess the free lunches and pharmacutical kick backs must be pretty awesome for these obstetricians to want to dissuade a repeat customer?

“Knowledge is Power” was a theme song lyric in one of my favorite childhood programs. Indeed, knowledge is a powerful tool and with it we can make right choices. Unfortunately, there's not much education going on in the gynecologist's office. And I'd even boldly assert that women are intentional misinformed just as I was on the day my midwife undermined my beliefs and used fear-mongering to pass off a prescription.

Let's do a little fact checking.

The Pill utilizes synthetic estrogen/progestins to trick the pituitary gland into produces less Follicle Stimulating Hormone and Lutenizing Hormone so as to attempt to suppress ovulation. However, studies show there is a 2-8% chance of breakthrough ovulation on the Pill, so it has two other built in functions. The back-up measures cause a thickening of the cervical mucus (to slow sperm motility) and a depletion of glycogen in the endometrium or lining of the uterus. This last mode of operation is abortifacient because it prevent a fertilized egg from being able to implant, thus forcing an early abortion. The mini-pill, or progestin only pill, that my midwife was offering relies predominantly on the the abortifacient mechanism of creating an inhospitable environment for implantation for a new life.

Holed up in the nursery, the baby had just drifted off to sleep in my arms. It was that blissful moment when eyes finally took rest behind their lids and slumber won out over a fussy little one. The tides of peace and calm had just begun to rise in my mama brain. Yes, that four-walled, pale blue sanctuary was fulfilling its purpose- quarantining us (baby and me) from the bustling household long enough to give rest a chance to settle in.

No sooner had those lids dropped and the tide rolled in, when the five year old Paul Revere rushed in booming, “The chickens are out, the chickens are out!” Potentially as devastating as a British invasion, loose fowl required a call to arms or my husband's fledgling garden faced certain doom. Of course, all tranquility vanished as the baby's eyes flipped up so as not to miss any sibling activity.

After an immediate rallying of the troops and a changing of the baby guard, I found myself running like a chicken with its head cut off around our backyard. Rake in hand, I tried to shepherd the free ranging fowl (which is a bit like running in circles hoping to get somewhere besides where you just were).

Ducks aren't quite as spry as chickens so our web-footed flock readily turned tail and waddled back through the gate. The plump turkey might have stood a chance if not for his long rear plumage which served as a grabbing point for my daughter. But those quick and crafty hens, led by their respective roosters, had us circling through the shrubbery and garden. 

There we were (five of the kids and me) armed with sticks and rakes, like a farmers' militia, shouting strategies up and down the driveway. “Go here...no there.” “In the bush...no under the van.” Had someone clicked the video record button, I'm sure the scene would have merited entry into some Funniest Videos episode.

Two by two, the kids teamed up to corral the fowl as I stood my post at the gateway to our chicken field. Standing there I couldn't help but consider the narrowness of that gate. Sure, just beyond it was a secure area complete with two hen houses, a watering hole and all the compost, feed and tortillas a bird could want for, but our egg layers didn't have the wisdom to weigh their options. In the moment, they were delighted to scour greener pastures and to scratch up piles of fresh mulch without regard to the impending nightfall and its lurking predators.

Opening the gate for the occasional redirected bird, I thought about the Good Shepherd's instruction. He told us simply to enter through the narrow gate because wide and broad is the gate that leads to destruction, and many are those who choose it.

Most of our chickens avoided that narrow entry since the sun was still high. In fact, the majority that we'd managed to catch returned “home” via air transportation (they got tossed over the perimeter fence). Being creatures of habit, most would have returned to the hen house eventually, but not without leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

God's gift of free will ensures that He won't reach down and fling us over Paradise's perimeter. No, we must choose to direct our own steps down the straight path. Perhaps, our guardian angels might like to chase us back when we stray, but enforcer isn't in their job description (although sometimes I wish it was).

I guess, like my flocks, we get distracted by our vision of greener pastures. We forget that, in an unexpected hour, day will draw to an end leaving us vulnerable. Inside the fenced field the birds' every need is provided, but the ground looks bare after so much pecking and scratching. Sometimes our faith journey looks that way, sparse and dry on the surface. Then the world and all its enticements beckons our attention and lulls us into abandoning our only true security. We deem the gateway as too constrictive and commit to forging our own way.

Chickens are creatures of habit so most would instinctively head back once the moon rose, but their return would have met a closed gate. Our job as backyard farmers is to protect our layers and we couldn't put all at risk for the sake of the errant few. Remembering the parable of the late comers in the field, we are assured that Christ's mercy endures for the sincerely repentant, but so too He recounted the story of the foolish lamp bearers who got locked outside missing the bridegroom altogether.

By day's end, through no small effort, the children and I managed to cajole or capture all excepting a handful of hens and their crowing leader, who'd hunkered down in a ditch beside the road (perhaps they were debating the reasons for crossing it). Had an owl or fox come calling in the darkness, those birds would have made an easy meal.

Our Good Keeper gave His all to open the strait for us and He continues to invite us in. Better than any farmer's provisions, we've been promised an eternal harvest if only we are docile enough to enter through the narrow gate before the latch swings closed.