Share Your Story or Your Mother's Story about the Challenges of Accessing Birth Control

When I moved to CA in 1954 I was a divorced mother of one.  After I was able to find a job working in an office,  I had to have an physical examination and provide a letter from a doctor that I was not pregnant, even though I was living alone. A few years later I married again and did become pregnant and was also working in an office.  However the day I wore a very neat  maternity top to work I was told my services were no longer needed as my boss did not care to work with a pregnant woman.  Incidentally, he and his wife had several children of their own.

My paternal Great Grandmother, Sarah, raised her family at the turn of the century in a small port town on the Washington Penisula. She was a beautiful young woman with Irish auburn red hair. She birthed and raised 14 children. Many family members would state that they couldn't remember a time when Sarah wasn't washing and hanging diapers. (Can you imagine cleaning, washing and cooking for a family that size.) Sarah was not only marveled at, but pitied by the local women and two busy bodies in particular would often show up around dinner time to 'watch the family eat'. Dinner in those days was an important event of families 'coming together'. It was also followed by a very strict time schedule. It was the heart function of the family as a whole. These two women were Mrs. 'Butcher' and Mrs. 'Banker' as it was a Welsh Irish community and women were often tagged by the occupation of their husbands. Well they would sit on the porch and watch the family eat and be amazed that they were so polite and well behaved. My great grandfather, Amos, would often bellow at these two biddies, "Ha, Ha, I don't believe in race gencide!" Meaning, I suppose, none were aborted and drowned at birth. It was my understanding that my great grandmother had a couple of miscarriages as well. When My grandmother, Margaret married the oldest son, Loyal, Sarah quietly tooker her aside and talked to her on how to protect one's self. With No real available or accepted form of contraception, she explained to my grandmother how to use bleach douches, squat over the toilet with a coat hanger. Sarah then proceeded to partially undress herself for Margaret (her daugher-in-law) and took off her corset and girdle. Poor Sarah had no stomach muscles and the years of birthing children had left her horrrible disformed in that her stomach muscles all sagged and hung down halfway to her knees. She then hugged my grandmother and patted her hands, saying she did not want Margaret to follow the same fate. My grandmother was horrified, and during the 1920's, after having her third child, used the coat hanger while squatting over the toilet and, of all things, coca cola. She described raising the children in a mixed community of Italians and Spanish women on Pigeon Hll in Seattle. Carusso singing arias from a victrola wafted through the evening air. My grandmother told me there were always one or two women who were not afraid with aborting or help with birthing. They were held in very high esteem by the rest of the female community. Many women could not afford going to a hospital for birthing and the births were recorded later at the county seat. My grandmother was very outspoken for women's rights and the right to choose how many children they should have to raise. She died at 100, at the run of this century and stated married couples should not have children, the times are so horrible. I told her, they still pursue the dream, and children being the most precious gift. I remember when the first birth control pills were at last prescription available in the sixties. I was in my teens and the pill was seen as a modern day marvel. Women in general and my grandmother and mother were all marveling at them. It was even rumored that these early pills contained sheep and horse urine as part of their matrix. I don't know about that, but don't you just love urban legends. My mother insisted that I ask for them after my first son was born. I stopped taking them after 5 years as they gave me migraines, 4 to 5 days with dry heaves. But I also wanted a second child. My son was then five. When my husband found out I was pregnant he knocked me to the ground. My second son died from SIDS at two months. We divorced soon after and I never remarried or had another child. I did so want a little girl. There was no Planned Parenthood. I simply can't understand any female politition voting against women's health care or Planned Parenthood. I don't understand the Governor of Arizona. What a wonderful organization PP is. Without it, we would halve a lot more babies found in dumpsters. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to abort, or deliver a child by yourself, because nobody was around to help. So many of our foremothers dealt with these issues. I have a great aunt on my grandmother's side of the family, who was adopted. This was again, at the turn of the last century, 1900's. Her name was Sarah too. Her birth mother was walking door to door, looking for somebody, anybody to take her baby. And that was how blue eyed, blonde haired, angel faced Sarah became part of our family. How DARE THEY even suggest doing away with contraception or Planned Parenthood. For so many teenagers who are fightend and lost, this is their only beacon of hope. I have signed many petitions, donated, and feel the anger rising up in me over the putting down of women in general. In my generation, so many of us had latch key children because we had/have to also hold down a job to help ends meet, or ensure the comfort of a warm bed and meal for our children. I never had the luxury of car pooling my son to school in the morning. And especially when I ended up divorced and a single parent, my job was my life line. My husband never paid full child support. I had to leave early to make it to work on time. I remember nursing and feeding my little two month old when still married in the 70's during the gas shortage. Most gas stations were not open 24 hours; 4 to 6 hours being the norm during that time. Two hours sitting in line of 20 to 50 cars or more, for the gas pumps to open so you could fill your car on the odd or even numbered day, and little ones had to come along and be fed and coddled from inside an automobile. It was recently brought to my attention how many modern families are subjected to living in cars as their ownly shelter. Can you imagine having to do that with more than 4 children? I wouldn't want to attempt it with two. My warmest regards to you all. These stories you are sharing are wonderful. I hope mine contributes in kind. And, in closing, I wish to add I will vote for no polititian who is against women's health care, equal wages, or Planned Parenhood--or degrade women in general. I am fed up with female gender bashing. I hope the polititians and gender bigots are listening. One of our nation's little quip slogans was... 'for Mom and apple pie.'

I was doing volunteer work for a local Church shelter for homeless families.  One of the ladies there was from Texas, thirty-something, and with three small children.  We chatted and she ruefully confided that all she knew about birth control in her small Texas town was that you only got pregnant on the twelfth time you had sex, and then you had to douche with diluted Clorox bleach.  

Addendum to my earlier post.  About my stillborn baby (at 5 1/2 mos) I was afraid to tell the Dr I had fallen.  I had never felt any movement in that pregnancy nor did I ever grieve for that baby.  When I delivered the nurse and Dr wouldn't let me see the baby and to this date I have no idea if it was a boy or girl.   I read an article in Reader's Digest about 45 years later.  The article was about a 5 1/2 month preemie who was saved.  I grieved for my own lost child at that point; asked my Dr why.  He said that just sometimes happens.