According to Chika: Next month is not assured

Chika is not a Pastor or soothsayer.

She cannot even be one, too pretty for the business calling. And I know her, she will be rotating her sexy bowlegs and peering at you with eyes that hold attention.

But today is not about Chika, it is about me, and what Chika said to me.

I have had my body snap back to its regular clock within six to eight weeks post partum, ovulations and periods return fast and furious.

With the birth of Container last year, things were not business as usual. I did get my period after birth, as soon as I did with her siblings. After then, it had a mind of its own. Going between 21 days, 26 days, 30 days, disappearing completely etc.

I fretted. I confess to liking to think I can organise schedules and orchestrate plans, this thing was winning me.

I saw all the doctors I knew, even consulted the ones I follow on twitter and facebook, harassing their inboxes with my constant questions. They all sang the same chorus.

“It’s normal”

“You just had a baby”

“You are breastfeeding, when you stop things will adjust”

Why was I fretting? I have never been on contraceptives.

It sounds like a very foolish decision to stick by in the world of today, where people like things easy and adore being politically correct.

You think it’s foolish? Stale. I have been told that, plus a million other things over and over again.

On an educational note, there are a group of people, albeit in the minority, who have decided to adopt other natural methods of birth control;

*Billings/Cervical mucus method

*Calendar/rhythmic (for the extremely lucky who count and are always right)

*Body temperature method

*Or a combination of all three (mine).

My friend Cynthia and myself, took our time to teach women who were interested in these methods while we were at Lawschool. It was something we were passionate about and shared our experiences.

What informed our decision to monitor our bodies and observe our fertile and infertile body clocks?

For some women, it is the plain love of all things natural. They simply decide not to tamper with their body systems artificially.

For a friend (who stole my book on Billings method of natural family planning and never returned it), she was fed up with the side effects she suffered from every single method of contraception she had tried.

For some, it’s faith. There was a general joke in my hospital, that the nurses shouldn’t bother offering catholic women birth control.

I did say once as well, that pills (though just one of the methods) have a strict meaning to me as something we take when we aren’t feeling good. So…

Doctor: Here, take these pills every night.

Achalugo: Why?

Doctor: So that you won’t get pregnant

Achalugo: (thinking in my head, so, my fertility is sickness) No, i’ll pass.

I.u.d? Implant? No! I dont want any foreign thing in my body. cringe

Do you understand this? It is psychological for some people. We have not been able to twist our minds to grasp the thing.

What are the off sides to my side of the road? A doctor friend told me i’d be tensed if my period came a day or two late.

Question: What gets you tensed on delayed periods?

Answer: The possibility of being pregnant

Question: Are contraceptives 100% effective?

Answer: No

Question: Have people gotten pregnant on them?

Answer: Yes, even though just a small 4-5%

Conclusion: I do not think being on contraceptives could alienate that tension in any way. I think of my self as very special, I fit dey that 5%, I am telling you.

An erroneous conclusion people make, is that not being on artificial contraceptives equals having nonchalant and irresponsible sex. Sur la contraire, it involves a good deal of self control. The problem some people have with sticking to it is

“Oh, my husband insisted that night”

“How can you want to have sex and not have it?”

And i’m thinking, why do you think sex is something you should have every and anytime you feel like it?

You are pregnant and the men say “we are pregnant”, take it a step further —-> “We are ovulating” “We are on our period”. My cycle chart book is right beside us in bed, because “it is our book”.

And a topic for another day, a friend said to me

“He didn’t approach me on my safe days, i couldn’t let him on my unsafe days, so we haven’t had sex in a while”

Me: Approach him on your safe days.

I promise you, this is far from a castigation of contraceptives or their users. I just really think, that women have a lot of choices concerning their maternal health and should not be made to feel bad if this is one of the choices they make.

I woke up to some news the color of wine today. I had fretted, because Chika likes to tease me, that it is only a matter of time before I am knocked up again. When I tell her I have escaped her wishes, she tells me that next month is not assured. I fretted because going by my calendar, I was a week late, going by my billings method, my kini should have showed up today and it did.

If I annoyed you last week, this has just been an explanation and apology, it was P.M.S.

Forgive me, and allow me bleed in peace.

Has this post been t.m.i?
Welcome to my womanity,
Achalugo.