Image from Bedsider
Realizing that you’re pregnant when you don’t want to be is one of the scariest things that can happen to a teenager. In 2011, nearly 60,000 Texas teenagers became pregnant.* Most of those pregnancies were unplanned. That’s why I plan to give my daughters birth control as soon as they’re old enough to need it.
I’m not going to force-feed them the pill the second they get their periods; their bodies belong to them, and they have the final say over what they do. But rather than wait for them to ask me for the pill, or risk them feeling too embarrassed to come to me at all, I plan to sit down with them early and often as they grow up to discuss sex and birth control, answer their questions, and help them decide which method they’d like to try first.
When I started having sex in high school, the last thing I wanted was for my parents to find out. My mother believed teenagers were too young to have sex and wanted me to wait until later in life, when I was more mature, preferably after I was married. She took every opportunity to reinforce this idea. If we were watching a movie or a TV show that touched on sex in any way, she’d mention how much she hoped I would wait. Mostly I rolled my eyes; she sounded like such a prude.
Like many teenagers, I had my own ideas about sex. Waiting until marriage seemed like an outdated, impractical, and pretty undesirable approach. I was curious about sex, so when I started dating someone I really liked, I decided to go for it. But first that meant getting on the pill.
I was scared to make an appointment with our family doctor. I wasn’t sure he would keep my request for birth control confidential** and I didn’t know how to pay for the expensive office visit. Plus, he was a man whose children I babysat, and the idea of him knowing anything about my sex life freaked me out.
The one Planned Parenthood clinic in my town was a 30 minute drive from home. I had to drive all the way out there once a year for my gynecological exam, as well as any time I needed to buy pills. Luckily I had a car so I didn’t have to beg friends for a ride, but I remember how nervous I felt driving there and back each time, praying my twenty-year-old Dodge Dart wouldn’t break down along the way. That would mean calling my parents and explaining why I was all the way over in that part of town.
Managing the logistics of getting my exams and pills each year (and paying for them) stressed me out. But I didn’t want my mom to get mad at me, and I didn’t want to get pregnant.
Now that I’m a mom, I don’t want my own children to wonder if I’ll help them get birth control when the time comes. I want them to grow up knowing that I’ll answer any questions they have about sex truthfully and without shame or blame. I want them to grow up believing that although sex can have serious consequences, it’s also a lot of fun, especially when you’re not worried about getting pregnant or contracting an STD. Having consensual sex as a teenager is nothing to be ashamed of — it’s natural, normal, and totally okay.
I want my daughters to be in control of their own birth control so they don’t have to rely on their boyfriend or partner to take care of it. For that reason I’d like them to go on the pill or get the patch, a vaginal ring, or injections. And I want them to have plenty of condoms on hand too, because that’s the only way to effectively prevent the transmission of diseases like gonorrhea and HIV.
My girls are too little now to know what sex is. They can tell you that when a sperm and an egg meet in the uterus, they can make a new baby, but they don’t know how the sperm and egg get there. And that’s just fine, for now.
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Coming up in our series for teens about sexual health and birth control:
- How to Talk to Your Parents About Birth Control
- How to Talk to Your Partner About Birth Control
- How to Get Affordable Birth Control in Texas
- Teen Birth Control Testimonials
- Common STD Myths and Facts
- The Morning After Pill: Myths & Reality
*2011 is the most recent year in which this data is available.
**HIPAA is a federal law that protects patient confidentiality. Dr. Veronica Ades, MD, MPH, and Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the NYU School of Medicine, explains “that means that doctors cannot release protected health information to anyone other than the patient without the patient’s permission. However, it’s important to know that this may be a little different for minors, whose parents may have access to their medical information.” Dr. Ades advises teens worried about their privacy to ask what will be kept confidential when they call to make the appointment, and again with the nurse or doctor at the start of the appointment. “Ask whether their records will be shared with their parents or kept private. Even if the medical record isn’t shared, the bills may go to the parent’s house if the child is on the parent’s insurance, so it’s important to think about all of this in advance,” recommends Dr. Ades. In Texas, minors can access birth control confidentially and without parental consent at Title X clinics. We will address confidentiality concerns further in a future post.
