For 43 years women have been told that their bodies, their femininity, are wrong. We have been led by pharmaceutical companies and doctors to believe that the very thing that makes us women is somehow inherently evil, and that science can and will triumph over our monthly cycle.

Why? What is the purpose of ridding myself of what makes me a woman?

Some women say that they take oral contraceptives in order to combat serious health problems like endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). To be perfectly honest with you, I was once put on the pill for a painful bout of ovarian cysts after I was raped in high school. I implicitly trusted my doctor and her advice that this “magic” pill would take care of the pain and make everything just go away.

In college, however, I started having severe adverse reactions to the pill. I experienced nausea, migraines, weight gain, dizziness, vomiting and a whole slew of other troubles. As horrible as I felt, I can only imagine how my dorm-mates felt taking care of me. After reading the package insert and realizing that these symptoms could only get worse and possibly lead to death, I finally called my doctor and told her I was quitting the pill cold turkey!

Shortly after that I met the man of my dreams and we fell in love. We started courting, holding hands, meeting with our parish priest, and eventually prepping for marriage. When the topic of children came up, I was thrilled and scared. How would I explain to my husband that I was completely open to children, but that God’s gift - my ability to bear children - was extraordinarily painful?

Thankfully God always has a plan!

My husband and I both said “I do” and we moved north. We settled into a new parish and, with the help of friends, found a fabulous new doctor. My new doctor told me up front that she did not prescribe the pill. She told me that she had read the full prescribing information and would not prescribe anything with so many harmful side effects - including death for women and the unknown deaths of their preborn children!

My doctor cared about me as a person and wanted to do more than mask the symptoms!

Over the course of the next few months she ran blood work and various other medical tests to determine the underlying cause of my pain. After everything came back, we discovered that I had some vitamin and mineral deficiencies. I also had some scar tissue from my multiple rapes that was not healing properly because of my imbalanced diet.

Because the pill had been masking my symptoms rather than correcting the problem and because it had caused so many adverse reactions, my body was practically screaming at me for help, but I couldn’t hear it; I was deaf to what my body needed.

The good doctor put me on a new diet and a strict regimen of vitamins tailored to my body’s specific needs. She also taught me how to chart my cycle so that I would know what my body was saying. It didn’t take long before I felt like a new person.

A year later I went for my annual exam. I was nervous, but I honestly felt much better than I had in the previous years. My cycles were not nearly as painful, and I was able to manage them with over-the-counter remedies. I felt like a “normal” woman. When the results came in, I was floored! My doctor, a smile from ear to ear, informed me that my scars were almost all healed, my blood work showed vast improvement, and my cysts were much more under control.

I still have pain every now and then, but it is much more manageable now that I am free of the pill’s toxins. I am happy knowing that I can rely on natural remedies to cope with my cycle. And of course I love the fact that I can give myself, my whole self, to my husband without fear of a pill that takes away my ability to be who I am: a WOMAN!