I'll open this week's article by confessing that I wasn't sure this was a topic I felt confident in sharing on my social media or comfortable writing about at all. I say this because I think that's exactly why it's important that I write about it in the first place. Sexual and reproductive healthcare for women in the United States is something that is treated as taboo or somehow dirty to talk about. That stereotype and bias about women's health is exactly what makes some young women and girls feel uncomfortable talking to a doctor about their health, or even making a doctors appointment in the first place. If writing about and talking about sexual and reproductive healthcare this month will help reduce that bias that periods are dirty, or that taking birth control is whorish, or that vaginas are inherently embarrassing, I will write about and talk about sexual and reproductive healthcare for the rest of the month and beyond.

Each week for the remainder of February I plan to touch on a different topic of sexual and reproductive healthcare as it relates to women's health. Before I get too far into this week's article though, I want to acknowledge that the phrase "women's health" can be problematic and exclusionary for people who self-identify as women but do not experience these specific healthcare needs or issues. It is not my intention to be exclusionary when using the term "women's health", and I recognize that there are women who do not have periods or vaginas and that their experiences are valid as women's health issues as well. In this article and the remaining articles for the month of February, I will be using the term women's health to refer to healthcare related to periods, pregnancy, and other related health issues.

Now that that's out of the way, I can get into this week's topic which is my experience with hormonal birth control and why I think it's so hard to get.

As someone who takes birth control regularly and has for the past four years, I have experienced just about every struggle associated with the broken healthcare system in America especially as it relates to sexual and reproductive health.

I started taking birth control at age 16 after struggling for four years with extremely painful and debilitating periods. I remember a trip to SeaWorld with my extended family when I got cramps so severe that I could not walk and had to lay down in the grass off to the side of Shamu Stadium until they passed. After that day, I got an appointment with an ob/gyn and was prescribed my first birth control pills.

Since then, I've encountered pretty much all imaginable issues in trying to continue to take birth control. First it was a change in the type of pills my insurance would cover which led to me taking pills that had lower levels of estrogen and progesterone which just didn't work as well for me or my body. Then came a perpetual war between my pharmacy and doctor's office which played out largely while I was away at college. The pharmacy couldn't refill the prescription without the ob/gyn's approval, and the ob/gyn in my hometown was only open on weekdays leading me to miss a full day of college classes to drive a seven hour round trip to my hometown just to get a refilled prescription. Finally, legislation has recently passed allowing insurance companies to refuse to cover birth control for people like me who depend on it to function.

I'll do whatever I have to do in order to make sure that I have the medication that I need. I will spend all day making phone calls to my pharmacy and ob/gyn office, I will switch brands to make sure my insurance will cover payment, I'll even skip classes to drive home for an appointment at a moment's notice. The question to be asked though, is why are these steps necessary? Why have I been fighting for years to get this medication? And how many other women like me have had to fight this fight too?

It is my assertion that the biases surrounding women's health run so deep that they are engrained in our society and healthcare system. The idea that women are dirty or that periods are taboo, or that getting birth control means you must be sleeping around, make us feel uncomfortable seeking healthcare and allow the system to exploit our insecurities and make it more difficult to receive healthcare that we need. Boys don't face these same biases in their sexual and reproductive healthcare. Boys can pick up cotton candy flavored condoms out of a big bucket in the middle of their university health clinic and get a pat on the back from their buddies. Meanwhile girls have to fight tooth and nail to get the care that they need. In next week's article I plan to focus more on these biases and how they relate to teen marketing surrounding periods and feminine hygiene products. Stay tuned for the rest of the month for more thoughts on women's health.