When daughters are young, they need moms for things like
this. When they are a bit older they may need moms for stuff like
this. But when they get to be even older, well, they need other things.
I’m sitting in my office visiting with other nurses and office staff. The phone rings. It’s my eighteen-year-old daughter, "Jane." She’s a senior in high school.
J: “Hi, Mom. Me and J~ (her best friend) were just talking about, well, you know, sex and stuff. So, isn’t it true that the only way to really know for sure that you are pregnant is if you miss your period. I mean, other than doing a pregnancy test?”
I pause only briefly. Catch my breath in shock and awe - shock that I’m sitting there in the middle of the day with coworkers, knowing I need to take this call; awe that my daughter will call me in the middle of the day knowing that I will answer her questions.
Me: “Where are you?”
J: “We’re just driving around. I have the top off the car. It’s great!”
(J. drives her dad’s mid-life crisis car, a white Honda del Sol hard top convertible . . . a high school kid’s dream.)
Me: “Well, yeah, missing your period is the one sure way to know.”
J: “J~ says that you can have a period after you are pregnant. Is that true?”
Me: “Well, not normally. There can be some spotting, but not a true period because the fertilized egg would be lost with the lining of the uterus.”
J: “Yeah. That’s what I told J~, but she said her sister had a period after she was pregnant.”
Me: “Hmmm. I’ll have to check on that.”
J: “We thought we might go to the Planned Parenthood office just to talk to someone. You know, just for fun to see what they do there.”
Me: “I don’t think that’s a real great idea. They might not appreciate you doing it just for fun.”
J. “They don’t care, Mom. M~ went there when she was doing a report or something and they were really nice. Did you know that people can get birth conrol and the "morning-after pill" at Planned Parenthood for free if they don’t have the money? How can they afford to do that, like where do they get the pills and stuff?”
Me: “Yeah, honey. That’s true. Planned Parenthood helps people, especially low income families or girls who don’t have good family support for things like that. They get funding from government and other grants and I’m sure some private donations. Pharmaceutical companies probably throw in some money too or donate medications.”
J: “Why is there a big thing about the morning-after pill? M~ says that it kills the sperm before they get to the egg. So what’s the big deal?”
Me: “Actually, the pill doesn’t kill the sperm. There are things that a woman can use, well, when she’s going to . . . well, have sex, that are called spermacides. They are . . . um . . . put in the vagina as a gel or sometimes a suppository. That’s the only way I know of to kill sperm.”
J: “Oh. That makes sense. I didn’t think M~ was right about the morning-after pill but I wasn’t sure how it worked. So, how does it work?”
If you are a mother, I guarantee you that you will have conversations that you recognize as pivotal, that come at less-than-ideal times. You will know instinctively that you must not say, "Can we talk about this later?" This is one of those times.
My coworkers are looking on wide-eyed and grinning. Later one of them would tell me she thought I was talking to a patient and wondered why a patient would be asking about this.
Me: “The morning-after pill is made up of chemicals or hormones that change the body chemistry and either keep the fertilized egg from implanting or somehow otherwise prevent pregnancy. It’s controversial because some people feel it is like an abortion. I would have to research it because I don’t remember the details.”
J: “Well, I don’t think it is an abortion. Just because the egg is fertilized, it doesn’t mean there is a baby there.”
PivotalMe: “It may not be a baby, but if it is left to grow it will become a baby. That’s why people think it might be like an abortion. I’ll go look it up on the internet and call you back.”
J: “Okay. That’s cool. I thought the morning after pill was totally, like, made up or something. I didn’t think there really was such a thing. Thanks, Mom.”
Me: “You’re welcome. Say hi to J~ from me.”
J: “Mom says hi.” I hear J~ say hi back and I’m wondering how J~’s mom would feel about our little after school chat.
I hang up the phone and look around the room. Prior to the phone call my coworkers and I had been talking about something like how quickly Christmas would be here or the cost of medical supplies. Now two of them tell me that they had periods after they were pregnant.
“That’s why I was off by a month when I estimated my last due date,” says K.
“Me too,” says P.
“Was it a full-blown period?” I ask.
“Yeah,” they both say, ”it seemed like it.”
I sit down at my computer and look up the morning after pill. The corporate server blocks my search a couple of times because of some sites that apparently have sexual content. Then I find
an acceptable link and remember that the morning after pill is simply high doses of estrogen, progestin, etc., like birth control pills.
I call J. back on her cell phone. I gave her the phone for her birthday. Some people think I’m a conservative mother because I have a tight curfew and don’t let my kids have cell phones until they are eighteen and can pay for the service themselves, but, as you can see, I’m pretty liberal when it comes to some things.
Me: “Hi, honey. Are you guys still talking about sex and stuff?”
J: “Yeah, kind of.”
Me: “Well, I found out that you can have a kind of period after you are pregnant . . .” I repeat the other RNs stories. “And I found out the morning after pill is just high doses of the same hormones found in birth control pills. So they prevent ovulation and they may prevent implantation. But the main way they work is preventing ovulation.”
We talk about how this pill has been used in Europe for years and that there is a push to get it to over-the-counter status in the U.S., a little more about ethical questions.
J: “Cool. Thanks, Mom. Hey, we were wondering about something else, pregnancy tests - they don’t really work that well, do they?”
Me: (I gulp. Why is she asking this?) “You mean the ones in the drug store, the urine tests? Yeah, they work, but a woman has to have been pregnant for a while for them to be accurate“
K. calls to me from her office, “The pregnancy tests at the dollar store don’t work!” I relay this important information to S.
Me: “The best way to test for pregnancy is with a blood test. It checks for a hormone that is only present during pregnancy - it’s called HCG, human chorionic gonadotropin.”
J: “Yeah, I know all about that . . .(she does?) from physiology class and stuff.”
J. is a
student athletic trianer at her high school.
Here she is with some of her
best friends. She’s done a lot of studying. Sometimes she thinks she knows more than me, but, apparently, not today.
Me: “So, anyway, HCG shows up in the blood pretty fast, but it takes time to get filtered into urine. Why do you ask? Do you know someone who is pregnant.”
J: “That is sooo cool that HCG is only there when you’re pregnant. No, nobody’s pregnant. We were just wondering about it . . .”
Then we talk about her soccer game and whether or not she has any homework tonight. We hang up the phone. She goes on with her carefree afternoon. I laugh with my coworkers, “the council of women” - that’s what we call ourselves - we talk about how much more our kids know about life than we did at that age. (With the exception of K. She was fairly precocious in her youth.)
I secretly feel like crying; Not becuase I think my daughter is having sex or thinking about doing it any time soon. And, no, I’m not naive. I want to cry because whatever she is thinking about, I am grateful she is comfortable enough to ask . . . and I want to cry because she is old enough to need the answers.
