Tasty food and birth control

Food from Monday!

Spinach souffle - my first-course/appetizer

 Chicken with Rice (Spanish style) - my main course

 Not sure but it had beef and Rocio really liked it.

 Lentils, rice, and chicken milanesa (burger-style)

The highlights of Monday, other than this food, were me having to overcome my frustration at making wallets out of old milk cartons and tape (the tape kept breaking) and getting to help with the family planning consultations for couples with Gisella. First I observed, and then she started letting me describe the birth control options in Spanish and make jokes with the couples. I felt like I was actually getting to do something important!

It is also very interesting to me to see the differences between American and Peruvian birth control brands. For example, the vaginal ring in the US is the NuvaRing, a thin transparent plastic ring with hormones to prevent pregnancy. But in Peru, the vaginal ring is thicker, smaller in diameter, and opaque white. It looks a little less sexy and a little less comfortable than NuvaRing but also probably cheaper. Seems like the condoms and IUDs are all the same here as in the US, but there are no non-latex condoms to be found (except the female condom).

I thought I came here with a complete knowledge of all things birth control, but I have been learning some new things! I didn't know that Plan B, the emergency contraception pill, really shouldn't be taken more than twice per year (once every 6 months) because although it prevents pregnancies post-sex during one-time emergencies with high efficiency, it also increases the general level of the hormone that makes your body more likely to get pregnant. So if you were to use just Plan B after every time you had sex, or even once a month, your likelihood of getting pregnant would become the same as that of a woman not using any kind of contraception whatsoever. The more you know...

Real life happened when one couple came in, and I thought they were so young that they'd be looking to try out their first kind of birth control for their new relationship. They said they were 19 and 21 and had just had their first child in December despite the fact that the woman had been taking birth control pills. Now she was trying injections and was getting heavy bleeding, and it seemed like she couldn't catch a break.

I've noticed a different feeling of helplessness and fear at least in myself but probably in a lot of Peruvian women, because here, abortion is illegal. It happens all the time, and there are posters in the streets that say "We solve late periods" but they are the kind of abortions that women get hurt and die from, or used to in the US before Roe v. Wade. I feel lucky to have grown up in a society where abortion is safe and legal, not because it makes me want to have one, but because I feel like if I am being responsible and still my birth control fails, I am not sentenced to carry and give birth to a baby I don't want. There are all kinds of moral issues that other people have, but to me it has always felt like my autonomy over my health has been honored by the law in the US. Here, the Catholic power is so strong that women are actually forced to give birth even in cases where the baby has severe deformities, completely incompatible with life (anencephaly, for example). The woman may be watched over, prevented from taking any kind of action like suicide or abortion, and if she does, the hospital has to report the cause of bleeding or abortion and she can be sent to jail. The doctors either choose not to treat her post-abortion wounds or lie about the probable cause.

Even with all this, my coworkers agreed with the statistic that 35% of pregnancies in Peru end in abortions. The level of denial going on in the government here is astounding, even worse than in the US. This is the opposite of public health, in which people have to come to terms with harsh realities and then mitigate the harm in the most realistic and effective manner no matter what the discomfort.