I took the pill for the first time when I was 19. I stopped taking it ten years later, at 29. I only took it for a few months first then stopped, retook it at 20 then stopped for a few months, and then retook it. Should I go on? I think you got it. Whenever I didn’t need it (because my then-boyfriend or I was away), I stopped taking it every time. I NEVER liked taking the pill. I ALWAYS knew I’d stop it for good at one point or another but I didn’t know how to handle it. I was in a serious relationship (which ended in a marriage) but I was not married yet and didn’t want to get pregnant before we were ready for a child so I kept taking it.

For me, it was very easy because I am organized and never forgot to take it, not even once. However, I never felt comfortable with contraception:

• it produces an artificial period called withdrawal bleeding that looks like a period but isn’t one. What the hell was going on then? Why was I bleeding if it wasn’t from the normal process my body was supposed to go through? (let me know if you are a doctor)
• I hate taking drugs and other stuff. I didn’t take the jab in 2021 and went through a natural birth. That’s how much I hate taking drugs. And yet, there I was swallowing that pill every morning. I knew I needed a change.
• I had been having depression phases throughout my 20s and thought that was normal until I learned more about the pill and how it can affect mental health.

So I started looking for other women’s testimonials who had made that change and that’s when my life changed forever.

I stumbled upon several videos about cycle tracking. Believe it or not, I had never heard about that before in my entire life. I went to school and have a master’s degree but I was completely clueless. Many of these videos recommended one book: Taking Charge of Your Fertility written by Tony Wreschler, MPH.

Thanks to this book, not only did I learn how to track my cycles but also how to understand my body as a woman. It opened my eyes to the reasons why I acted and felt the way I felt on any given day and made me embrace my femininity. Thanks to this book, I was confident I could get pregnant fast if I was healthy and I did. I got pregnant on my first try after being on the pill for nearly ten years on and off. If you want to know more about that, I have written an article you can read here.

I decided to wait until I was married to stop the pill forever. I took the last pill in early September 2022 and haven’t looked back since.

What’s funny is I didn’t even think about how stopping the pill would affect my life. A few days later, I realized something. I was … horny. As hell! I had had no issue with my libido throughout the years, or so I thought. I couldn’t believe how horny I felt, I was going to turn 30 in a few weeks and had never felt so hot! I had stopped the pill before so I can’t really explain it, but my libido has never been better (not counting postpartum because breastfeeding is kind of killing my vibe right now but that’s a topic for another day).

After a few months off the pill, I realized I had fewer and fewer depression episodes. Now, I can’t remember the last one to be honest. I am just so much more stable mentally.

The last thing I noticed was that I could finally read the signs and adapt my life to my cycle phases. I can go with the flow (pun intended) and understand why I feel more energetic and social on some days and why I am more withdrawn and tired on other days. I am not a man and I work on a 28-day cycle (actually, it’s more like 26 for me).

Stopping the pill is one of the most liberating things I have done. If you want to control your fertility, you do not need a pill to do so. I am so sad that we have abandoned this knowledge and lost our intuition in the process. I even read an article somewhere where a doctor said it was useless for women to worry about their cycles and stuff. That it was too cumbersome to track them with their temperature and other signs.

Why learn to know your body when there’s a pill you can buy? Why trust your body when the doctors ”know better” right? Why rely on your body instead of a drug that is maybe affecting your mental health and overall health in ways you just can’t be sure about because you have never been an adult without taking this pill? Why discover who you are without it? Maybe because we want to push the narrative that women should act like men and not care who they are intimate with? Maybe because all those women on the pill are paying clients? Maybe because women are attracted to a different type of men when they’re on the pill and making more and more men less masculine? Ok, I’m not a scientist, I don’t know much about this. But I can ask questions.

I could go on and on about this subject but you get the drill. You can stop taking the pill, You can learn how to track your cycles, and you can control your fertility.