How Birth Control Gave Me a BBL
Because apparently birth control couldn’t just regulate my cycle, it had to give me a dump truck and an identity crisis.
So, listen… I was never a fan of birth control. I tried it once in my early twenties because of irregular cycles, and when I say I transformed into a beast, it’s no exaggeration. I tried the pill, the mini pill, and the patch — which, by the way, almost singed my fucking skin off. I had a perfect little square outline on my belly for about a year.
Then, I stopped. I lived with irregular periods until they started coming and going on their own.
When I got married, I thought, as a good little wife, I should get back on birth control. I explained to my then-husband that if I did, he’d realize he married She-Hulk — and it would not be a vibe. We went on with life as is, and yes, there was some pulling out, but because she has a mind of her own, there was rarely a chance for that to happen successfully.
After two years, I thought it was odd I hadn’t gotten pregnant. I mean, what did I know? I grew up sheltered, and all the basic sex-ed knowledge most girls already have in their twenties I was still figuring out. Add some residual religious guilt into the mix, and I just thought the good Lord hadn’t “blessed me with a child” yet. My husband was in and out (no pun intended) of deployments, so I figured the stress and moving around gave my body no time to say, “Hey, let’s make a baby!”
We weren’t trying, but we weren’t trying not to either.
So I went to my endocrinologist to talk about my thyroid. The doctor said, “I’m going to be honest with you — it will be very hard for you to conceive.”
Mixed emotions. On one hand, my marriage was already a shit show and not a fucking vibe, so not being able to have a baby didn’t sound that bad — I didn’t want to traumatize a kid the way I’d been traumatized. But still, like most women, I felt that little ache. I was sad. My “maternal instincts,” or what I thought were maternal instincts, were hurt.
I mean, I was a phenomenal mother to my stuffed animals growing up. My parents had to buy me diapers and fake-ass formula for them. I had a $50 stroller that every girl on my block envied, and my favorite bear sat proudly in the middle of my bed, dressed and ready for his day. I was ready.
But I also remembered my hideous religious trauma — how at sixteen I told my parents I’d never marry and never have kids because I didn’t want any. Truth is, I never played with baby dolls. I had stuffed animals. While the other girls had Baby Alives and Water Babies, I was rocking my teddy bear with sunglasses. In my head, my kid was a koala. I birthed a koala, and no one could tell me otherwise.
Anyway, there I was, sitting on the doctor’s table, exposed, barren, sterile, or whatever the fuck you want to call it — and I thought, Well, I can always adopt. Which probably explains my lifelong need to pull over whenever I see a black trash bag or wet box on the side of the road because what if it’s a baby?
I went home to my cheating husband (which I didn’t know yet because I was too young, too stupid, and too busy playing the good Navy wife) and said, “Hey, the doctor thinks I can’t have babies.” He replied, “Your doctor doesn’t know anything.” And that was that.
That summer, we both got serious about the gym, vitamins, and healthy eating. We were doing great — except for the fact that he constantly yelled at me for laughing at Planet Fitness. Apparently, giggling during squats was offensive. He even got mad when I wanted to participate in Pizza Tuesdays.
Mind you, my thyroid was overactive at the time, so I was skinny and constantly starving. The fact that Planet Fitness had pizza to “motivate” people was unhinged, but whatever.
Fast forward a month later — my birthday. I got white-girl wasted. My boss and best friend had just welcomed a baby, and I’d been helping him with balloons, gifts, the whole nine. I remember sitting in the office, looking at baby photos, when I turned to him and said, “Why do you smell like that?”
He looked at me confused. “Do I smell bad?”
I said, “No… you smell… like a man, but… sweet.”
He laughed. “What, are you pregnant?”
I said, “Oh god no. Impossible.”
Three weeks later, I found out I was, indeed, pregnant — from birthday sex.
My new doctor (because clearly the last one didn’t know SHIT) told me I had created the perfect environment by being healthy and taking my meds, and that’s how I got pregnant.
After the baby, I stayed off birth control. Eight months later, I got pregnant again but miscarried early, around the time I stopped breastfeeding. After that, I was careful — no more babies.
Years later, post-divorce, I asked myself: Now that I’m single, do I really have to do the birth control thing again?
My first boyfriend after divorce was someone I knew from childhood — we grew up in the same cult. He already had a kid, and I sorta wanted another, but within a month I decided definitely not with him. I went back to side-of-the-road baby-box surveillance.
He pushed for birth control, which pissed me off, but I agreed just to teach him a lesson. Spoiler: he did not like who I became. We lasted less than a year. (He’ll make another appearance in the story where he lost his shit after I landed a job that paid more than his.)
I was single for three years. Then I met the guy — toxic, insane, addictive as fuck, and absolutely unhinged. Birth control was the last thing on my mind. I was probably dickmatized, because my ass should have been on that. It lasted four months before the universe intervened — he nearly got a restraining order for stalking me.
So, single again. Two years this time.
During those years, my periods turned violent. Like, offensive violent. Menorrhagia to the point of needing iron infusions. I asked my doctor if the baby factory was shutting down. He said it was probably my thyroid — the bane of my existence since sixteen.
I didn’t believe him. “Is this… the fucking curse? Perimenopause?!”
He admitted he didn’t want to tell me because I’d Google it and become unhinged. He recommended — birth control.
I said absolutely not. He suggested the unholy plastic wishbone: the IUD.
I gasped.
I got the Mirena. It worked great for three months. Then I developed what I genuinely thought were crop circles on my thigh — three little circles at first. I ranted on Threads about it. People said, “It’s ringworm.” I said, “No, I’ve been marked by aliens, and they’re coming for me.”
Six dermatologists later, I got five different diagnoses. Finally, this tiny old man gasped and said, “Oh my god, I haven’t seen this in forty years — only in textbooks.”
“Great,” I said. “Leave it to me to have some mutant bacteria or alien parasite.”
He asked to take a photo of my crop-circle thigh and ass to show his students at Stony Brook University. So if you’re a dermatology student and you ever see my crusty alien rash, please know it’s not granuloma annulare — it was a rash caused by too much estrogen.
We yanked out the IUD, and the rash vanished. But the bleeding came back — violently — along with a side of depression and an existential crisis over running out of granola and yogurt. I needed another iron infusion because I was hideously depleted.
They suggested another IUD. I said, fuck it, we ball.
And ball we did — until my body started to push it out. I woke up one morning in a full-body rash, having contractions like I was about to give birth. Two hours later, I was fine.
But that wasn’t all. Around that time, my antidepressants changed, my thyroid was being a dick again, and I started gaining weight — fast. I assumed it was thyroid-related. My closet has everything from size 2 to size 12 because of that fickle little gland.
But this time? It wasn’t stopping. My mom kept pointing out, “Your ass is huge.” Not in a bad way — she meant curvy.
A month before my IUD started birthing itself, I was desperate for a bra that fit. My boobs had gone up two cup sizes and felt like puberty 2.0.
“You’re in puberty again,” my mom said. “And your ass is HUGE.”
I didn’t believe her — until I watched myself put on pants and saw my dump-truck ass recoil in horror. My hips were wider, my boobs massive, and I was 4’11 — so it was noticeable. I was all ass and basketball titties.
It looked like I had a BBL. And while it wasn’t bad — kinda hot, actually — I was devastated. It wasn’t my body. I’d get dressed and stare at my reflection in shock. My ass took up half the room. I was offended.
I started wearing only sweatpants to minimize it. One day my son asked, “Why are you only wearing sweatpants and sweaters now?”
I whispered like Regina George: “Sweatpants are all that fit me right now.”
I’m happy to report that since removing the IUD, my ass and titties have stopped growing and creating their own gravitational pull. I feel more comfortable and have dropped two pant sizes. My shape’s returning to normal — though I might need another iron infusion because I’m bleeding out like it’s a side hustle.
At least I no longer look like a dwarf version of Cardi B.
This thought came to me today as I slid my jeans on and felt no recoil smacking me in the back of the neck. Progress.
I hope you gained some informative information from this utterly useless story.
