I’m leaving the office now, should be home in 25…should I call you first?
Lilith
No I need both of you here, Maya you will too
With that last ominous text, Hanna began shifting gears on what shehadbeen planning for that Friday night. Shehadbeen planning on going home and seducing her two beautiful girlfriends, considering they all had a weekend that aligned: Maya didn’t have a paper and Lily wasn’t working towards a client’s deadline. It sounded like those plans would have to take a back seat.
Hanna stuffed her phone into her new leather shoulder tote, a congratulatory present from her parents, aka her mother. While they still weren’t talking, nothing really beyond proof of life conversations, Hanna felt that perhaps this was her mother’s way of trying to take a step in the right direction. With one lastadjustment of her shoulder strap, she continued down the hall of Planned Parenthood New England.
“Sorry, Ms. McAvoy, one last question?” A soft voice came from behind her as she made her way through the waiting room towards the exit.
Hanna turned to see the curly-haired student she had met about twenty minutes before. “Hey Serena, was there more you wanted to ask?”
The young woman’s light brown cheeks colored, but she nodded her head.
“Do you want to step back in one of our?—”
“Will I still like my boyfriend after?”
Hanna shut her mouth and took a pause. They were alone in the waiting area, since it was the end of the day and Hanna was closing the place down, so she wasn’t surprised that Serena was okay with having the conversation there; she was surprised because she knew Serena had just been in with one of their medical providers to discuss changing her hormonal birth control. Hanna had stepped in to shadow the consultation, acting as a liaison between the patient and the medical professional. This location found that adding a Patient Advocate–her official title–helped build trust and understanding and therefore improved outcomes for their patients.
Hanna loved her job and was floored by the amount of misinformation when it came to certain bodies out there. She was used to being surprised by questions like, “Can I douche with Mountain Dew after sex to keep from getting pregnant?” or “My partner says because it's anal we don’t need a condom,” but this question was unexpected.
“I’m sorry, your boyfriend? Will you like him after…” She trailed off, waving her hands slightly to encourage the young woman to fill in her blanks.
“I saw on TikTok that birth control tricks your body into thinking you’re pregnant so you crave a certain kind of partner, like one that protects you, like a friend? But then when you get off of it you want another kind of partner, one who is more–sexy, I guess.” She laughed at the last part sheepishly. “So I was thinking that if I change the type of birth control I’m on, and Dr. Lutz explained I might have new side effects–and I was thinking, what if a side effect is that I like a different kind of guy?” She shook her head, her face turning almost scarlet. “You know what, you’re trying to leave for the day, never?—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Hanna said, while her mind raced to catch up and sort through the logic and misinformation to find a way to soothe the woman’s very real fears. “Let’s slow down for a second. Come here, let’s sit.”
She guided the young woman to a pair of seats that couldn’t be seen through the windows. While no one was in the building besides the cleaning staff, Hanna was all too familiar with the protestors outside and how much they liked to try to catch a glimpse of the people in the waiting area, even though they tried to shield it as much as possible.
The protestors assumed every single woman walking into the building was getting an abortion when that was less than 1% of the work they did at the location, like many locations. Mainly they just spent their days providing medical care and information that the community they served otherwise wouldn’t have.
“First, call me Hanna. I’m not that much older than you, you know,” Hanna said as they sat. It was true; she was 22 to the young woman’s 17. “Second, I totally get that navigating hormonal birth control can be a crappy process until you figure out what works well with your body.”
Serena nodded. “Yeah, and I’m not even taking it for birth control.”
“A lot of people aren’t,” Hanna replied.
“Why do they even call it that then?” Serena inquired, finally making eye contact with Hanna.
“Because that’s what it was originally developed for and that’s how it’s remembered. But I know lots of girls who take it for the same reasons as you: they have really painful periods and basically see the whole pregnancy prevention piece as a bonus.”
Serena laughed at that. “It’s basically our backup. Even though my boyfriend isn’t crazy about condoms, I don’t want to risk it.”
“It’s your body that he gets to be invited to, so you get to make the rules on how it’s entered.”
Serena’s cheeks reddened with discomfort. Like so many teens Hanna saw, she wasn’t experienced at talking openly about sex, and Hanna mentally commended her on working through it.
“Now,” Hanna continued, “you’re afraid that birth control will alter who you are attracted to?”
Serena nodded. “It’s been coming up on my TikTok.”
“Ah,” Hanna started, internally shaking her head at the nonsense on social media. “Okay, so first off, in terms ofhowthe pill works, it’s a little bit more layered and nuanced than your body believing it's pregnant, especially if you’re not taking a mono phase pill. I’ll leave that up to your conversations with Dr. Lutz, but in the meantime I’ll also send you home with one of our pamphlets, I know—” Hanna acknowledged the slight eye roll the girl tried to fight off, “but you deserve to know what’s happening with your body. Second, attraction and desire are impacted by hormones, sure. There are times of the month you may feelmoreinterested in sex than others, butwhoyou’re attracted to iswhoyou’re attracted to.”
Serena nodded, eager to be convinced but not seeing the logic.
“Imagine if what you saw on TikTok were true,” Hanna continued, “do you know what the divorce rate would be? And what about women like me? I have two girlfriends, and while I am not on the pill, what if I were? According to the logic you found on TikTok, if my body thinks I’m pregnant I should suddenly want to be with a man for the sake of protection? There’s just too many instances where if this were true there would be some very obvious societal reactions and problems.”
