I would consider myself a smart girl. I was that girl in high school that told everyone else what to do. DON’T do drugs. DON’T have sex - wait until college. DO your homework in advance. DON’T smoke… anything. DON’T drink too much. DO let me eat your french fries.

I’ve put great effort over the years to remain a good role model. I’ve never smoked anything or done any other drugs, I’ve kept my alcohol intake to a moderate level since I was 13 (minus those few times in college), and I didn’t have sex until I was 20 years old. I mean, do you KNOW how big a deal that is? Especially for someone from Kentucky? Where everyone is pregnant before they graduate high school? Forget the fact that I’ve remained a non-smoker despite the fact that every single person in my family smokes. The real accomplishment is not losing it as a teenager. My mom got pregnant when she was 16 (my dad: “You can’t get pregnant the first time!”), my sister when she was 18. I am quite the family freak.

But, despite my ability to control my hormones (or rather, my ex-boyfriend’s vow to wait until marriage), I am now concerned that the other tradition of my family will come true… that my family will begin unexpectedly and not when desired. I really don’t want kids until I’m closer to 30, after I’ve had time to enjoy my adulthood and time with Josh. So, now that I’m sexually active, I am constantly freaking out.

Our only method of protection is spermicide-coated Trojans. Which, statistically speaking, should provide very little opportunity for a baby to be made. But still, accidents happen. This is why I desperately need more than one form of birth control to feel safe. I need some PILLS, dammit.

Well, I don’t have insurance here in Dublin. I don’t have insurance when I’m at home. I won’t have health insurance again until September, when I’m back in school in New York. So until then, I can’t afford a gynecological exam. Which reeeally sucks. When I first got to Dublin, I was freaking out because my period was late and I had developed new symptoms (which are just apparently new parts of my PMS grab-bag. Hooray for sore boobs!). It finally came.

But then there was Josh’s visit over Spring Break this month. And my period is supposed to start today. And I don’t feel it starting. And my boobs aren’t hurting enough, and I don’t really have any other symptoms except moodiness which I’m always moody because I’m overly emotional and almost 4,000 miles from home and I don’t want to be here–

So yeah, I need birth control. And I think it should be cheap and readily available to any girl who needs it. It would cost me at least 100 Euro to get it here (roughly $150), which I can’t afford. I’m hoping that if I try Planned Parenthood in Louisville when I go home, they’ll give me the prescription without saying I need an exam first. I promise I will get an exam when I go to school justpleasegivemethepills.

And then I keep thinking about the fact that about a third of women continue to have a period-like cycle during their first trimester of pregnancy. So that sure as fuck doesn’t help. I COULD ALREADY BE FERTILIZED FOR BOB’S SAKE.

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