Megan of Washington, D.C.
Megan of Washington, writes:
In March 2012, I was working as a middle school teacher in central California when I found out I would be getting laid off at the end of the school year. Since I was unlikely to find another teaching job (there was still quite a shortage of open teaching positions at that time) and I had another nine months until I finished my masters degree, I figured it would be at least a year after I got laid off until I would get a full time job with health benefits again. I was 29, single, and completely on my own financially. I thought the most prudent decision I could make at the time for my reproductive health would be get an IUD, since I was was not perfect at taking birth control pills at the exact same time daily and this was obviously not an ideal time to have a baby.
I was employed full time in a public school district and assumed that my insurance would cover an IUD. I was wrong (this was a about 6 months before the ACA rule requiring birth control to be fully covered went into effect). After hours and hours on the phone with my insurance company, they verified that they would not cover the cost of an IUD – it would have cost me just over $1000 out of pocket for the cost of the device and the insertion fee.
Since I was already barely getting by on my teacher salary in an expensive part of California and I was about to be unemployed, I obviously could not afford it. I continued on birth control pills (paying out of pocket once I lost my health insurance in June and I could not afford to buy my own plan) for the next two years, until they started making me so sick I had to stop taking them. It’s a shame because everyone I know who has had an IUD loves it and reports far fewer side effects than the pill.
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