My Pitch to Gloria: Should You Still Take Birth Control During Perimenopause?
My Pitch to Gloria: Should You Still Take Birth Control During Perimenopause?
When your pitch turns into something different, in a good way!
After so many months of silence, I finally released a new byline out into the world: this Q&A in one of my favorite newsletters, Gloria. Like many of the ideas I’ve pitched lately, this one was inspired by something in my life and my absolute lack of shame. Months after my last relationship ended, I decided to stop taking birth control because I was curious to get reacquainted with my “real” period aka my uterine lining, after a whole adult era of only knowing withdrawal bleeding. I had this vague notion that pausing birth control was some way to detox my body; from what, I’m not sure. Impure thoughts, maybe. In any case, I absolutely HATED the experience. My breakouts resumed, it took forever to get my normal period, my moods were swinging like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and I found literally no benefit to it.
That’s when I realized that literally NO GYNO EVER had told me what to do with birth control when you get to be my age (41), have no kids, don’t want any kids, and don’t like the idea of getting your tubes tied or other surgical procedures. And thus, a pitch was born. It took me several months to land it anywhere. About 3 publications flat out ghosted or rejected it and Gloria’s editor responded close to two months after I sent it. On the other hand, nothing I’ve ever published has received the kind of response this piece inspired. Turns out, many women out there had the same question I had! And it shouldn’t be this difficult to get info on our bodies!
Another interesting thing about this pitch: I initially framed it one way and the editor came back with another idea. Curious? Keep scrolling to see my original pitch and the editor’s response.
I am sharing my pitch under the same conditions I always do:
Don’t ever tell me if you find a typo, EVER. It clearly wasn’t bad enough for the jury/committee/reader/editor, etc. to reject me and it will only serve to haunt me until my dying days.
Do not plagiarize my silly little sentences. It’s not cool and I’ll know you’ll have done it. Especially if you copy+paste it with the typos I do NOT want brought to my attention.