“I had spent 26 years of my life dedicated to women’s health.
I was in the clinic the day Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Perhaps I had just finished counseling a woman about what to expect after taking her medical abortion pills.
I became a contraception expert almost by accident.
Midwives are honored to be present at lifes greatest and most intimate transformations.
Not to mention always being on-call.
I was ready for a change.
I felt like I was home.
The patient visits I conducted were basic for someone with my level of training and experience.
I would soon discover that my patients needed so much more than basic clinical care.
For one thing, anyone who came through our doors would be seen, regardless of ability to pay.
Everyone knew that for sexual health needs, our clinic was the place to go.
Clinic days were hectic because I would often see 35 or more patients in a day.
This meant really listening to them and giving counsel that was accurate and nonjudgmental.
I wanted my patients to leave the clinic feeling better about themselves than when they came in.
Then there was the fact of the world dramatically changing outside our clinic walls.
That is when we saw a massive uptick in teenagers getting IUDs.
They wanted to have contraception that would last his whole presidency, just in case.
I will never forget the first 14-year-old I helped to get an IUD.
She was so brave and happy about it, having made that choice for herself.
Thirty thousand people lost their homes in the Camp fire.
Even still, there was a huge surge of unintended pregnancies in the fires aftermath.
And then came the pandemic.
Everyone and their aunties got urinary tract infections or needed birth control.
Our community saw a rise in syphilis cases during the COVID years, which we called the Second Epidemic.
I was proud to be a pilot provider of telehealth medical abortion.
People seeking our care were often in trouble and needing serious help.
A woman came in bleeding from what turned out to be a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.
I had never seen one before, but I swiftly diagnosed it, saving her life.
I often thought that I should put all of this in a book.
Teenagers are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unintended pregnancy.
These are all barriers to reproductive autonomy.
Fifty-five percent of them are female.
This is a public health crisis for the young women of America.
Dena Moes RN, CNM is a nurse-midwife and reproductive health expert.
She holds a Masters in Nursing from Yale University and has worked in womens health for over two decades.
This article originally appeared onHuffPost.
