A backlash is growing – some women are turning to apps or other methods, but a disturbing number seem to be giving up on birth control altogether

For many women I know, contraception is a kind of decades-long quest. The goal: to not get pregnant unless we want to. The tools: limited, imperfect and, sometimes, rejected by our uncooperative bodies.

I have gone on the pill, come off the pill, tried to get the coil (and failed, thanks to my heart rate dropping during the procedure), and had an implant that looked like a short piece of spaghetti poked into my arm, only to have it taken out again after spending months in a fug of sadness. It took the nurse 20 minutes to find it.