My Poor Classroom Attendance, Capitalism and Birth Control

My friends who are also my former classmates can tell you that although I’m intelligent and well educated, attending class has never really been my thing. I feel suffocated by structured education. In fact, I once took a personality test which indicated that I generally have a problem with structure….and rules (that I didn’t make). I say all of this to explain that in spite of my law degree from one of the best law schools in the country, I somehow missed the section in property class (a basic first year law school requirement)….well let me just be honest, I missed almost everything in property class. I just didn’t have the mental energy or will to sort it all out. I can sum up my entire recall of my property law classroom experience as ‘blah blah blah adverse possession blah blah blah tacking.’ Hand to God, that’s all I can really remember. So truthfully, if called upon to testify, I couldn’t even tell you if the subject matter of this post was covered in my property class. I have no idea.


I just know that somewhere in the foggy library of my brain I remember hearing that drugs receive limited patents that allow other companies to duplicate them in generic form after a certain period of time has elapsed. I think this has something to do with the federal government attempting to prevent drug companies from monopolizing the market or research or something, honestly, I can’t really remember.

Moving on to the subject of this post, prior to getting pregnant with my second child and subsequent to giving birth to my first, I had a prescription for Tri-Sprintec which was the generic form of Ortho Tri Cyclen- a birth control pill. Now apparently (based on my Google research) the manufacturers of Tri-Sprintec have been sued from here to Kingdom Come (dang lawyers) so they had to shut down production of the generic- which was a quarter of the cost of the name brand. Evidently (again based on my Google research) no one else is eligible to obtain a generic patent until December of 2015. BLANK STARE.

The first day I arrived at the pharmacy blissfully unaware that my $17.00 Tri-Sprintec had been unceremoniously yanked from the market, I made a decision. I decided to protest the oppression of capitalism by refusing to purchase the $50.00 Ortho Tri Cyclen….. Ok that is a complete fabrication. In reality I just thought paying $50.00 for a drug I had been getting for $17.00 was outrageous and I refused to do it. Small problem, my economic assessment did not include an analysis of the effect of failing to take birth control. What about my husband you ask--- ZERO help. My husband and I decided to take the road less traveled and although we had no plans to have another child until my daughter was at least 3, before she even reached her second birthday I was back in the hospital eating chicken broth and popsicles, holding our son and plotting how to lose 50 pounds.

The moral of this story is something like pay attention in school and don’t cut off your nose to spite your face because it turns out that $50.00 a month doesn’t even approach the cost of diapers and formula for the same period of time. Last but certainly not least, BLANK STARE to myself with honorable mention to my unhelpful husband.