There is no acceptable form of birth control. My grandmother used to make a joke about how best to use the pill. "Hold it between your knees." Yeah, I tried that, and it's really hard to do while having sex. Har har.
I quit hormones after 12+ years. They started to make me crazy in both pill and ring form. My stress rose to intolerable levels. Let's not speak of the headaches. Of course, my doctor said that I simply needed to reduce stress in my life. Oh, imagine how splendid that would be, but imagine how unlikely. Instead, I decided to take control of the things I could easily control, I.E., my medication, as in, I stopped taking it. Ah, problem solved. Right. The headaches are long gone, but irony of all ironies: quitting the pill increased my sex drive. Fantastic.
So, I traded in one problem for another. (Actually, I traded in several problems for several others.) As I told a co-worker of mine who held up a particular brand of birth control pill that keeps women from having their periods as evidence of our over-medicated society, "Good diet and regular exercise are not effective forms of birth control." It makes me crazy that fertility is a condition that has to be treated, one way or another. So what's a girl to do?
(If somebody suggests condoms to me, I will get upset. Besides the obvious problems, nonoxynol-9 is not my friend.)
How's about a diaphragm? Seems like a good idea. I like a good old-fashioned mechanical solution to a problem. Oh, but wait. It really only works if you use it with spermicide, which tends to have a numbing effect on certain critical parts of the body, not the least of which, dare I say, is the tongue...not mine, of course. Oh, and it only works if you insert it correctly. That's not an easy task, I tell you what, and I wouldn't call it an effective method of foreplay, either. Chris, however, made it sound like fun. "It's like a trampoline at the end of the runway." I laughed and laughed, but I still had to ditch it.
So, what next? Surgery? No, I'm less a fan of surgery than I am of chemicals and hormones. Abstinence? Riiight. Cervical cap? If inserting a diaphragm's a pain, could you imagine getting this right? Female condom? Please. Ok, what's left?
IUD! Yes, as I mentioned in an earlier blog post, there's something else I can try, and try I have. Now, if I can manage to stop bleeding, all will be well. Luckily, the cramps went away after a couple days. I was afraid I was going to have to re-ignite my love affair with ibuprofen. None of this compares to the insertion, itself, in my opinion. I've never given birth, so I realize my scale for pain may not be adjusted properly. I've been told, however, that I have a pretty high threshold.
Keep in mind that those of us who have not had children have likely never had anything inside our uteri before. For the insertion of an IUD, they gotta stick a couple different things in there to get the job done. I suppose my tiny cervix didn't help me out in this case. This illustration of the tools and the step-by-step process plus a little imagination should make you wince a little:
Ouch. The good news is, assuming I don't decide I hate this thing, I can keep it for ten years. If my plan works, this will be the last time you hear from me on the subject. Lucky you.
As I was searching for images of the ParaGuard IUD to share with you, I came across this Peaches video on YouTube that I'd never seen before. It has little to do with birth control, but it still seems appropriate. I find the use of footage from the Andy Griffith Show confounding but oddly hilarious in a few spots.
