In Utero

This post is in the spirit of John's post on Mind on Fire and his openness about becoming Sterile- which I think we both agree, as this time in our lives, is a good thing.

The picture above it the Mirena IUD, which women can have inserted into their uterus for five years as the most effective form of birth control out there. (99.9%) This one, in contrast to others in the market, is hormonal, which helps women who have heavy periods and bad cramps to regulate such things. While many people I know have compared IUDs to have perpetual abortions my doctor explained that this is not true. Many people think that what the IUD does is to keep an fertilized egg from implanting in the lining of the uterus, and therefore whenever you have a fertilized egg you are aborting it via the IUD. My doctor told me that this is not what the facts state. She explained that the IUD creates an environment in the uterus in which an egg is 99.9% unlikely to ever be fertilized by a sperm, which kind of negates the whole abortion argument.

My experience getting the IUD in was not the best at all. I used the restroom as soon as I got to the office and unfortunately this was a bad choice because it took me over 40 minutes to produce any more pee for a pregnancy test. When I was confirmed negative the doctor showed it to me and explained the the procedure involved measuring my uterus first so she would know how far to insert it. She said that depending on the position of my cervix and my uterus that she might need to clamp down my cervix to hold it in place, but fortunately she did not, because she said that this could be the most painful part of the process. I found the measuring and insertion to be extremely painful. I screamed ouch a few times and help on tight to a pillow, but the procedure was only 5 minutes long, so it's not too much to handle.

The hours following the insertion were pretty painful. It felt like extremely bad menstrual cramps that come from uterine contractions. Since I have never had a baby, I think it might be similar to having labor contractions, but I guess I won't know that for another 5 years (at least). I spent my evening in the bath, curled up with a heating bad, and cringing from the pain. I took Aleve, Ibubrofen, and eventually a muscle relaxer for my legs because I had been clenching them so much from the pain. I woke up this morning, and I feel way better, although mildly uncomfortable at different times of the day.

So, now I am sterile, which is pretty exciting considering I will no longer have to remember to take a pill every day, and I won't have to hormone shots that making a raging crying bitch, and I won't have to by any more pregnancy tests because I tend to have really irregular or non-existent periods.

So, I am pretty happy about the whole thing. I go back in a month for the doctor to check it out. I am pretty glad that this little device is the only think that will be In Utero until I decide it's time for a baby.

Sex in an MRI tube, anyone?

I finished reading this book about a week ago and thoroughly both enjoyed it and learned quite a bit from it. The book is about historical and and current scientific research that had been done about sex. It dates back to earlier than Kinsey's research and includes accounts of Sex in a MRI tube, and a personal account that the author gives about being a research subject and having sex with her husband while a doctor had a conversation with her husband and performing an ultrasound on the two of them to observe (internally) what happened when they had sex.

The chapter dealing with female orgasm talks about Princess Maria Bonaparte and her research and finding about the distance of the clitoris from the vaginal opening is highly connected to the likelihood that a woman will have an orgasm during normal 'missionary position' sex. (The more distance between the two, the less likely it is for orgasm to be achieved.) Princess Bonaparte has her clitoris surgically moved TWICE in order to cure her problem of 'frigidity' but both times it was unsuccessful.

There's a lot of good information in this book. For example, it talks about why regularly masturbating can help woman who have sexual dysfunction more than Viagra. It has lots of information about male sexual dysfunction and some really cringe-worthy discussions of certain implants and other methods that can be used to helped male sexual problems. The last chapter talks about how homosexual couples who were studied (maybe 20 years ago) were observed as being much more in-tune with their partners sexual needs, while heterosexual couples have a much harder time doing this. She ended by saying that in the 20 years that have elapsed between that study and today a lot of research on sex has really helped couples to better understand both their own bodies and their partners.

I personally like learning about sex because learning about it as a biological and scientific process helps me to disassociate negative and guilty feelings about it. The more I learn, the more I can talk about, and the more I talk about sex, the more comfortable and confident I become around the topic. This book also made me laugh out loud almost every time I picked it up, so there's a another upside to reading it.

If you want to borrow my copy, just let me know.

Okay to cry?

Since I cried a lot this weekend, David and I had this discussion about why we cry/don't cry.

I told him that I grew up in a household where I was never discouraged from crying. The only time I remember when we had some issues about crying was when my little sister was going through this phase where she cried over anything and everything and we would tell her she 'cried over air' which made her cry. I generally will 'cry over air' throughout certain periods (or certain periods in my life), so I feel bad for giving her a hard time for it now.

But in general I was always taught that it was okay to cry and it was best to get it out. Crying was a good therapeutic release that helped to keep one from suppressing their emotions. I have cried about my lack of father through out my life-sometimes out of sadness and sometimes anger, but I think that my mother encouraged this in order to help me express myself.

I spent a lot of my years in the Pentecostal church crying and weeping hysterically during services. I think a lot of it had to do with feeling overwhelmed with conviction or overburdened by the weight of the souls of others. Some of it had to do with guilt and shame, and a lot of it (once again) had to do with my abandonment issues and my father. I felt that all of this crying, and all of the prayer and encouragement of others was therapeutic, but it got old after a while. And then I kind of felt bad when I didn't cry because I thought maybe God was not speaking to me or maybe I couldn't heat him.

I cried periodically in college. The most memorable crying was my second year when I was in a bunk bed that I used to slam my head on about once a month. I was never able to just shake this off at all, I think I used it was an excuse to get some good cry time in, but really it just generally hurt and when I hurt I thought about all the stuff that hurt- like missing my family, etc.

As I have gotten older I still cry quite a bit. I was regularly crying over sex for a while, which was really extremely annoying and probably had nothing to do with sex at all. I think it sucked the most because it but a really negative spin on something that should not be negative. I cry about once a month when I get all hormonal. I think during this time just about anything can and will make me cry. I am working on rectifying my source of birth control because I think this makes it more out of control than it should be.

This weekend I felt justified in my crying-although wished a lot that I could stop. I cried because my anxiety about David leaving is high, and it brings up all this abandonment BS which is totally frustrating- but real at the same time. I cried because as happy as I am for him, and I also really sad that I will have to save up all my love for the weekends, and that it might be sort of a struggle with loneliness, etc. I don't know if the crying helped that much, but it certainly is a good way to acknowledge the fear and anxiety of the situation. Now I just need to start dealing with it in a healthy manner. I know that I can, it's just a little bit hard.

So the moral of this post is that I cry a lot, and I am completely okay with it. I think it's a major source of release and it helps me to get emotions out rather than keep them in. It makes me feel less week than it does vulnerable, and I am happy when I have someone to share the vulnerability with- crying alone is a little bit harder.

Do you cry? Are you okay with crying? Are you ashamed of crying? What role has crying played in your life? Is it something that had never happened, come in stages, or has been common in your life?