Be warned: look away if ladyparts or nonpenile things going into lady parts make your skin crawl. No crawlidermis detected, these things excite you (it takes all kinds)? Read on.
At the end of October, I got an IUD. I've wanted one for a few years and never been able to cough up $500 to handle it out of pocket, so now that I have insurance, I can be baby free for no monthly dinero! This is yay.
I didn't have any problems with birth control pills, in part because my desperate need for attention and validation from others made me rejoice in my prescription because it meant someone, somewhere, was thinking about me. At least for the first two months. I've been on Ortho or some generic variant for several years (yeesh, upwards of eight though not constantly) and my favorite part about the pill is that it worked and I never got pregnant! Hooray. Props to Planned Parenthood for low-cost birth control. Considerably less expensive than a baby plus I got to graduate college and move to Wisconsin and have sex with my husband I can shower and apply booze or caffeine directly to my throat whenever I feel like it. This has all been great. I want a kid eventually, probably sooner rather than later. But not now and definitely not not 100% not in any of my history leading up to now.
Anyway. I am now insured-- more hooray-- and I can get an IUD. So I did. I didn't think to look up much about other people's experiences getting one placed and didn't give it a lot of thought. My doctor recommended taking some pain reliever before the appointment as a precautionary measure, so I took two ibuprofen and considered myself very worldly for remembering.
If you are getting an IUD, read your doctor's post it carefully. He or she has probably told you to take, like... as much acetaminophen as you can without passing out.
I like my physician a lot. We have a good rapport with one another and I trust her not to fiddle around unnecessarily. She warned me that insertion (somehow I lost this word and kept referring to the procedure as "installation" which is accurate but inadvertently roboticizes the whole thing) could be kind of painful and told me to take the pain reliever beforehand and LOOK AWAY, YE OF FRAGILE EYES that the appointment would need to be set for a day when I was period-ing because the cervix is softer then. Okay. Semi-check and check, just barely. I gotta be me, and me cavegirl, fly by seat of pants.
When you have an install/insert, your uterus will be sounded. First the medical person in charge will manually check to see which way your uterus tilts (I was dying to ask if mine was left/forward/something, anything, but just couldn't do it, which I figure I will regret forever). Then you get sounded, which is not ultra. It's just a wand (because your vagina is a magical place) more or less--but professionally-- shoved inside you to see how deep the insertionist should plan to place the IUD.
Sounding blows. It really, really, fucking goddamn shitcockballsohmygodwhatdidieverdotoyou hurt, and I don't have any pain memories to describe the sensation accurately. It didn't feel sharp or like I was being cut (and I wasn't), but "strong prodding" doesn't do the sensation justice. It really hurt. TAKE THE PAIN PILLS. Now that I'm thinking about it I guess it's on par with terrible cramps that lead women to kill well-meaning people around them that won't shut up. Maybe slightly worse. My doctor is a pro and sounded my uterus and placed the IUD very quickly; I think the whole thing took 5 minutes at the most. It hurt, but the hurt didn't last and I think if I'd, y'know, read the directions and taken the appropriate number of pills beforehand, I would have been in better shape.
I got some shock symptoms during the end, when it hurt the worst. Immediately after finishing I got a juicebox and some polite conversation while my very professional, indeed, medical professional made small talk and made no indication that she thought any less of me for having seen my hoohah very, very up close and personal. Like I said. A pro. I did not get a gold star and what's worse, I didn't ask for one. Another regret. I felt like I deserved one.
Cramped badly afterwards and it was probably psychosomatic but it felt like I could feel the IUD. Not any more painful but a bit weird. I'd brochured myself into hyperawareness that the thing could perforate my uterus and I could end up getting pregnant anyway, so to give myself one last hurrah before this was all for nothing I went directly to Dunkin' Donuts, got a vanilla Coolata (you're welcome for this free advertisement, DD, I'm sure it was just the context you were looking for) and a half dozen sugardoughcircles, and took us all home. I couched myself as soon as I could find and plug in the heating pad, which worked a major midsection miracle and after some dumb tv and a doze, I felt like living again.
I did not feel like having sex, on the other hand, for several days. Which was jarring and a little disappointing because hey, I'd just been through a lot to be able to have sex scot-free! Normalcy resumed after less than a week.
I sing the praises of Mirena for several reasons, but it hasn't been problemless: my periods were blessedly normal before installation, and now I spot throughout the month and get random low level cramps. The first time I couldn't find the strings (they move, some days you won't be able to feel them!) I was convinced I was pregnant, dying of septicemia, and had a perforated uterus. I was duly terrified.
If you're thinking about getting one and have any questions, feel free to post them anonymously as comments and I'll be happy to answer as best I can from my own experience. I can't imagine you found this blog before more helpful search results, but here are a couple if you need more information:
PP Page on IUDs
Mayo Clinic's Page on Mirena
Be responsible, yadda yadda. :)
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Saturday, December 1, 2012
It Must Go Somewhere
SWEET JESUS, HUSBAND, I LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK BUT SO HELP ME GOD IF YOU DO NOT STOP SNORING I WILL SEND ONE OF US TO THE MOON SO WE CAN BOTH SLEEP AT ONCE. He's been sick this week so it's worse than usual, but this is not an uncommon thing and it drives me crazy-- so loud it wakes me up, or too loud to go to sleep with in the first place. No consistent rhythm so I'm not able to lull myself to or back to sleep with it.
Let's see if the Internet has anything helpful to say. It makes me an unperfect librarian, but... Go go Google!
Let's see if the Internet has anything helpful to say. It makes me an unperfect librarian, but... Go go Google!
Sunday, October 14, 2012
The Kid is Alright
Things are moving along. They tend to do that.
First semester of graduate school is moving along. Group work is frustrating or fantastic, depending on who I'm working with. Mostly okay, thankfully. I miss the friends I made in storytelling class last summer but I'm making a few new ones. I'm working in the preservation department of a large (the largest?) library on campus, assessing the damage of books. They range from "everything is together and the pages are in good condition, but the cover is completely detached" to "it's really better to just say 'fuck it,'" but the latter is not acceptable commentary. I've seen some neat stuff. I'm learning that it's best to just let myself be THAT picky --which I have conditioned myself to resist, or at least fret over-- when filling out the prep slip for each book. Itty bitty marginal spot that doesn't impact the text at all? Note that sucker anyway.
Finally weaned myself away from soul-sucking office job I was loving so much this time last year. I helped train the new accounting assistant a little bit over the last two weeks. The running around has been hell and I've had little to no time outside of late evening to study, which has not made for a stressless school existence. Got sick last week and was miserable and prone to vomiting. I left without going to my Thursday classes (not cool with me at all, and it threw a wrench in the not-so-fantastic group project I'm not sure the group has recovered from) and it's been kind of hazy since then. Fog is clearing.
LittleOldLadyMobile decided to lose it the morning of the wedding, specifically when I was on the way home with my matron of honor after decorating the venue, which was... less than ideal. We picked her up from the shop Tuesday night. All has seemed well since. Thank goodness for credible repair. We benefit from our proximity to Verona, where word of mouth is easy to come by. Josh's office mate even knew about the place we decided to take the car and said it was legit.
It's getting cold. Well, it's gotten cold. Averaged around 40-something midday this week. Colder in the mornings and at night. Fall is definitely here as well, because if something is attached to a deciduous tree all signs would seem to point to it not staying attached for very much longer.
Even though I will be paid-in-peanuts poor when Christmas rolls around, I'm pretty excited about the holidays this year. We're very likely staying home for Thanksgiving, and trying to make a longer stay in Florida for Christmas. Will depend on funds in the very near future and what's happening with our niece (! wedding = family expansion zomg!!! I am not Almost Aunt Alex but Actual Aunt Alex, please excuse me while I go flip my wig!) at Christmas.
Rosemary plants got make-me-happy levels of larger while they were in the garden over the summer. I dug them up last weekend and have had them on our porch since then, letting them get a little bit of rain before they have to come in for the winter.
First semester of graduate school is moving along. Group work is frustrating or fantastic, depending on who I'm working with. Mostly okay, thankfully. I miss the friends I made in storytelling class last summer but I'm making a few new ones. I'm working in the preservation department of a large (the largest?) library on campus, assessing the damage of books. They range from "everything is together and the pages are in good condition, but the cover is completely detached" to "it's really better to just say 'fuck it,'" but the latter is not acceptable commentary. I've seen some neat stuff. I'm learning that it's best to just let myself be THAT picky --which I have conditioned myself to resist, or at least fret over-- when filling out the prep slip for each book. Itty bitty marginal spot that doesn't impact the text at all? Note that sucker anyway.
Finally weaned myself away from soul-sucking office job I was loving so much this time last year. I helped train the new accounting assistant a little bit over the last two weeks. The running around has been hell and I've had little to no time outside of late evening to study, which has not made for a stressless school existence. Got sick last week and was miserable and prone to vomiting. I left without going to my Thursday classes (not cool with me at all, and it threw a wrench in the not-so-fantastic group project I'm not sure the group has recovered from) and it's been kind of hazy since then. Fog is clearing.
LittleOldLadyMobile decided to lose it the morning of the wedding, specifically when I was on the way home with my matron of honor after decorating the venue, which was... less than ideal. We picked her up from the shop Tuesday night. All has seemed well since. Thank goodness for credible repair. We benefit from our proximity to Verona, where word of mouth is easy to come by. Josh's office mate even knew about the place we decided to take the car and said it was legit.
It's getting cold. Well, it's gotten cold. Averaged around 40-something midday this week. Colder in the mornings and at night. Fall is definitely here as well, because if something is attached to a deciduous tree all signs would seem to point to it not staying attached for very much longer.
Even though I will be paid-in-peanuts poor when Christmas rolls around, I'm pretty excited about the holidays this year. We're very likely staying home for Thanksgiving, and trying to make a longer stay in Florida for Christmas. Will depend on funds in the very near future and what's happening with our niece (! wedding = family expansion zomg!!! I am not Almost Aunt Alex but Actual Aunt Alex, please excuse me while I go flip my wig!) at Christmas.
Rosemary plants got make-me-happy levels of larger while they were in the garden over the summer. I dug them up last weekend and have had them on our porch since then, letting them get a little bit of rain before they have to come in for the winter.
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| Have I mentioned my husband is refuckingdiculously handsome? |
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Desertion and Just Deserts
Life has really been good lately, it's just that I turn to my blog when I need to reason through unhappy things.
When I put the kibosh on an until-then close friendship I thought was unhealthy and harmful, I just... stopped. It was such an investment of time and at that point heartache that I couldn't think of how to deal with it, I just knew that I needed to stop it. People I loved-- everyone I loved except the other half of the friendship-- had been telling me for years that it wasn't a good relationship to be in, and looking back a couple years later I don't know if that feedback poisoned things or if my experience feeling like I could be a valued friend as new relationships were founded made me not want to be with a person who I felt didn't value me. I distinctly remember thinking the latter over and over and over. That was absolutely how I felt. With time between then and now, I don't know that it was objectively true.
It's done at this point. I have these little flutters of conversation with my old best friend, my former best friend, now, via Facebook. And I still love those little shimmery bits; they're fun. I wish I'd proceeded differently before so none of this was tinged with regret, so we could just laugh at what's funny because fucked up parts of the relationship aside, girl and I were a riot a minute.
I can think of what I would do differently now: I would say something. We will never be so close again, even if I were able to get out a perfect articulation. I am still not very good at saying something, but I understand at this point that what I did (by not doing anything) was damaging in a way I didn't desire or intend. So I hope that I would say something. Sometimes I dream about what to say.
Sad that I find myself wanting to say something to another close friend-- not a replacement, because the friendship I was talking about before wasn't really replaceable in any sense, good or bad-- and find myself just as frozen; not sure of what to say. I don't know if the problem is me or her. I can't tell if my standards are messed up, if her behavior really is as objectively irritating and inconsiderate as I think it is. But I know that I know this feeling of recoil and frustration because it is exactly what I felt before.
I share my heart with my husband now, and a fantastic part of that is the marrow-deep peace I get knowing that I can tell him what scares me most, what I hate most, things about me that are not nice; all of these and he will keep loving me not because he is an idiot but because his love for me is that big, and isn't shaken by flaws. I think I am worthy of that but know it isn't the stuff every relationship is made of.
I don't want to be a person whose love is shaken by flaws. I'm judgmental and much slower to love than I was. I don't want to cling to this troubled friendship for the sake of having a friend, but I do not want to desert again. I'm so turned off by behavior patterns of the last few months that I'm unconvinced continuing the friendship is a good idea and I feel alienated to the point of not wanting to have a "Hey, I've noticed..." discussion, but I feel like it would be wrong to sever ties the way I'm inclined.
It boils down in part to not feeling like I can be honest, like I don't want to enumerate all the flaws I'm perceiving. And in the end, that's my feeling. I resent being treated badly (or feeling like I'm being treated badly), but my feelings are more under my control than what other people do.
Wavering, wavering. Trying to be cautious. Why does speaking up scare me so much?
When I put the kibosh on an until-then close friendship I thought was unhealthy and harmful, I just... stopped. It was such an investment of time and at that point heartache that I couldn't think of how to deal with it, I just knew that I needed to stop it. People I loved-- everyone I loved except the other half of the friendship-- had been telling me for years that it wasn't a good relationship to be in, and looking back a couple years later I don't know if that feedback poisoned things or if my experience feeling like I could be a valued friend as new relationships were founded made me not want to be with a person who I felt didn't value me. I distinctly remember thinking the latter over and over and over. That was absolutely how I felt. With time between then and now, I don't know that it was objectively true.
It's done at this point. I have these little flutters of conversation with my old best friend, my former best friend, now, via Facebook. And I still love those little shimmery bits; they're fun. I wish I'd proceeded differently before so none of this was tinged with regret, so we could just laugh at what's funny because fucked up parts of the relationship aside, girl and I were a riot a minute.
I can think of what I would do differently now: I would say something. We will never be so close again, even if I were able to get out a perfect articulation. I am still not very good at saying something, but I understand at this point that what I did (by not doing anything) was damaging in a way I didn't desire or intend. So I hope that I would say something. Sometimes I dream about what to say.
Sad that I find myself wanting to say something to another close friend-- not a replacement, because the friendship I was talking about before wasn't really replaceable in any sense, good or bad-- and find myself just as frozen; not sure of what to say. I don't know if the problem is me or her. I can't tell if my standards are messed up, if her behavior really is as objectively irritating and inconsiderate as I think it is. But I know that I know this feeling of recoil and frustration because it is exactly what I felt before.
I share my heart with my husband now, and a fantastic part of that is the marrow-deep peace I get knowing that I can tell him what scares me most, what I hate most, things about me that are not nice; all of these and he will keep loving me not because he is an idiot but because his love for me is that big, and isn't shaken by flaws. I think I am worthy of that but know it isn't the stuff every relationship is made of.
I don't want to be a person whose love is shaken by flaws. I'm judgmental and much slower to love than I was. I don't want to cling to this troubled friendship for the sake of having a friend, but I do not want to desert again. I'm so turned off by behavior patterns of the last few months that I'm unconvinced continuing the friendship is a good idea and I feel alienated to the point of not wanting to have a "Hey, I've noticed..." discussion, but I feel like it would be wrong to sever ties the way I'm inclined.
It boils down in part to not feeling like I can be honest, like I don't want to enumerate all the flaws I'm perceiving. And in the end, that's my feeling. I resent being treated badly (or feeling like I'm being treated badly), but my feelings are more under my control than what other people do.
Wavering, wavering. Trying to be cautious. Why does speaking up scare me so much?
Monday, August 27, 2012
Car is Dead, But I Feel Very Alive
Here, have a stream a consciousness!:
Little Old Lady Mobile is dead. Not like ding dong forever dead, but she isn't starting. So I bought jumper cables. And THEN I looked online and saw it was a bad idea to try to jump start another vehicle with a Prius. Fuck a duck, ya goddamned shmuck. Boo.
Josh is headed out of town on a work trip tomorrow and will be taking a taxi to the airport, so it's okay for me to drive around in the Prius. I think while he is gone I will end up getting one of those standalone car jumping units. They're not too pricey at Wal*Mart and I can return the cables. Except I'm not sure I should return the cables.
Did I mention fuck a duck? Gyaaaaaah. LOLMobile is major financial drain lately which is the last thing I need.
Work sucks the big one lately. I am very, very over it. Not over it enough to walk out in a huff, but over it enough to dream about doing it. PTO nonsense is driving me crazy and I think I got an actual answer from HR today... using the wrong calculations (NO, BITCHES, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOT TAKEN 50 HOURS OF PTO despite needing a vacation more than anyone in the office. Everyone else HAS taken a vacation. I won't even have time off for my wedding thanks to this bullshit audit. If I'd taken vacation while the office was high and dry I would have been entitled to 40+ hours and no one would have been the wiser. So don't accuse me of owing the company money when everyone knows I work off the clock. >:/ >:/ >:/ rage rage rage rant raaaaaar). Am in the process of composing a response.
But in the meantime... Graduate school orientation is tomorrow! Naturally there is a carbuncle on my jaw the size of a sizeable Dakota but c'est la vie. C'est la carbuncle. This is only an issue because I have massive vanity/appearance/ego issues. And also because they will be taking pictures for our student files. But at least I have a student file.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Heart of the Matter
So I'm bummed because today's engagement pictures didn't get off to the perfect start I planned. But more than that, I'm feeling totally crushed, kind of adrift, and really sad that I worked hard to be beautiful today and didn't feel it. My thought has always been that I'd be a stunner, very lovely if I set myself to putting in all the cosmetic and hair work. I did that today and... not what I was hoping for. This isn't to say I never have days where it's like "Hot damn, lookin' good!" but Josh is a really good looking guy and a vain, stupid part of me is scared that we will both see these pictures as proof that beauty is not something I can claim.
I'm not sure where this I-am-not-physically attractive thing comes from. I know I'm pretty desperate to be considered feminine because I usually had short hair as a kid and got told "Alex is a boy's name" a lot. I had pretty dreadful skin as a teenager and that's definitely the root of a lot of self-consciousness as an adult. I like some of my features. What is the cause of this dissatisfaction? It seems so common and pathetic to be focused on looks, but these curled hair nights and using eyeliner regularly made me hope I'd be beauty itself.
And that's just not the case, much to my sadness. I just can't tell if this is sad but everyone-has-those-thoughts melodrama or if this is a sign that I need to face facts.
Right now I need to get to sleep. Will worry about looks when I wake up.
I'm not sure where this I-am-not-physically attractive thing comes from. I know I'm pretty desperate to be considered feminine because I usually had short hair as a kid and got told "Alex is a boy's name" a lot. I had pretty dreadful skin as a teenager and that's definitely the root of a lot of self-consciousness as an adult. I like some of my features. What is the cause of this dissatisfaction? It seems so common and pathetic to be focused on looks, but these curled hair nights and using eyeliner regularly made me hope I'd be beauty itself.
And that's just not the case, much to my sadness. I just can't tell if this is sad but everyone-has-those-thoughts melodrama or if this is a sign that I need to face facts.
Right now I need to get to sleep. Will worry about looks when I wake up.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Master of My Mental Narrative, Keep Me Free from Melancholy.
We applied for our marriage license today. Which was a solemn experience, and for me, shameful. When you apply for a marriage license you have to present court paperwork dissolving any previous marriages and much to my chagrin, I don't have a blemishless record there.
That metaphor works really well because I think of that marriage as a blemish. It was a dreadful mistake on my part, and the reasons I got into it are shameful. If I'd been a stronger person, better able to say no at any of the several steps I knew were leading to something I didn't want, I wouldn't have this pit on the surface of my life. I generally like who I am.
I'm really 100% in favor of a society where people can get divorced. I don't think staying together when you don't want to and you've tried is a good idea. My experience was not that I fell deeply in love with someone and wanted to be married and we found out it didn't work, my experience was that I got drunk several years before it was legal for me to do so and slept with a guy at a party. He had a crazy family I saw was using him and I thought I could help him. Our relationship was several years of me learning that was absolutely impossible. In hindsight I can't even give myself decent credit for being well-meaning. It was just so, so, SO stupid. I should never have entered a relationship with that man, let alone married him.
But I did.
So today, when Josh and I completed our marriage license application, when the clerk asked Josh if this would be his first marriage, Josh said "yes." And when she asked me the same, I quietly said "no." Josh knows I was married before and he knows more than anyone else about the divorce, so I wasn't worried about shocking him. But while I've been distraught at the relationship and divorce before, it's mostly been in the vein of what a dumb dumb dumb fuck up. Why did you do any of this to any of the other people involved? and today it was in the you are spoiled goods vein, and I just wanted to cry.
People get divorced. I assume they get married with the best intentions and discover that things don't work-- very sad, sometimes very bitter, but not fucked up in the head. I think the damaged goods feeling is coming from my having been married before without it meaning anything that it should have. I didn't love the guy I married. He was an okay person with a family who treated him like shit and I involved myself with him because I thought he needed an ally. I shouldn't have done that because I was nowhere near a forceful enough personality to combat that brand of crazy, even at my most furious at their bullshit. And a part of me is sick over the fact that when we were separating he asked if I wanted an annulment and since I didn't trust him to ever offer me anything useful, I said no. Without even knowing what a fucking annulment was.
On the other hand, even if we'd gotten an annulment, I'd still have spent several years with this guy, being screwed up in the head, and I'd still be dealing with that aftermath. It did happen. I've been sorry for what happened for a long time. But today was shame, a cold lump in my belly and a stinging in my eyes and something in my throat that made me speak low and quiet. I wish I could erase that blemish from my record, but I never can. This conflicts with my knowing that getting the fuck away from that mess at long last was one of the smartest things I've ever done. It was a long time coming and it's a smartest-thing-because-before-I-did-a-dumbest-thing, but it was the right thing to do.
Josh has never given the slightest indication that he thinks I am damaged goods, and he's seen me at my weakest, worst, and least attractive. Many times all at once because when I get going, well... Oh dear. When I murmured to him my upset after we left the municipal building he stopped walking, hugged me close, and told me I was not damaged goods.
One of my favorite parts about this relationship is that I know it's going to be okay. I don't know if I'd have this certainty without having had so much unpleasantness before. So there was a weird minute to applying for our marriage license-- that means I was in the process of applying for a marriage license with someone I want to marry. It's not perfect closure, but I guess I don't mind the gap; all the angsty stuff is becoming history and falling farther away from my now. It was a thing that happened and it will surface from time to time.
I think rather than rehashing this stuff, I'm just going to resolve not to write about it anymore. It's a lot of the same old stuff. Life has changed and so have I. Moving on.
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