Like many long term relationships, my relationship with the birth control pill had many ups and downs.

Up = no babies.

Downs = weight gain, extreme emotions and severe migraine headaches.

For a while, the ups far outweighed the downs, but it soon got to a point where the headaches became debilitating (thus making me unable to have sex anyway), and I had to call it quits with the little pill. I tried other forms of birth control – the Nuva Ring, which was just too weird, and abstinence, which was just not realistic – and none of it worked.

I figured I was doomed to be sans BC forever, until my doctor told me about the IUD.

What is an IUD?

Basically, it’s a small object that is inserted through the cervix and placed in the uterus to prevent pregnancy. The doctor inserts the IUD onto your cervix where it stays for up to 10 years. If you want to get pregnant, you simply head back to the doctor and have it removed and your period and ovulation schedule return to normal. The IUD is 99.9% effective at preventing pregnancy and you never have to remember to take a pill again! Read More »

She wasn’t a doctor — not really. She was “just” a physician’s assistant. But my doctor had left — again. I think I’ve gone through about four at this office already, a different one almost every year.

This one was young and pretty. That surprised me. I don’t know, maybe I never considered that young women my age would want to examine other young women’s cervixes? I felt like I should have been chatting with her over coffee about our latest loves, not sitting in a cold examination room, draped in a thin cotton sheet and discussing my vagina’s history in exacting detail.

“I’ll have you lie back now,” she said when we had finished talking.

She came around the table and unsnapped the sheet. “My hands are cold,” she warned.

Oy. She wasn’t kidding. Cold fingers don’t feel any better on your breasts than they do inside your vagina.

While she performed the breast exam, I noticed she carefully avoided my eyes. Maybe she found the age thing as uncomfortable as I did. So I did the only thing I could think of: I struck up a conversation.

Trying to sustain small talk with a young, pretty doctor who has her cold hands on your boobs is not as easy as it might seem. I have no clue now what we talked about, in fact. I’m not sure I would want to know. Read More »