It's a BCP cake! Nom nom nom. Via browntown @ Flickr.
Welcome to Harpy Seminar, a regular feature we plan to have at regular intervals, unless we get too busy to have it at regular intervals, in which case it shall appear whenever we have time and inclination for it. Each Seminar begins with a question, which we discuss amongst ourselves, and we then edit the highlights of our conversation into a post. Please feel free to join in in the comments!
In today’s Harpy Seminar, we’ll be having a frank and open Our Bodies, Ourselves-style roundtable about contraceptives. Overshare-y! Informative! Pull up a chair, won’t you? Today’s question: what’s your pleasure when it comes to birth control?
BeckySharper: My mom took me to her gyno when I was a sophomore in college so I could get a prescription for the Pill. The gyno was the very same woman who’d who delivered me 19 years earlier, so it was kind of hilarious in a circle-of-life way. I’ve been on the pill for almost 15 years now, and it’s been nothing but terrific. For STI protection, I use condoms religiously unless I’m in a monogamous relationship where we have had The Talk. I don’t particularly like them, but I’ve discovered that after all those years of using condoms, I have a quasi-Pavlovian response to the smell of latex.
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: I’ve had sex exactly 5 times. First two times we used a condom. The very first time the condom broke. (Does that mean I have a masochistic vagina?) Thankfully I felt fortunate to get pregnant, but boy was that a wake-up call! After that, of course, condoms were not quite necessary since he had agreed to be tested. Oh! And lubed condoms are perhaps the only kind I will ever use.
BeckySharper: Oh yeah, the more lube the better. I keep a big ol’ industrial size bottle in the drawer with the condoms because latex really can dry you out much more than an unwrapped peen.
Ph.Dork: Hate. Condoms. Have used them when necessary, but haaaate. They rub, they stink, they make me itch.
Fortunately, I’ve been mostly monogamous (a story for another time, my pets) nigh these last 11 years, so I was on the Pill, which I started my Sophomore year, although I went to the PP in my college town because I did not (and do not) have that kind of relationship with my mom. I’ve always known that kids are not for me, and the dude is of the same mind, so after a LOT of discussion, he finally got a vasectomy, and we are now hormone and condom free, and everybody’s happy.
PilgrimSoul: If I take any kind of pill, my blood pressure goes immediately through the roof. So no pills, never again.
SarahMC: I’ve been on the Pill since I started having sex. I’ve used condoms a few times, but only when I’d missed a Pill or been on antibiotics or something. I much prefer NOT using condoms, and since I’ve been with the same person a long time and we’re monogamous, the Pill is the only method I (we) use.
I feel pretty good on the Pill. I suspect it MAY result in a lower sex drive for me but it’s hard to tell because I’ve been on it since I started having sex. My periods are easy breezy; they are short and I don’t get PMS. In fact, the one time I stopped taking the Pill (when I studied abroad) my period was so hideous I went right back on it.
BeckySharper: I know some women react badly to the Pill’s hormones but that was never an issue for me at all; I lucked into less PMS and cramping with the Pill, and I definitely have a lighter flow, which is always welcome.
PhDork: The only thing I miss about the pill was the clockwork periods: 4th Thursday at 3 pm. Now it’s back to educated guessing: some time this week…
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: Now I am considering the pill. My periods have always been like clockwork and I don’t think I’ll be fornicating again anytime soon but I would rather not get pregnant again for a long while.
BeckySharper: I really think Margaret Sanger is looking down on us, raising a fist in triumph. Birth control FTW!
So ladies, what’s your contraceptive preference? Are you Trojan women? Pill-poppers? Join our circle of candor in the comments…
I think that procedure is called “Essure”? It’s supposedly less-invasive than ligation, but seriously, dude-snip is waaaaaaaaaay less expensive, invasive, and painful than any permanent lady-fix. Usually vasectomy is covered by insurance, but they have less coverage for sterilization procedures for women. (Are you surprised? No, I’m not either.)
I love condoms for just playing around. For more long-term, committed, not shady monogamous relationships it’s the progesterone only pill all the way.
I have a weird estrogen sensitivity which means estrogen = migraines.
I have been trying to convince a doctor to let me get fixed since I was about 22, but they keep telling me that I need to, you know, have a kid first before they will do it. Which seems completely counter-productive to me. I have heard every terrible excuse they can give, I think. Like, you’re the kind of person who should be having children – read: middle class college educated white woman. What if you meet a man who wants children? – read: You’ll change you mind about wanting and rearing children if it’s the only way to keep a man. Why doesn’t your boyfriend get a vasectomy? – read: which will leave you without permanent birth control if you break up. You might change your mind. – read: You aren’t able to make your own decisions, listen to us, we know what’s best for you *neener, neener*
@ BeckySharper& nimue: pre-cum is really really common, and can happen any time – that’s what makes withdrawal so unreliable!! I’ve spoken to the doctor about it. It’s too risky, don’t do it!!
I got a paragard IUD inserted about a year ago and I love that thing. No worries about taking pills, or effects of hormones, or horrific pregnancy scares. My little copper friend has back.
My mother and a family friend also were a little concerned, as they remember the Dalkon days. I did look into that and was reasonably satisfied that the engineering flaws ( string that could wick bacteria through the cervix, unreasonably high failure rate ) were not a problem in all IUD’s. I also found out about ‘contraceptive dumping’, but that is another story.
Anyhow, the idea of something that will prevent pregnancy for 12 years unless I get it removed was very appealing. The typical use failure rates were great, and I really wanted to keep smoking.
A few anecdotals on the expense, insertion, and side effects:
1. I live in a state that has a fabulous grant that pays for the contraception of women who are low income but not low income enough to qualify for medicaid.
Thanks to this my IUD and the pills I was on before hand were kindly provided by Planned Parenthood and payed for by the state.
Thank you Michigan for figuring out that paying out to Plan First! saves money down the road and makes life for the uninsured a little better.
2. I had never been pregnant before, which I understand can have an effect on how ‘cool’ your cervix is with something traversing it. It was like the grandmomma of menstrual cramps, but it was over pretty quick.
3. Because I had been on the pill for about 15 years, I was a little alarmed at my first period after the insertion. I think I said that “it’s like the St. Valentines day massacre- in my pants”.
Over the past year, I have noticed that they have become steadily lighter and of less duration. They are now pretty comparable to the periods I had on the pill.
Yay, overshares!
So, I’ve only seen one woman who used Yaz (collegebookworm)–anyone else have a weigh-in on this particular pill?
It’s the first bc I’ve ever used, and started it in December ’08. Had several weird side effects (boob lumps, severe depression, some problems with breathing)–has anyone else experienced this?
Frankly, I’m in LOVE with a three-day period, and with not being a cranky bitch for two weeks out of every month, which is why I’m still on the wee pink pill.