New Year

So I am restarting this blog over. Some (6 month) old blog posts I made, and the conversations that came up because of them, have really made me reevaluate my thinking and I want to start fresh.

I feel very disconnected from everything lately, even the people I spend most of my time with, and I have consciously been avoiding most people anyways. I don't feel this so much right now, and I want to get out and do something. One thing I have thought about blog is that I don't really feel I have much to say that is...original...so I'll probably just discuss my day-to-day life and hopefully start posting more pictures, and scans of what I am doing in school.

BUT I do have some interesting thing to discuss today. I am in a relationship with one partner, and have been with him for a little over a year. What do we use for birth control? Well, we've used condoms, two forms of the pill, vaginal contraceptive films, and the pull-out method. Well, we don't want to use condoms, I do not like being on the pill, the VCF films take time to work and you kind of lose the spontaneity of the moment, and the pull-out method will (probably) lead to an eventual pregnancy. None of these are things I want, that he wants, or that we want.

So I got an IUD put in this morning.

I went to the gynecologist at the U of A and she told me about a study where I could get one for free at UMC; in a double-blind study I was given a little cube of sugary wax that melted in my mouth that could possibly contain a medicine which is used to induce labor in pregnant women. The doctors are trying to figure out if this medication dilates the cervix in women who have never been pregnant/given birth enough to where it alleviates some of the pain involved in placing an IUD.

The placement was not terribly uncomfortable, but as someone who rarely gets cramps during her cycle, there was noticeable pain and discomfort. It all starts out like a regular pap-smear, the same cold goo and steel of the speculum, but then they stick in a long tube that pinches your cervix, and after they measure your uterus. The pinch hurt for only a moment, but measuring the uterus immediately caused deep cramps. It was an interesting sensation because you could feel each cramp coming and going as the insertion tube moved around while they measured the uterus and while the doctor inserted the actual IUD. They told my my uterus measured 8 cm and then inserted the IUD immediately causing more cramps. The cramps were gone as soon as the instruments were taken out, and I was told how to feel for the strings. I go back in a month for them to check its placement and cut the strings to a comfortable length if I have any discomfort or problems with them. I have been getting cramps through out the day, but they told me that it usually will not lost longer than one day.

My period will eventually go away, as my IUD is the Mirena that contains a lower dose of hormones. One of the reasons I decided to get the IUD is because it does not contain estrogen and most women who have issues while taking a variation of the pill have more success with this type of hormone and placement. Similar to the NuvaRing, the body gets an overall lower dose of hormone because it is concentrated in the area affected by the hormone and there is no need for estrogen. My IUD doesn't need to come out until Jan. 2016, so the amount of progesterone in the IUD is concentrated to last a long period of time, releasing slower than a daily pill.

But I do want to say that this is just my understanding of the Mirena, and if you are interested in learning more about it (or it's non-hormone counterpart that is made from copper) I suggest these links:

Mirena (IUD with progesterone)
I like this website because it has good diagrams and lots of information.

Official Mirena Website

Copper IUD (no hormones)

Of course, there are potential side effects (weight gain, change in menstrual cycle/flow, moodiness/PMS, acne, etc.) but I feel like benefits outweigh these side effects. Before I even thought about getting an IUD I came to terms with the fact that I needed to be on some type of birth control and had already experienced some of these side effects (mostly the moodiness) while on variations of the pill. Basically I feel like it is no different than other things I have tried, it has a different make up that I think will be more suitable to my body, and it offers me the ability to have sex with my boyfriend whenever I want without having to worry about having a baby! Oh, and it's effectiveness rate is the same as female and male sterilization (tubes tide/vasectomy).

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading about my vagina/uterus/etc.