If Only...

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Where is the pill for men?: Part 1

Some of the most important decisions we make in raising kids is deciding when we want to do so.  We want to wait until we've been married a little while, our finances are better, our health is better, when our first kid's a little older, etc.  You know you want to have a kid (or another kid) someday, just maybe not today.

And, thanks to modern medicine, women have a ton of options when it comes to delaying pregnancy.  So it falls to us to figure out how we want to do that.  And the husbands just let us be the ones to take care of it.

Well, I'm sick of it.  Maybe it's just me, but it's my personal opinion that birth control sucks.  I'll even run you down the list and tell you what I hate about every method.

Nothing.  Unless you want to be the Duggars, this is moronic.  (Wanting to be the Duggars is moronic too, actually.)

Natural Family-Planning (NFP).  Typically used by Catholics, this is when you abstain from sex during a woman's fertile days, which you chart around her ovulation.  This means not having sex when your body is most in the mood to have sex.  It's like surgically removing the spark from your love life.

Withdrawal.  There's a word for people who use this method.  It's "parents".

Condoms (male and female).  You don't need me to tell you why this method sucks.  That, and it's not terribly effective.

The Pill.  Okay, here we're getting into the real stuff, hormonal contraceptives.  This is where you take the brilliant idea of tricking your body into hormonally thinking you're pregnant.  So you get the nausea, bloating, mood swings, and weight gain, all without a baby to show for it.  Oh, and you still get your period.  And it can lose effectiveness if you forget to take even one pill.

The Patch.  Works like the pill, with the additional side-effect of making you look like you're trying to quit smoking.

Nuvaring.  Works like the pill and the patch, but with the side-effect that it's a freaking plastic ring you stick up your hoohah.

Depo-Provera.  You get a shot every six months, and no period.  Has been linked to depression, and can't be used long-term.  Never tried this one; never had any interest.

Implanon.  I was on this for a while, and I would chop my foot off before using it again.  It is highly effective, and some women can use it for up to three years without getting a single period.  Awesome, right?  Actually, the women who get that lucky are few and far between.  I was one of the unlucky ones who got the more common side-effect of bleeding non-stop.  (No joke, at one point, I had a period that lasted over three weeks straight.)  Makes it pretty effective as birth control though, since you never feel like having sex.  Also, on the off chance you do somehow get pregnant on it, there's a terrifyingly high possibility that the pregnancy will be ectopic (which can kill you).  The only benefit to this one was that I freaked people out by telling them that the noticeable tube under the skin of my left arm was a microchip.

Intra-uterine device (IUD).  Highly similar to Implanon, only, instead of going in your arm, your gyno shoves it up your hoohah.  And leaves it there.  Maybe for years.  Once again, one I never tried.

Here's why this has been really bothering me lately.  Through some research, I found out that there's currently a big push to have physicians disclose to patients that hormonal contraceptives can be classified as abortifacients (something that can facilitate a chemical abortion).  I'm going to explain why, so bear with me while I get a little sciency up in here...(continued in Part 2)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not often I read (and enjoy!) a post that refers to both sciency and hoohah.

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