me and my IUD

Something quite significant has happened to me recently: I lived through the most painful experience of my life; I had an IUD installed 2 weeks ago.

The reasons of my going down this birth-control route were many: you don’t need to pick it up every month, which is convenient when travelling, on the long-term, it’s economic and, especially, I preferred a more mechanical system than a chemical one, of which the long-term effects doctors cannot seem to come to a consensus.

For years, IUDs were not installed in women who had not had children, such as myself, because the cervix wasn’t considered naturally dilated enough. Now, for some reason, that no longer causes any problems. The procedure is simple enough: first, the doctor freezes the cervix, which involves an uncomfortable prick, much like getting your gums frozen at the dentist’s, with the difference of it being done way up between your legs. This is supposed to make the whole process less painful (so woe on the woman who goes “natural”). After this, I believe a straw like device is inserted through the cervix into the uterus to create a passage for the IUD. The latter is then pushed up into the uterus, its cross-bars are opened to form a T and the straw-device is removed. The doctor must then cut the cord to a suitable length that will permit the IUD to be removed but not be too bothersome during intercourse.

My gyno, a very sweet woman, had warned me that the putting in place of the IUD would feel much like two very big menstrual cramps, one when inserting the straw-thing and the other when the device itself is placed. The term menstrual cramp was not one that sufficiently prepared me for the pain I would experience. It was like a menstrual cramp, but “very big” is an understatement. The pain was magnificently overbearing. Starting from my womb, I felt a menstrual cramp that had exploited, the repercussion of which resonated throughout my body. Cramps in my quads almost paralysed my legs. My head spun as it realized the amplitude of the pain, and the fact that it was not stopping. I didn’t scream. I just cried, repeating over and over again “ça fait ma.” My doctor pressed her hand against my stomach, a welcomed gesture I am not sure was medical or empathetic. She had installed everything as fast as she could, but the cord was left to cut. I was bleeding and didn’t know what to do with my body that could hardly move due to the pain as well as the after-shock of the pain, lying on the medical table tensed and limp at the same time. I asked my doctor to get my boyfriend, who was waiting in the reception area.

Strange thoughts occur to you when you experience such physical pain, like the thought of unfairness that it is always the woman who must suffer so. Or the thought that anything coming in or going out of ‘there’ is unnatural, that a uterus must be left on its own and is always better off when barren. I resolved never giving birth, never getting an abortion and never taking out the IUD, which is as painful though apparently not as long as putting it in. Also, the sublime effect of pain, and how it can never be properly written, as I have not properly written it here. What is pain written and has anybody ever accomplished it? Could I try? Could I have a man be more than sympathetic to it, could I make him understand?

Ben came to the room. With hindsight, he must have left quite useless, the sweet man. After just lying where I was for about ten minutes, it was time for me to make the effort to stand up; there were other patients after me. Ben tried helping me, doing his best supporting me while trying to put on my panties and place a sanitary pad in them, which I am pretty sure he never did before in his life. His efforts, though appreciated, were all wrong and he seriously got on my nerves – which had me guess at what delivering women feel. Who would have thought a few stickers could be so complicated? Meanwhile, I was leaning lower and lower on my doctor’s desk, sweating cold and, apparently, as white as a sheet. With my underpants finally on, I was sat down, my doctor raised my legs unto her desk and gave me a shot of something that was meant to regulate my heart beat or blood flow, one of the two, I can’t remember which. After ten more minutes I painfully made my way to a rest room with a sole reclining chair. By this time, the endorphins kicked in. Hugely sarcastic due to the ever-present pain in my stomach and legs, I confused Ben even more by cracking one joke after another. And it dawned on me that if instead of getting an IUD installed I had just went through labour to produce a baby boy, his name would be Horace. I had never thought of that name before and I don’t particularly like it, but at that moment I would have growled and screeched with a determined stubbornness at anybody who would have opposed it. Horace it would be. Weird.

We eventually had to leave the doctor’s office. The man at the door downstairs was kind and brought out a chair for me to sit on while we waited for the taxi he had called for us. As for the taxi drive home, I could have done without it. Every bump and every sharp stop, of which there were many in this cab, produced a new shock wave from the core of my belly to my limbs. I withheld my tears as I withheld shouting at him to drive more gently, though my shout surely would have exited my lips as a murmur.

This was on a Wednesday. Being over-zealous as I tend to be, I had a gum graft scheduled the next day. I made my way to the dentist’s very slowly, hardly able to walk. It was the third graft I’ve had done so the procedure no longer intimidated me. On the other hand, my body surely would have appreciated a rest from pain, shock and pressure. I did nothing the whole of that week-end except rest.

I share this today because I am presently going through a related experience: my first menstruation since I’ve had my IUD. I am cramped longer than I have ever been. But that’s OK, nothing some Motrin can’t take care of. Yet this is a new experience. My body isn’t reacting as it usually does. And I have these strange pains in my womb. Not just the pressure of a menstrual cramp, like the womb being squeezed. Now, as there is squeezing, I at times feel a sharp pain from the insides, like blades inside of me jutting out. Sharp and acute, within the persistent pressure of a cramp. In my right side, and my cervix maybe? I can’t place it, but my body rolls up around it like a coil, searching heat and for it to stop yet somehow expecting a new pang, defensively. Menstrual pain is tricky. Though I am not used to this kind and have no idea how my body’s contracting will accommodate this new mechanical device, I think I will go for a walk. Would I be old-fashion in thinking that a walk might realign my insides, have things fall into place and become normal again?