One Year later.
I can't believe it has been a whole year since I made one of the best decisions of my life. In August of last year while Armand was away on a trip I walked into my gynecologist's office and got an IUD inserted. If you've been here for a while you know I didn't take that decision lightly. It took me three years to get to that appointment after listening to many horror stories and having other forms of birth control fail my body.
I have a very empathetic doctor who understood my fears but also gave it to me straight — this was gonna hurt. After five ibuprofen and a little bit of wine (she said it was ok!) it wasn't the worst pain but it wasn't the best. A year later I'm happy to see the CDC has now set guidelines and has essentially forced more doctors to talk to patients about what this experience will feel like. I’m thankful I was able to have conversations with my doctor before that day. Without them, I don't think I would have done it.
What I would love more doctors to talk about is aftercare. Sure they explain the cramps and spotting but they don't dive into how long it may take for your body to adjust. While I know everyone is different a more thorough timeline is not impossible. They don't talk about the mental anguish of spotting almost every day for a month, using the restroom, or dealing with your first period after insertion. These are all things I googled. Trust I asked questions but after a while, I decided I had to learn a lot of this for myself and I'm glad I did that. It took months but I felt like myself again by December of last year. Thankfully before my world changed for other reasons.
I wanted to write this as a reminder that not every story is a horrible one and that if you give your body grace it'll reward you with the security of knowing that your birth control is 99% effective (when the IUD is in correctly of course).
Here’s the article by the New York Times detailing the CDC guidelines that I hope many doctors will follow. E-mail me if you wanna talk about it. I’ve talked through it all with many & I'm happy to do it for you too.
#iud #iudinsertion #itsmaybeally
