So today was try number 3 at girding my loins for the War on Women, aka IUD placement. Due to my crooked bits, my doctor had tried on 2 separate occasions with no luck. So today I saw a specialist.

I don’t just want the IUD for it’s happy baby blockage. I have horrid, week long, heavy periods that make me weak, feverish, exhausted and crampy. I have to take iron because they leave me anemic. Forget about tampons, I have to use giant pads and still have to change then every 2-3 hours. I sleep on old towels. Just going from the shower to the bath rug without this layer of protection has ruined more than a few rugs. I spend a week of every month with my knees locked together, in pain, trying not to ruin furniture.

So if the IUD couldn’t be placed, the next option was ablation, or basically having my uterus power washed so that I don’t have periods anymore. That was the back up plan. (Actually, I would have gone straight to ablation, but thought an IUD is reversible if needs be where ablation is not).

The specialist, who I liked a lot, gave it her best shot. She tried everything she could think of. But you just can’t get a straight stick, or even a slightly curved stick, to go around a 180 angle. I looked at the collection of sounds she used, trying to get in there. 5 centimeters. That’s as far as she could go.

And since ablation uses the same method and tools as IUD insertion, that’s out too. Maybe, if I was under anesthesia in general surgery they could do it. Maybe. But the doctor wasn’t hopeful.

So here I am. Still with the awful periods. Now without even a decent back up plan, short of hysterectomy. Which I’m not ready for yet. I have to go back on the fucking pill (which I hate) because that is all that can be done. I can’t even use the Nuva ring (which is not awful) because I haven’t quite been able to give up smoking yet.

I know, there are certainly much worse health problems to be upset about. But I cried in the car on the way to work afterwords. It feels like such a betrayal, when your body won’t cooperate, when it leaves you hurt and tired and mad with no decent solution. And then I got to spend hours at work, hunched over and cramping with all the side effects of an IUD insertion and no fucking IUD.

Someone, anyone, invent a medical sound and IUD combo that can go around a u-shaped corner, and I will worship you as a god/dess.