Darkoshi

At the ObGyn office today, I glanced across at a display of brochures. Mostly pregnancy-related stuff, female incontinence, IUDs, how to deal with twins, prenatal something or other... then an odd one caught my attention.

The brochure's cover read "This is my baby / right now", and had a photo of a woman pushing a swing... but with a strange thing in the swing. It looked sort of like a fancy camera. Definitely not a baby. Eh? Why is there a camera in the swing? Is she taking videos with a swinging camera? Where's the baby? I didn't get it. The brochure said "Skyla" on it, and I made a mental note to look it up later.

So I did, and Skyla is a type of IUD. The top of the brochure says, "Up to 3 years of continuous birth control", but I didn't see that part before. The image might have made more sense had I read that part.

How the inventor of the pill changed the world for women - about Carl Djerassi, one of the inventors of the Pill.

[regarding a male birth control pill] The first question a man would ask is: would it affect my potency? There have been clinical trials – it has no effect on potency. The second question is erection.

I can't figure out what the word "potency" means in that context. A male BC pill would obviously affect fertility, as that is the point of a BC pill. So potency doesn't seem to mean fertility. And it doesn't seem to mean the ability to get an erection, since that is the 2nd question, not the first. What does it mean?

"How many acts of sexual intercourse would you guess occur every 24 hours?" he asks. "I often do this with my students, and they say a billion. I say: 'No, no, no, you're dreaming. There are six billion people. Well, you need two for sexual intercourse, so there are only three billion. And some of them are five years old, so they're out.' So then they say a million. Well, now you're underestimating, because you're sitting here and you're not having sex. It's actually 100m, every 24 hours. And they produce about a million conceptions, about half of which are unexpected. Of the 500,000, half of them are unwanted. As a result, every 24 hours, 150,000 abortions occur; of these, over 50,000 are illegal."

Interview with Carl Djerassi

Some parts of this don't make sense to me. Having a male BC pill doesn't take away a woman's control over her fertility, it rather gives a man more control over his. But the comment about the female BC pill making men less willing to use condoms is intriguing.

Djerassi suggests that in the future we will freeze our sperm and eggs, get sterilised and check out our sperm and eggs from the bank when we want them later. 'Then you might as well forget about contraception'.

Interesting idea. Maybe the actual eggs and sperm won't even need to be stored in the future. Maybe their DNA sequences will be scanned and saved as data, and maybe it will be possible to re-create an egg or sperm using that data. It wouldn't even really be necessary to extract and scan actual eggs and sperm... one could take the person's DNA and have a computer randomly select half the chromosomes to make virtual gametes. It will surely be possible to check the DNA for hereditary diseases, and to make corrections to prevent those diseases.

Once all that is possible, it would theoretically be possible for people to decide that they want to have a child using someone else's DNA (a celebrity, for instance), rather than their own. Or using a combination of multiple people's DNA. I wonder how much legal control people will have over their own DNA... will it be similar to copyright, and after a certain length of time after a person dies, will other people will be able to use that person's DNA? Or will only people directly descended from that person be allowed to use it? Will you be able to sell your DNA sequence for specific uses?


Response - I never blamed the pill for the fall in family size ... I didn't know that the birth control pill wasn't legal in Japan until 1999.

Birth control in Japan - mostly via condoms.

Various thoughts/fears I've have lately about unwanted pregnancy and parenthood, based on things I've read. I am aware that some of my thoughts are less than ethical and totally unsympathetic to the child's plight.

I was reading one person's account of her children's medical problems.

- as if it isn't bad enough having a child when you didn't want one, there's a chance that the child will have medical problems which will make raising the child even more difficult!


One of her posts was about toilet training, and it was even more difficult because of the one child's medical/psychological problems.

- this account was totally gross. I would come to hate a child who got shit and urine all over the house, and whom I had to continually wash the excrement off of.


I read about a family having financial problems due to the medical costs of caring for their 3-month premature baby.

- as if it isn't bad enough having a child when you didn't want one, you could also end up hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) in debt! I don't suppose the hospitals give you a choice of whether or not to care for the premature baby (if the child is likely to survive without severe disabilities, ethically I suppose the parents should not be given a choice)... but then they charge *you* for the costs.


Our state has a law that allows a parent to abandon a newborn baby at a hospital or certain other locations, without the parent being subject to criminal charges. But when this happens, the local news reports it as if it is such a shocking an unbelievable thing for the mother to have done.

Well, what else are you supposed to do with a baby you don't want to be stuck taking care of for the next 18 years? Having a baby is like getting a jail sentence! Is it shocking because if you don't want the child, you are supposed to give it up for adoption? How different is that from leaving it at a hospital? I don't get it. And what if the child is premature and has horrible medical problems - are you even allowed to give the child up for adoption then? What adoption agency would take a child like that? And even if you could find an agency to take it, or if you abandoned it at the hospital, would you still be liable for the child's medical charges?


Parents are supposed to love their children. Even the type of children shown on the Super-Nanny type of shows.

But what if you *don't* love the child? What if the child just seems like a snotty infernal nuisance to you? It's not fair to the child either, to grow up somewhere without loving parents. What if you have a baby, and decide to keep it, but a few years later you've come to hate the child, or you simply don't particularly like the child? You are only allowed to abandon newborns up to 30 days old at a hospital. What do you do with an older child? Are you allowed to give them up for adoption? What if you only keep the child because the child's father, who lives with you, wants to keep it? What if the father then leaves? Why does the father only get charged with providing child support, and why do you get stuck having to take care of the child? Why can the father abandon the child when it is older than 30 days, but you can't?


I still haven't found any recent studies done on the effectiveness of Essure. But from first-hand accounts, the following (supposedly rare, but who knows, without any current studies?) problems can occur:

- The doctor may mistake the location of the fallopian tube openings when doing the procedure to place the implants, and can end up puncturing the uterus with the coils... often, this isn't discovered until months later, with the doctors in the meantime telling you that the essure couldn't possibly be causing the pain you are having.

- Some people have a nickel sensitivity without realizing it, which can cause their body to react badly to the implants. Apparently, most doctors don't actually test for nickel sensitivity before doing the procedure. Mine didn't.

- The essure implants can come loose and be expelled through the vagina, or remain stuck in the uterus.

- The essure implants can be placed correctly, but end up puncturing the fallopian tubes.

- The essure implants can travel up the tubes and get expelled into the body cavity and can get snagged on other organs. This can cause pain and other problems. (I wonder if it could come in contact with a nerve and cause pain in one's leg? I wonder if this is what could have caused the sudden pain in my leg I started having last February, and which is no longer as intense, but which is still there).

- The coils can be expelled, even a year after the HSG test confirmed the tubes were blocked. (I wonder if having a heavy weight pushing on your pelvic area, such as during sex, could cause the coils to come loose even if they had initially been correctly scarred into place.)

The Bush administration wants to cut off federal aid from any organization that refuses to hire people who object to birth control, by redefining abortion to include drugs that prevent implantation such as the birth control pill and emergency contraception:

In the proposal, obtained by The New York Times, the administration says it could cut off federal aid to individuals or entities that discriminate against people who object to abortion on the basis of “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

I suppose the idea of life starting at conception is nothing new, and Bush doing things to restrict access to not only abortion but also birth control is nothing new either. But when I think of people who are against birth control, I generally think of Catholics, and having non-Catholics espousing the same ideas still surprises me at times.

It's enough to make me want to forswear having sex on my own moral grounds. If people think that because I have sex, I should be forced to endure pregnancy and having children... I don't fucking need to be having sex. I'm just doing it to make other people happy anyway. If the bloody people I have sex with support politicians who espouse those kind of ideas... it fucking goes against my morals to be sexually involved with them.

Yonmei had linked to this post where someone wrote about the difficulty they had in getting emergency contraception pills after a condom broke while she and her partner were having sex. This, in spite of the EC pills ("Plan B") having recently been approved by the FDA for over-the-counter sales.

When I first read the post, it quite disturbed me to realize how difficult it is in some places, not only to get an abortion, but simply to get emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy in the first place. I decided that I should call up local pharmacies and find out which ones have EC in stock and are willing to dispense it, without a lot of hassle, to people who need it. Even though I've had my tubes occluded and therefore do not personally foresee a need to ever obtain EC, I want to support those places that do dispense it, by shopping there instead of at places that do not. I'm also going to start supporting Planned Parenthood by including them in the groups I donate money to.

The person who wrote the original post also later wrote about some of the positive and negative comments she had received... here and here. I'm glad that the supportive comments far outweighed the negative ones, but some points stuck out to me:

- A lot of people seem to think it is a simple and inexpensive matter for a woman to get a tubal ligation or for a man to get a vasectomy. Last year, I had my tubes occluded via Essure, a non-surgical (no incisions or cutting involved) alternative to lubal ligation. Even though I have health insurance, which paid for most of the costs, I still ended up having to pay over $2,000 out-of-pocket.

- It really bothers me when people use gender-specific slurs such as "whore", "slut", and "bitch". It bothers me first of all that they are using a gender-specific slur... as if someone deserves a certain insult simply for being a certain gender... and it bothers me even more that, for most of these slurs, there isn't even a corresponding term for someone of the other sex. "Jerk" or "asshole" could be considered male versions of "bitch", but they still don't have exactly the same connotations as "bitch" does. As for "whore" and "slut"...? I can't think of any male version of those slurs at all. It's always only females who are so denigrated for having sex.

- Reading some of the negative comments which say the person shouldn't have been having sex if they didn't want to have a baby... if those comments were directed at me, I would feel like saying "Fuck it all. I'm NOT going to have sex anymore." Because frankly, I don't really give a damn about sex. It seems like it's mainly guys who care so much about sex anyway. In fact, I'm still not sure that the guys who've been interested in me so far haven't really only been interested in me for sex. Now, I'm not condemning them for that... after all my own interest in finding a partner isn't completely unsexual... but I could live fine without actual penis-in-vagina sex.

- One commenter wrote: "You see we were all once a fetus. Is it beyond the realm of possibilities that when your mother first learned she was carrying you, she may have considered her options? What if she had decided to terminate? Would that have been OK?

You would not exist, if you have children they would not exist, and your (husband or wife) would be married to someone else. You would have been deprived of all your experiences and memories. "

Am I so unusual, in that the thought of my mother having aborted me before I was born does not bother me? So what, if she had had an abortion? So what, if I didn't exist? Is this life so wonderful, that it would be such a horrible thing, if I wasn't born to live it? Personally, my answer to that is No, I wouldn't mind not being alive. In fact, I might have prefered being aborted. But regardless of that, I also have a semi-religious belief that, if I was truly meant to exist and to live this life, that it wouldn't have mattered if my potential mother had had an abortion. I would have just been born at another time, or to someone else.

- This issue has even more relevance to me right now, because a couple weeks ago, while I was having sex, the condom came off. If I hadn't had my tubes occluded, I could potentially now be pregnant. Admittedly, I personally wouldn't have risked having sex even with a condom, without a backup form of birth-control, but still - BC methods do fail.
BTW, the type of condom I was using was this non-latex one (its website is here). I was curious about how different it would be from the latex ones I've tried, but I definitely DO NOT recommend this brand. Not only did it come off, but the lubricant on it has a nasty smell and taste which is not at all suitable for even oral sex.

My dad has a punching bag in the basement. That's rather neat to have, for whenever you get mad or frustrated, or for when you just want to practice punching and kicking something other than the insubstantial air. He's got a dog that, whereas ours is like a cat, his is like a horse. He's gotten into wine-making. He still occasionally says things which make me cringe a bit at the rudeness, like in the grocery store, after having bumped into one of his wife's friends and having chatted with her for a while, later telling me (while still in the store, where other people might hear!), that usually when he sees her, he ducks into the nearest aisle to avoid her.

He and his wife remind me of my grandparents.

His wife's 3-year-old grandson was over at their house today... Funny and strange, how people act and speak towards a 3-yr-old... he's the center of attention, lavished with exaggerated praise and affection... but he was shy towards me, and wouldn't tell me hello, in spite of repeated coaxing by the other adults. And that in turn made me uncomfortable and shy towards him, although I had initially greeted him... And at that point, I would have had as hard a time saying anything to him, even with other people coaxing me, as he was having. Argh. Shy and afraid of a 3-yr-old...

Old Sturbridge Village was full of noisy energetic schoolkids. I wanted to be able to stand back and observe them... to observe how young humans interact... and just observe them in general. I've spent my whole life paying attention to other things, instead of people. At the airport too, the people looked interesting, and I felt like watching them. But it makes me uncomfortable to give the impression that I'm staring at strangers, so I try not to keep my gaze on anyone for more than a moment or two.

My dad has a sexuality textbook, amongst other books on his bookshelf. He's had it a long time; I think it was there already when I was in highschool, but it never interested me then. Today I saw it, and this time it interested me, so I took it down and skimmed through it. The couple of paragraphs it had on SM seemed totally misleading. But it did show how to use a condom... and some other useful things. Tubal ligation sounds so much better than any of the other methods of birth control. Much more effective, permanent, and fewer, if any, side effects. I've got to look into that. It's my body, why shouldn't I be able to get it done?

considering what i learned from moominpuppet's post a while back about how difficult it can be to get emergency contraceptive pills when you need them (a fact also spoken about on that page), the following links are useful to keep:

not-2-late.com - has a directory of providers for the ECP in the US.

and following are 2 internet sites where you can get the pill prescribed to you:
getthepill.com
themorningafterpill.net