PARENTAL WARNING: YOUR SON’S SEX LIFE IS MENTIONED.
For five years now I have had a constant flow of synthetic hormones in my body, and I want a break. Because of the birth control, I have gone from 100 pounds to 140 pounds; 20 pounds overweight, and I am sick of it.
A few friends of mine have told me their stories of gaining weight from using birth control, and then their rapid loss when they decided to stop. I just hope it is not too late for me, as in, I hope my body has not made this my baseline.
What caused this change? A few things, but 2 big ones: the death of a sex drive and the weight gain. The pregnancy prevention properties are not supposed to include prevention by not having any sex =(
Maybe I will get fitted for a diaphram, because I don’t trust condoms alone. Even though depo provera (the shot I have been on for years) is basically chemical castration, I still made Dean wear a condom because I really don’t want to get pregnant.
*scream* why can’t I find a doctor to fix me or Dean? No we are too young, no we need to have 3 kids, no you might sue us if you change your mind later. The reply of “If we ever want a child, we would prefer to adopt b/c I don’t want my body to ever be pregnant” does not work.
It would just be nice if I could loose weight, have a normal (3 times a week?) sex life, and not worry about getting pregnant.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:00 pm
I guess they haven’t figured out how to just install a little “valve” that could act like a temporary vasectomy — then if you want to turn the reproductive capacity back on, you just turn a little knob — too bad.
I hate to tell you this, but you might as well get used to birth control being a pain. Phil DID get a vasectomy several years ago because I was sick of having to remember a daily birth control pill. But the results of the sperm counts afterward indicated vasectomy didn’t “take”. He healed himself! So back on the pill for me. A vasectomy is not an experience I want to put anyone through twice, for possibly the same unsuccessful result. Then I was excited earlier this year to try the NuvaRing, which has the same pharmaceutical ingredient as birth control pills, but at least you don’t have to remember it every day. And darn it all, it doesn’t seem to be a high enough dosage to keep my cycle regular, and it doesn’t come in higher doses. So it may be back on the pill for me.
I recently got hopeful that maybe menopause would come soon, because at 50 (almost), Rebecca’s already been through that like 2 years ago. Then I did a little research about whether the pill (or equivalents like NuvaRing) delay menopause. No, it seems they don’t. But guess what does — having had children. So I could easily take a few years longer than Rebecca to get to menopause, that’s assuming we might have otherwise been somewhat similar as sisters.
So I’m 48, and birth control is still a pain in the butt for me too!
December 1st, 2006 at 10:04 pm
It is strange to think that not too long ago, birth control was seen as woman’s liberation, and now, it is a pain in the ass (literally for me since that is where the shot is stabbed!).
Don’t get me wrong, I love that we have control over our bodies, BUT with the amount of knowledge we have it seems odd that we have not had leaps and bounds in the field. I mean birth control, to me, is an equivalent technological level to black and white TVs. I am ready for the high-def plasmas!
I will give a stab to the barrier methods and see if my body will revert to its young self. I am only 25, stretch marks, cellulite, and Santa-like belly fat should not be an issue now, right?
December 2nd, 2006 at 9:33 am
Well, your body does change every decade, independent of what birth control you’re using. It was in my early to mid-20s that I realized regular exercise was unavoidable, if I didn’t want to get pudgy. I started with mostly muscle-toning stuff, resisting the need to actually break a sweat. In my 30s, it became clear that the sweating part was unavoidable if I didn’t want to pudge out, so I started with regular aerobic workouts. In my 40s I had to step it up to a much more challenging workout like The Firm. I forsee that in my 50s, it may take more dietary restraint than I have heretofore been willing to do. Even with all this, I still weigh 15-20 pounds more than I did at 20. But those are (mostly) firm pounds! It’s just what you have to do if you don’t want to resign yourself to the normal aging, spreading, body type with floppy squishy parts where you used to have firm, tight parts.
December 3rd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Kaston … vasectomies are normally painless and done in 15 or 20 minutes. Contrary to popular belief they are not necessarily permanent. Here is my story …
Ex wife #1 had a terrible car accident a couple of years before I met her and had sever damage to one knee (not to mention many hours of plastic surgery (cosmetic surgery now) on her face. She bacame pregnant with M1 and she delivered a healthy little girl. Her knee suffered through the pregnancy due to weight gain and she was told by her orthopaedic surgeon that id she had another baby she would either be on her back for the 9 months or she would end up crippled and in a wheelchair the rest of her life. We discussed our options and we decided that a vasectomy was in order (easier and simpler than having her tubes tied). I had the vasectomy and a bit over a year later I was alone with M1.
Several years later I met ex #2 and fell in love. Sex with her or any other partner I had in those intervening years was great because the fear of getting anybody pregnant did not exist. STDs were not a big deal back then so condom use was not as necessary as it is today. But, ex #2 wanted children.
I visited my urologist and he said that it could easily be reversed by performing a vasovasectomy. This is major surgery, under an anesthetic and a microscope. I had it done and it worked. The only “bad” part of the whole thing was that every few weeks for a few months I had to go to the hospital, masturbate into a small bottle and have it tested for sperm count. I didn’t find it comfortable to walk up to the nures/reception with a bottle of warm ejaculate in my hand and give it to her (I did get a smile once LOL).
So we went about the job of starting to try getting her pregnant. It worked but she ended up having a miscarriage. We tried again, (a lot LOL) but she could not get “knocked up”. Finally after a couple of years of trying we both went to a fertility clinic to find out what was wrong. It couldn’t be me because I was unfixed. It must be her. Well, it was me because scar tissue had formed and sperm were no longer getting through in my ejaculate.
Back to the urologist and he said that it did happen sometimes but all he had to do was perform the operation again. He did and I went through the masturbating in the hospital many times but it worked this time and she became pregnant … twice.
While pregnant the second time she promised that she would get her tubes tied so that we could have unencumbered sex without having to worry about getting pregnant. A2 was born and she immediately backed out of what she promised. So we used condoms but I got tired of them so I went to another urologist, we had moved to another city, and he performed a vasectomy.
So, 2 vasectomies, 2 reversals and more scars on my scrotum than many people have on their bodies. The vasectomy scars are very small but the reversal scar (he used the same spot both times) is huge, running down the middle of the scrotum and is about 2 inches long.
The length of time between the first vasectomy and the first reversal was about 9 years and there was no problem with no sperm left. The male body makes sperm on a daily basis, if it is not ejaculated it simply gets flushed out with the urine or reabsorbed into the prostate.
Having a vasectomy reversed may not work for all men but there is a good possibility it will for most men. I would imagine techniques have changed over the past 20 years making it easier and more successful.
Hope this helps and encourages you and Dean to look at all methods very carefully. I know many guys though who have been denied vasectomies due to being too young. Why is it that doctors think they know more about us then we know about us.
Sorry for making this so long.