It's my body dammit!

[Fawn]

I've never wanted kids. When I was 18 I decided that I'd never have kids and my mind hasn't changed since (I'm 22 now). A lot of old friends have had kids at my age and I all I can think of is their stupidity. But, thats just me.

My family (on both sides) has a history of mental illness and I am not excluded from this fact. I have a severe Anxiety disorder, Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia. So, theres a good 75+% chance that any child I have will have some sort of mental illness. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Some TMI...
Was on birthcontrol, till I switched medications for my Anxiety. I had to stop it because it actually made my anxiety worse. Now I'm forced to rely on Condoms only, which pisses me off because I want more then that for protection. I've asked about other options and my best choice would be an IUD but my doctor thinks it might not be possible because I haven't had children and it might be to tight. I dunno. Will have to see what happens in the future.

[Seshat]

I've never had children, and have a 'perfectly placed' IUD, according to the last person who did an ultrasound on me there.

Look for the top two or three IUD-placing experts in your area. The chances are very good that at least one of them works for the local planned parenthood or family planning type of clinic. Those people will have the best chance for getting an IUD into you, or for giving you a real assessment of your chances.

I'm pretty sure I've answered most 'what was it like getting your IUD done' questions in this thread already, so review the thread and feel free to ask anything else you want to know - I'm so happy with mine that I'm quite willing to help other people decide if it's right for them.

[horror]

When I was 17 I asked that for my 18th birthday if I could get my tubes tied.
My mother said no, not because she doubted me or my choices (even though looking back, 17 is, in my opinion, far too young to be making choices like that. Though at that age you know everything, so I was "sure") but because she knew how I would be treated by doctors if I actually went through with it.

My mother had hers tied because her third pregnancy was deemed too much of a risk for her and the fetus, mostly due to a heart condition that made birth very difficult for her.
She chose to end the pregnancy because she couldn't risk not surviving labour and leaving two babies mother-less. When she decided to end the pregnancy she also wanted her tubes tied.

She was forced to see the hospital psychologist and made to jump through all the hoops all women are when they make this desicion.
Well, being my mother, she eventually told the doctor to cut the bullshit and tie her fucking tubes or she'd be doing it herself in the hallway.
I would imagine he eventually did it out of fear. :P

Personally I'm undecided on the whole kids thing, which is a far cry from my demand to have my tubes tied at 18.
I eventually want a baby, but I don't want a teenager.
I would eventually like to get pregnant, but I don't want to give birth.
You know, I think I would be better off just getting a puppy.

[Seshat]

I believe that to want a child, you have to want to share your life with an unknown person of unknown personality, temperament and interests, at all ages.

You have to want a baby, a toddler (terrible twos!), a child, a teenager, a young adult, a middle-aged adult. You can skip wanting to share their old age.

If that's not what you want, if you just want specific stages, you can consider short-term fostering. It's still a huge commitment, and most of the children that come to you that way will have serious problems. But it's an important task and you can have a huge positive impact on many children's lives.

Or you can go into a big brother/big sister program, or teach, or go into childcare, or pediatric nursing. There are many ways to have children in your life other than having your own, and in some of those ways you can share your life with an endless string of children of the age that you find most appealing.


But if you don't want to take a baby with a budding personality of their own, and help them become a competent, happy and healthy adult* - then it's probably best not to have your own child.

* provided, of course, they don't have some sort of disability. Another question for budding parents: would you still love and care for your baby if he/she is born with or acquires a disability?

[Kelly Lynne]

IUDs

The doctor who inserted it was a Family Planning doctor, chosen because she's an IUD insertion expert. She warned me that being a nullipara (never any children), my cervix might be too tight for the insertion. (It wasn't.) For those who are considering it, that is an issue.

Yep. For me it was. The doctor tried to get it in, and it was excruciatingly painful, but it just would not work. So, now I'm on the ring. We'll see how that works. I'm not thrilled so far, but I know that there's an "adjustment" period with any new hormonal birth control.

Your doctor is a good one--I didn't get that warning from mine. (She also asked during the procedure "How old are you?" and "Have you had children?" Um...my feet are already in the stirrups...shouldn't you have read my chart before now??)

[DexX]

Probably going to be some serious TMI in here, but I have always been quite frank when talking about sexual stuff. You have been warned!

My wife and I did very well early in our relationship using a kind of adapted Billings Method. What really helped was that both of us are very pheromone-sensitive, so I could smell and taste her cycle, especially during sex, but even from just a kiss or a cuddle. She had a very noticeable cycle in how she smelled, and I always knew her period was coming before she did, up to a week before.

TMI time... Let's talk vaginal mucus! Yay! This is one of the clearest indicators for a sexually active couple. Just after and before menstruation, the mucus is thick and blobby and somewhat opaque and milky-looking, while during the fertile period it is very thin and clear and will stretch an amazingly long way between your fingertips (for the guys - just think of pre-cum, fertile mucus is pretty much indistinguishable from it). Cycle-end mucus won't stretch into long thin strings. There is also a gradual change from one state to the other and back, so when the thick mucus is starting to thin out and become clearer and more stretchy, you know the fertile period is on its way, just as you know the menstrual period is coming when it starts getting thick and gluggy again.

We had mostly unprotected sex for several years and never had a "mishap". We both really hate condoms, but if we really couldn't control ourselves during the fertile period (and seriously, a girl smells and tastes amazingly good during the fertile period as the body sends out chemical signals saying "I'm ovulating! Impregnate me!") we'd put up with it and use a condom.

She ended up having to go on the pill for hormonal troubles (major ones - six months with no period, then constant bleeding for three months) so it all became academic (and the pill changed her sexual smells and tastes a little bit, too). Later she was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, and switched to medication for that and went off the pill again. The PCOS made her infertile, and by that stage we didn't mind the idea of kids, so we stopped trying to avoid pregnancy.

Two years ago she had an ectopic pregnancy that damned near killed her thanks to a misdiagnosis by our regular GP. She'd probably been bleeding into her abdomen for several days by the time she was operated on, and 24 hours more probably would have killed her. She's been told not to get pregnant until her body has had time to heal, so she's back on the pill again. The regular level-dose pill was making her depresed, so she's switched to Yasmin and is loving it - milder PMT, no depression, and she's losing weight again.

I also have a few female friends who swear by Implanon, especially those who don't end up having a period for a year!

I suppose the point of my long rambling story is that different solutions suit different people at different times of their lives, and there are many perfectly good options, be they hormonal, barrier, or timed/observational.

[Dreamstalker]

She ended up having to go on the pill for hormonal troubles (major ones - six months with no period, then constant bleeding for three months)

That's why I'm on the pill (except it was pretty much the reverse of a regular cycle: no period for one week out of four. I'm amazed I didn't develop anemia from that).

The ex kept trying to get me to go off the pill because "all those hormones can't be good for you"...guess what, those hormones are ensuring I'm able to function more or less normally, you're not my gyno kthx (my reply was something along the lines of "you bleed three weeks out of four and then tell me you wouldn't take a solution").

There's some whacko group here (might also be nationwide; I remember reading something about a similar cadre in NM) that wants to ban all forms of contraception, apparently regardless of the reason for needing it.

[Amethyst Hunter]

There's some whacko group here (might also be nationwide; I remember reading something about a similar cadre in NM) that wants to ban all forms of contraception, apparently regardless of the reason for needing it.

Perhaps you may be thinking of Pharmacists For Life? Definitely anti-choice and anti-birth control - they believe they should have the right to refuse to fill all BC prescriptions, and in some extreme cases members have been known to *take away* the customer's prescription and refuse to give it back (some even tore it up right in front of the customer!).

I'm on the pill for messed-up cycle reasons as well. Nobody better ever fuck with me on that, or heads will roll. Literally.

[AFPheonix]

Oh shit. The bitching any pharmacist would get from me if they pulled that. They'd get to work by themselves if they wanted to behave like a baby.

We have one floater pharmacist who's pretty conservative. She got all stinky-poop-eye on some poor guy last week because he was getting some insulin syringes but forgot what size he normally got, since his wife typically handles it for him. Rather than just hook him up with some, she accused him of being a drug user and wouldn't sell to him.

Jesus, even if he was going to go shoot up, what do we care? At least they're using responsibly and getting fresh needles to use. There was also one pharmacist at another store nearby in our chain who wouldn't dispense Plan B, but rather than have the cojones to go talk to the customer herself, she'd send the tech to go tell the customer they couldn't get it. She's also damned lucky she's never worked with me, because I don't do people's dirty work for them. If you're going to have the conviction, you get to face the abuse and consequences for it, not me.

[Dreamstalker]

Yup, it likely was Pharmacists for Life (for some reason they were on headline news a few weeks ago, but it is an election year so...)

in some extreme cases members have been known to *take away* the customer's prescription and refuse to give it back (some even tore it up right in front of the customer!).

How would the pharmacist in question still be licensed after a stunt like that?! Those nutjobs have no business secondguessing the doc.

*wonders if one day we'll have to "prove" to a disinterested party that we need it...wouldn't that be a huge HIPPA violation?*

Luckily I get my scrip filled at the hospital pharmacy so don't have to deal with stuff like that.

Re: the insulin needles. My mom usually gets them for the cat, but if she can't do it she gives me one of the plastic wrappers to refer to. I've never had a problem getting them; you used to need a prescription here, but not anymore. Interesting that the box is always double-bagged though...it's not heavy at all.

[AFPheonix]

We second guess doctors all the time. Hell, yesterday we kept some moron doc from OD'ing a young girl on a codeine cough syrup. Ripping up someone's script is a whole 'nuther ball game though, and I certainly hope the board of pharmacy in that guy's state got an earful about it, as well as the chain the pharmacist works for, provided he wasn't an independent.

I sincerely doubt you'll need to tell the pharmacy what your diagnosis is to get your script, although if we knew it wouldn't really be a HIPPA violation necessarily since we are also health care professionals, regardless of whether people see us as such. (Usually we're seen as glorified fast food workers, until they're sick and want to talk to the pharmacist instead of their doctor).

Frankly, in the future it probably would not be a bad idea for doctors to work more closely with pharmacists while prescribing, especially since pharmacy schools have retired the bachelor's of pharmacy degree (RPh) and instead are teaching the more intensive doctorate of pharmacy degree (PharmD). For people who very often get stuck working in a bloody drug store, pharmacists are absolute experts on pharmacology, far more so than any doctor who are often swayed by the legions of drug reps who truck on through their office and give them nice things.

[Amethyst Hunter]

How would the pharmacist in question still be licensed after a stunt like that?! Those nutjobs have no business secondguessing the doc.

*wonders if one day we'll have to "prove" to a disinterested party that we need it...wouldn't that be a huge HIPPA violation?*

Actually, Dominionists have been making some scarily serious inroads into government for a good 30+ years now for this express purpose of controlling who can get what resources and who is allowed to do this and that. It's only in the past ten years or so that you've begun to hear more about them (mostly because of the crap this current assministration - which is *heavily* Dommie-stacked - has pulled; Dominionists prefer to operate en masse, in stealth because that allows them to change laws and sneak in things like "Intelligent Design" past the general public's nose, when it's too late to stop it).

They are EXTREMELY anti-woman to the point where they believe a man - any man - has Biblical authority over all females and that women should be mandated to stay at home doing nothing more than raising children (preferably lots and lots - google the 'Quiverful' movement and prepare to be sickened), cleaning house and catering to hubby's every whim. Which is, however repulsive one may find it, not bad in and of itself ONLY IF IT IS A CHOICE MADE BY THE WOMAN IN QUESTION and is not imposed in any way upon her (and that includes mental manipulation). They have been on a systematic campaign to severely restrict if not eliminate all access to birth control and abortion. Even if you personally believe the latter is a sin, it makes absolutely no sense to deny the former...unless, of course, you believe that women were put here to serve as incubators for "God's Army."

Not even suffering from a chronic infirmity like PCOS or endometriosis would be enough: to a Dominionist, *all* birth control is automatically "bad" because it supposedly 1) "denies God's will" by preventing pregnancy and encouraging women to have sex (they believe women should only have sex when married, and only for the express purpose of breeding as many children as possible), and 2) "causes abortion" (a flat-out lie that ANY legitimate doctor will tell you doesn't happen) and therefore, it must be completely eradicated. Besides, in their world, suffering means 1) you have sinned somehow and deserve God's wrath, and/or 2) you are being tested by God so you should consider your pain to be an honor.

Fuck that shit, I say.

In regards to the pharmacists that pull this crap, I strongly believe they should have their licenses yanked and they should be permanently barred from practicing in that field for life. There are reports that there are *increasing* numbers of people going into pharmacology ON PURPOSE who are training in the field (usually at Dominionist-friendly campuses; this is part of their "parallel world" where everything adheres to a strict, even literal, interpretation of Biblical law and there are in fact "diploma mills" which exist for no other reason than to grant cheap licensing to Dominionist clergy and other personnel; legitimate schools and organizations rightly refuse to acknowledge these fake 'diplomas' which don't even require a set bar for training hours, or even any training at all!) in order to block women's access to birth control.

[Seshat]

Frankly, in the future it probably would not be a bad idea for doctors to work more closely with pharmacists while prescribing, especially since pharmacy schools have retired the bachelor's of pharmacy degree (RPh) and instead are teaching the more intensive doctorate of pharmacy degree (PharmD). For people who very often get stuck working in a bloody drug store, pharmacists are absolute experts on pharmacology, far more so than any doctor who are often swayed by the legions of drug reps who truck on through their office and give them nice things.

Both my best friend and I are on complex drug cocktails that keep us functional. And we rely on our pharmacists. We have a couple of favourites, and we consult with one of them when our scripts change.

So far, we haven't needed to go back to the doc and have a different med prescribed, but we have found some interesting variations for over-the-counter stuff like cold medicines.

Yes - that ordinary everyday cold medicine can interfere with your prescription drug cocktail. The combination can send you to the emergency room, or rip up your liver, or otherwise screw you over. If, like us, you need a complex mix of meds to stay functional, get to know a pharmacist! They just might save your life.

That said: no, a pharmacist has no right to screw with your meds because of their religion. If I found out I was getting a placebo instead of a contraceptive*, I'd be furious.

(* except for the 'week off' placebo tablets in certain pill types, which are part of the contraceptive system)

The only reason I want a pharmacist to refuse to dispense a med to me is if he/she notices a contraindication or an unhealthy mix of meds. If he spots that, I DO want the pharmacist to refuse me! I don't want a trip to the ER!

[Dreamstalker]

Exactly. I was on some pretty heavy (completely unnecessary, yet another too-smart-and-easily-bored kid that the system had no clue what to do with) antipsychotics and shit when younger, and one of them could have interacted badly with other crap (yet it was prescribed anyway--WTF? that wasn't filled and as it turned out I never needed it at all).

In general, questioning prescriptions can be needed (for example, MAOIs and other drugs), I was referring specifically to the Pharmacists for Life psychos. Religion should not worm its way into medicine (wouldn't refusing to dispense needed BCP run afoul of "do no harm"?)

[Jadedcarguy]

Have your hubby get a Vasectomy instead. Trust me on this.

Hell yes! I know several women who have had TL and have dated several others. None of them speak highly of the procedure, though most of them were glad they had it done. A vasectomy is far easier, ad if you are in a stable relationship with a man it is a better option.

FWIW, I talked to my doctor about a vasectomy. He gave me a shitload of pamphlets and a "recommendation" to think it over.

Dude, I'm 33! I have never wanted kids, I don't want kids now, I never will! Think over what? I have already thought this over! GAH!