Is it in you?
"Oh, I didn't know you were using the NuvaRing," she blurted, suddenly remembering her own string of bad experiences with every other contraceptive known to womankind, "did you experience any side effects?"
"Oh, none at all!" June replied without hesitation. "Well ...
"... the thing about the NuvaRing is that you put it up inside yourself. It's a flexible little plastic ring like this big and you leave it up in your business for weeks at a time while it does its thing. You can't really even notice when it's in, which I guess is the point, but I used to get really paranoid that it wasn't up there or I pushed it out while making a poop or something. So I'd poke around a little bit with my finger every now and then to make sure it was there. One time I couldn't find it. Bear in mind that you keep this thing in for like three weeks, so if it wasn't in there I would have been unsafe the whole time. Before I started to freak out -- which, who was I kidding, I was already doing -- I took a deep breath, and tried to hunt for it again. Aggressively. Still nothing. So I ran across the hall to my neighbor, Amy, who thank god was also my best girlfriend and told her the situation. I knew that before I really freaked out -- which, like I said, I was already doing -- I needed to be absolutely sure that it wasn't just tucked up in a corner somewhere. So I looked Amy dead in the eyes and I was like 'you're my best friend, right?' and she said 'yes' and I was like 'you love me and you'd do anything for me, right?' and she much less enthusiastically said 'yes' and I was like 'OK, I need you to check if it's way up there somewhere.' Because you know the angles, right? It's just easier for someone else to get way up there. She understood, too, so I gave her a latex glove from my nursing class and dropped my pants and threw my leg up on the edge of the tub and said 'do it' and Amy did a quick swoop and stood up and looked at me with this beautifully sympathetic face and shook her head.
"So then I freaked out for real and went back to my apartment and started to cry and instinctively called my mom. She listened to the whole story of the ring and how you wear it inside you and can't always feel it so it's tough to know whether it's in or out. She could hear how upset I was and was saying 'it's OK honey' the whole time, even though I knew she was a little disappointed with me. And I told her how I had lost it and then I really lost it and she tried to calm me down and asked if I was absolutely sure it wasn't in there somewhere. I told her I was sure, and that Amy had even helped me check. And ... silence.
"I got a phone call from my father an hour or so later and he told me that my mother was devastated that her daughter was a lesbian, and that she couldn't talk to me, and she was in the process of taking down all of the pictures around the house with me in them. I told him that I was not a lesbian, a fact that didn't seem to matter to him. But this huge shitstorm erupted, and my mom basically disowned me, and the whole time I was the fighting with my father and brother for not standing up for me, but they both said that my mom was acting totally crazy and wouldn't listen to either of them. Only my grandmother, who was and is of course my hero, stood up for me. And not in that sweet little grandmother way of 'dear, now maybe you should just talk to your daughter and give her a chance to explain' but more like 'you're acting crazy! you and your brothers did awful things and I still love you all no matter what!' But it didn't make a difference. Even when Christmas came around months later I was pleading with my father to help me make things right, but he said he couldn't, and so instead of spending Christmas with my family as I had done every year for twenty-six years I spent it with my adoptive family (you know those people who are your friend's parents or whoever and you end up practically becoming part of their family?), which probably saved my life, and I haven't spoken with my mother or father since.
... so I take that back: Yes, I experienced some side effects."
posted by tokyocrunch @ 5:54 AM
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