Welcome to Womanhood
BY NATALIA MOLINATTI
When I got my period for the first time, I was showered in congratulations. All the adult women in my life welcomed me to this new phase with open arms and American Girl books. I thought, “This is going to be easy!” I was wrong.
For the first five years of Being a Woman, I was oversaturated with ringing slogans like “Have a happy period. Always,” and magazine ads with glamorous women in white bikinis who were supposedly menstruating. The only logical response had been, “You’re fucking kidding me.” Twelve years of Catholic education left out the part of sex-education that involved sex and went right to the part that demonized it. The Church, however, didn’t take into consideration the struggles that most female-bodied endure in this chapter of life, regardless of their willingness to follow Catholic rules. I was finally prescribed The Pill when I was 17 years old for a plethora reasons: the trips to the hospital caused by piercing menstrual pain, the week-long visits of the “she-devil” (kindly nick-named by my parents), the exponentially larger loads of laundry sponsored by mother nature, and clogged pipes sponsored by Tampax Pearl. For a while, The Pill did what it claimed it would. It calmed the vicious monthly onslaught of my menstruation. All of that changed when the traditional routine of high school became the contemporary chaos of college. I was never in the same place at the same time every day. I may have been in the library, or in class, or at a bar, or at a mixer, or asleep at any given moment. Even if I were to choose 5:00 A.M and set an alarm, there were some days I wasn’t in my own bed, and the bed I was in didn’t belong to anyone who had ever had to take contraception in their life. Not only was I breaking the rules of Catholicism, but I was also breaking the rules of breaking the rules. I needed to change something. “Natalia, you can’t keep taking multiple pills when you forget for a few days,” I said to my reflection in the mirror as I swallowed four little white pills. This attempted come-to-Jesus moment occurred at least once a month before I got an IUD. To the community I was raised in, taking The Pill had put me in the slut category for three-quarters of each month. Getting something more permanent, like an IUD, meant I would be a Full-Time Slut. Lucky for me, this new position offered benefits that would pay off better than a 401k. *Enter the Intra-Uterine Device*
I had researched my options for months and made the choice to get an IUD. An organization named Bedsider was giving out information on all contraception options. Their pamphlets’ taglines for the IUD included “set it and forget it” and “#1 most effective.” It explained the IUD would last for five years and provide me with a consistent and small amount of progestin, a synthetic hormone to signal to my body that we can all remain calm each month.
On July 18, 2016, I took 800mg of ibuprofen, Uber-ed to the contraception clinic, and changed my month-to-month life. Armed with my IUD for the last two years, I have been able to take on the world with a new perspective. The physical, emotional, and sexual health benefits, coupled with a non-existent period and effective inability to get pregnant, allow me to embrace my femininity and set my own trajectory. It’s an upside-down anchor. White, T-shaped, flexible plastic that looks just like the part of the body that it goes into: plastic uterus, plastic fallopian tubes, plastic cervix. It goes in with a long skewer, like they’re going to make a Natalia-kabob. The skewer comes out and the plastic stays in. The doctor called the things that came out of the bottom “thin metal strings.” They looked more like the string from a hotel sewing kit, and I didn’t believe her until I heard her cut them inside of me. The doctor pulled the bloody duck-bill out of me and I mumbled “I thought this was supposed to be painful” as it clinked on the metal table next to her. I spoke too soon. My friend picked me up and came back to my apartment. We plopped on the couch to enjoy the pint of Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked that I bought in preparation the day before. It was about five spoonfuls later that I got a reality check on the half-life of 800 mg ibuprofen. Update – it’s short and ibuprofen is weak – much shorter and much weaker than my cervix needed in order to feel like it still belonged in my body. This feeling — the one of my cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries wanting the climb out of me through my vagina — was part of my daily life for five weeks. I’d wake up in the middle of the night looking and feeling like a scene from Saw happened inside of me while I was asleep. I was going through enough winged pads to make a Tempurpedic mattress and enough super plus tampons to clog the hole in the Titanic. Not only was I dealing with the physical pain and inconvenience, but the she-devil was as present as ever, and she was ready to transition from spontaneous laughter, to depressive tears, to child-like hysterics at any moment. I was ready to get it taken out. Depending on the day, “it” could have been the IUD or my entire reproductive system. Until, one day, everything stopped. The bleeding, pain, and roller-coaster emotions all came to an end. The she-devil went into hibernation without even storing any food for the long winter. As she evaporated, there a new, unexpected being that emerged from the comfort of my endocrine glands. I’d heard legends and tales about her existence, but wasn’t totally sure that she was inhabiting my body like she was others. She was a good being, unlike the she-devil. She was like the Good Witch of the East, but instead of coming down from the skies in a bubble with a generic silver magic wand, this hormone-fueled fairy was cumming into my life with lube in one hand and a battery-powered Magic Wand in the other. And she came fast. I no longer thought of sex as the means to an end, and instead it was something to bring pleasure to myself and the lucky people of my choosing. The IUD changed my outlook on sexuality as a whole and allowed me the freedom and convenience in choosing who I had sex with and how I did it. I shed more than the entire lining of my uterus in those weeks of pure pain. My IUD entered my body and carried out a hormonal and emotional juice cleanse that transitioned me from young adulthood to womanhood. On that day, two and a half years ago, I made an independent and active choice to take command of my body. I didn’t consult my mother (much to her angst) and I did my own research to choose what was best for the life that I wanted to have as a grown woman – not what my mother, religious influences, teachers, friends, men, or society wanted or expected from me. For me, my IUD redefined what it means to be a woman in the twenty-first century. So much of being a woman is tied to our ability and societal duty to reproduce, as if the organs situated in our pelvis are only there for the betterment of humankind. The IUD convinced my reproductive system to sign a contract for five years to be loyal only to me. The contract was signed to include the priorities of Natalia’s health, sexual pleasure, emotional well-being, and convenience. I have gained agency in my life and decisions. I now define myself by my confidence, emotional intelligence, humor, adaptability, positive energy, and brainpower. None of these things are gendered by nature, but they made me the woman I know I was meant to be. The IUD wanted more for me than to associate these organs with pain and resentment towards women in advertisements. For the first time, I was grateful that I had a uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, a vagina, and my personal favorite, a g-spot. Since I got my IUD, I have grown to appreciate my womanhood and embrace the power that I hold in the world as a woman that was created from her own choosing. I think about my contraception daily, but not because there is an alarm on my phone reminding me to pop a pill. I think about my choice because I think, do, create, write, or imagine something each day that was not possible for me two years ago. And, because of that, it is a happy period. Always. |