Barnmaven

Those were the days

Last year after I had that horrible infection and my IUD removed, I went on the pill for a while.  Everything was normal, then SG's vasectomy was declared a success and I stopped taking the pill.  That was November, I think.  I had a normal December cycle, then January was kind of weird because I had two cycles.  Then nothing in February.  I freaked out a little bit, swore under my breath at SG's urologist and peed on a First Response test.  Negative, thankfully.  

March commenced much like February.  Then I started waking up three or four times a night, kicking off the covers and letting the cooler night air dry off the trickles of sweat.  Hot flashes.  I made an appointment with Dr. A and he sent me off to the lab to have all my blood sucked out of my body some bloodwork done. Yesterday was my followup.

One thing I like about Dr. A, he gives you copies of your lab results and writes notes all over them as well.  I enjoy going home and persuing my results and contemplating what a special snowflake I am because my something something  is perfect and my something else is out of range and I get to take some more damn medication or supplement as if that will magically render me Normal.

Anyway.

So even though I finally had an actual cycle last week, according to my FSH and Progesterone levels, I am (or should be) in menopause.  Technically I would say not, because the literal translation of 'menopause' is "cessation of menses."  But I would expect that I'll see very few more trips to the Rite Aid to buy myself feminine hygiene products. 

Menopause.

Its not like its any big dramatic thing.  This is another natural progression in my aging process, it happens to women all the time.  Its not horri-bad, scary-bad, or really even bad.  But just like all of life's First Time's, this is MY first time in this place and you know my mind is running in teeny weeny circles trying to understand who I am in the context of Being Menopausal.

There's the mechanics of it, naturally.Now begins the more careful watching of my chemistry and finding out what will work best for me.  I'm more than a little bit worried about what menopause will mean for me in terms of physical changes, but I'm also aware that starting hormone therapy carries more benefit than risk at this point in time.

There's perhaps a shred of regret that the baby years are truly over.  I didn't really want any more babies, at least not at this point in my life.  I would have been happy to have more kids altogether, but hey, I started late, so I'm grateful I lucked out with two.  No, this wouldn't be the ideal time in either SG's life or mine to add a newborn, nor am I one of those women who enjoys pregnancy.  To be precise, I loathed being pregnant with a loathing typically reserved for spiders and traffic tickets.  So the Not Going to Have More Babies part is really just a twinge of nostalgia for the days when I held first Amazon Girl and then Race Car Man for the first time and for all the first times of everything they ever did after that.  I loved nursing my babies and holding them.  I loved their expressive faces and their first words and watching them learn to move and then crawl and walk and talk.  I could never get enough of gazing into their faces while they slept peacefully in my arms.  Come to think of it, in my arms (or their dad's) was pretty much the ONLY place either of them slept peacefully.   And just like that No More Babies is just fine with me.

I suppose more than the knowledge that my child bearing years are behind me, its the thoughts that revolve around who I am as a person and what this stage of life means in grand scheme of things.  There are a lot of adjectives that come to mind when you think of yourself as Still Young.  "Menopausal" does not happen to be one.

Entering menopause has me feeling less young, less inviting, less pretty, less a participant in the swing and uptick of life.  I'm sure I'm overthinking things, but I can't help but think that I'm somehow less.  Which is silly, and not something I'd ever even consider applying to anyone else that I know.  (See?  Still harder on myself than on you.) Its the nuance between being more in the game than not. Its like menopause is the crossing guard between having your whole life ahead of you and having most of it behind you.  I fear the loss of not just my sexuality, but my desirability.  SG would likely disagree with this assessment and logically, so would I, but logic and feelings are not one and the same and my feelings at this point in time are more in control than my analytical skills.

Billions of women have charted these waters ahead of me, certainly the literature reflecting their combined wisdom and experience is waiting for me to find it.  Short of that, however, it still remains to me alone to develop my sense of self, my understanding of who I really am as opposed to how I might feel at any given time.

Menopause is the end of something, but its not the end of the world and its not the end of me.  New things lie ahead.  I will adjust.  We all will adjust.

Uterus, redux

The title alone ought to scare you off.

A couple of years ago I treated you all to the mental imagery of the bloodbath that followed the removal of my first Mirena.  I waited a few months before deciding what to do about birth control, and since there wasn't any actual having of The Sex, it wasn't an issue.  Later that year, along came SG and I made the decision to have a new Mirena installed.  Personally, I wish I could forego using any sort of birth control whatsoever.  I don't like interrupting my natural cycle.  With the Mirena I bleed like hell when they put it in and when they take it out and not a drop in between.  No periods.  On first blush, it seems like a great idea -- but the truth is the thought of interrupting my body's natural  uterine function really bothers me.  What else does one do, though, when one is seeing someone who lights her up like a pinball machine and its too soon to talk about serious ongoing relationship issues like do you want any more children and do you want to get married and would you please have a vasectomy even though we're only dating?

Well, we did get married, and no, we don't want any more children, and surprisingly, he's not opposed to being the one responsible for managing our mutual fertility.   We weren't in a hurry to make any decisions about it, though, with another three years of shelf life left on my IUD. 

Until last week.

I woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday with something that seemed like a horrific conflation of the worst IBS attack in the history of the universe and an abrupt return of the most extreme symptoms of endometrisosis I'd ever experienced.  All the pressure of the IBS episode was causing me to feel like someone was slicing up my reproductive system with a machete.  I assumed it would pass, I really did -- but it didn't. I managed with the assistance of a lot of fiber and other handy-dandy gastro-intestinal remedies to solve the pressure problem, but the pelvic pain just wasn't going away.  I couldn't even sit down and pee without having such bad pain I couldn't catch my breath.  It even hurt to walk. 

By the end of the second day I figured it was time for a medical intervention.  Dr. A was pretty concerned.  He ordered labs, started me on antibiotics and a buttload of pain control medication.  And I do mean buttload.  Hellooooooo Valium, Hydrocodone and Donnatal, my new best friends. Within 24 hours I could manage walking upright, but it was clear things weren't really quite right down there.

Dr. A made a followup with me for a few days later and requested I also make an appointment with my gynecologist as soon as possible.  Except I don't actually HAVE a gynecolist at the moment.   He gave me a referral to a local guy and so I called their office to see when I could get in.  "As soon as possible" when you're calling a gynecologist's office you've never seen before turns out to be something like a month from now, unless, like me, you're willing to turn on the waterworks over the phone in which case it turns into that afternoon. 

We didn't actually get to see the guy we were referred to , we got one of his associates, but that was fine.  He checked the labs my doctor had ordered and agreed there was infection.  Then he put instruments of torture up my vagina and did something so horribly painful to my cervix that I practically leaped out of the stirrups and through one of the ceiling tiles while my head did a 360 degree rotation on the top of my shoulders. 

Once I could again breathe normally, I asked him what might be causing said painful infection.  He rattled off a number of potential reasons, but mostly he thought it was the IUD.  I asked him if leaving it in would make it harder to get rid of the infection and he said that he believed yes, it would.  Et voila.  Out with you, then.

He then gave me prescriptions for more antibiotics and requested I come back in two weeks, with orders for absolutely no sex in the meantime. 

No.

Sex.

As if that weren't bad enough, it turns out the one of the antibiotics reacts badly with caffeine and the other reacts badly with alcohol.

Two weeks. 

No sex.

No coffee.

No booze.

 

And just like the last time I got my IUD removed, the river of blood has commenced, which has done absolutely nothing to improve my mood.

But you know, I'm a generous girl.  I believe in sharing my pain.  I've asked SG to find a urologist in our insurance network with the first available appointment and go ahead with getting neutered a vasectomy.  Misery, as they say, loves company. 

He loves me, that man.  Its a damn good thing.

 

 

 

Spring fever, I has it.

Two reasons I might not write regularly:

1.  I have nothing to say

2.  I have too much to say

At the moment, I'm squarely tied on these two fronts.  There is so much happening, the pace of life these days seems to be at breakneck speed, and I'm coping with a great deal of emotional change and growth.  Understand, please, that all of this is positive.  And do take that pin away from my bubble, I'm not anywhere near ready to have it burst quite yet.

Over the last few weeks we've been mostly blessed, weather-wise.  A few weekends ago, on a day so sunny and pretty it almost seemed that we were having spring in the middle of January, I got to hit the trail for the first time in 2011 with my wonderful friend Michelle.  We had mostly a terrific ride, and Bugs was not nearly as hell-bent on charging out as I thought he might after a few months of inactivity.  However, we need to fine-tune his Alarm! meter.  We managed about halfway through the ride to flush a grouse, practically under his nose.   Instead of going back or straight up, Bugs went sideways.  I, sadly, did not.  So now its three days a week at the chiropractor, starting to walk straight again finally.  As if in sympathy, Bugs developed a limp this week requiring twice-a-day soaks in warm water and epsom salts and anti-inflammatories.  We're both much better.

That's not really what's kept me from blogging, though.  Blame it on him. 

Do you know that feeling of absolute rightness that comes when you are around someone who likes you just the way you are?  Not pretend-likes-you but really reallylikes you?  And you like them the same?  And everything is easy and calm and you can tell your deepest darkest secrets and fears and instead of taking it personally or thinking you expect them to fix you, they just listen and hold you?  And every time you're around them, no matter what you're doing, whether its cooking or housework or watching a game or reading or ...  you feel happy and content?  And you have intense discussions about things you don't necessarily agree on but throughout which there is no arguing, but lots of intellectual stimulation?  Who thinks you're beautiful, even on bad hair days?  And you smile every time you see them or even think about them?  Who puts up with your dogs even when they're being hooligans and chewing up things and barking like idiots?  And other stuff that my mother really doesn't want me to write about here, but I can sum it up in a single word:  Chemistry.  No?

I didn't either.  Until now.

We waited a little while for the kids to meet him.  It was angsty for me, of course it was.  You reach that point where you know you want this someone around, to have them really be a part of your life, not just the person you spend time with when your children are at their other parent's house.  But you can't really go forward until you know how they'll be with your kids and they can't really go forward until they understand you not as a single person but as a single mother of two wonderful albeit challenging kids.

So far so good.  We took the kids bowling this weekend for the first introduction, and even with C's major sensory meltdown (note to self:  Bring earplugs to the bowling alley for the kid who has sensory disorders) it was ok.  Better than OK.  What I saw was someone who was patient, helpful, tolerant and kind with my children, even when they were being challenging.  I have no idea what he saw from his end besides a stressed out mother in need of a stiff drink, after struggling with her child through two pairs of bowling shoes, one pair of pants that "felt funny" and one chair that was "poking me!" and so had to be flipped over (thank you, Atomic Bowl, for not kicking us out) but so far he hasn't changed his phone number, he's still taking my calls and he even had us over for family dinner the next night.  That's a good sign, right?

Life feels good right now.  And I know that I sound ridiculous and gushy and all "in love" and that's just so strange coming from me, who is normally prickly and reserved and untrusting of the human race in general, but there you have it.  I'm happy.  Deal with it. 

Tomorrow I'll tell you all what the school came up with as a proposed IEP for C. 

Heavy

Some days the weight of it all becomes unbearable. 

Its not just the things that are unique to my situation, though those are a large part of the heaviness.  Living one paycheck away from God only knows what kind of financial disaster may befall is scary.  Looking at the half-ton of hay left in the barn and Christmas rushing at me on the calendar and knowing the old gelding needs his teeth floated and my daughter wants to sign up for basketball and my life insurance premium is coming due and my son needs interventions and god, the house needs cleaning and things need fixing and I need a haircut and I forgot my meds and we're out of groceries and and and...makes my heart want to thump right out of my chest and go careening madly down the street.  There's the faces of my kids and the other inmates at the zoo who all need some portion of time and attention, which becomes harder to give the more stressed out and tired I get.  There's the ungodly amount of work waiting for me at my desk and the burden of finding a new hire before the job kills me.  There's the worrying about so many things and so many people.

There's the stuff that we all go through - am I doing the right things with my kids?  Setting the right examples?  When I make decisions about life, career, finances, am I making the right ones?  Am I OK with my loved ones?  Am I OK with God?  AM I DOING THIS RIGHT? 

So.

Thursday I will cook a big ass turkey and all the trimmings and I will sit down at the table with my kids and my ex husband (yes, we do holidays together) and I will try, for at least one day, to put these things out of my mind and remember to be damned grateful for all the things that I DO have and stop worrying about the things I don't.

I have parents who support me in so many ways you can't even imagine.  Who love and listen and care and give, time and money and hugs and words.

I have beautiful, amazing children.  Children who are funny and smart and creative and kind.  Children who are sensitive and special and miraculous.  Children who out of the blue will come up to me and squeeze me around the middle and tell me they love me "more than the whole everything."

I have friends who love me.  Friends that come get me with their rig so I can ride my horse somewhere outside of my own pasture.  Friends who drive cross country to see me.  Friends who take me out to listen to a band when I'm so stressed out I can't breathe.  Friends who send me funny emails and make me laugh.  Friends who pray for me all the time.  Friends who find little ways to pick up some of the balls I drop. Friends who live in the box on my my desk, that share their daily struggles and joys and who listen to mine.  Friends who write comments here and other places that show me they are listening and that they care. 

I have these furballs, big and small, who bring meaning and joy to my life.   The warmth and weight of the purring cat on my lap, the dogs curled around my chair as I type, the horses who rumble and look happy when I emerge from the house.  My horses who let me hug them and hang on them and who put their soft noses near my face and breathe their horsey breath on me.  My silly little chickens who follow me around whenever I'm out by the barn and who give me breakfast almost every day.

And I realize that sometimes the heavy thing that I feel is not the burden of responsibility, but a large, solid blanket of love and support that wraps me up and helps me carry the weight of all the other things. 

Reparations

"I don't want to spend my whole life down on my knees

Just fixing what I've broke."

- Hem, The Pills Stopped Working from Funnel Cloud, 2006

What are your regrets in life? What are the things you did in your past that hurt another person that they either never forgave you for or for which you never made amends?  You know, the unresolved ones.

When I left my first husband there was no awful thing that he'd done wrong, no infidelity (on his part), no lying, no abuse, nothing.  I went through a lifequake of epic proportions when I found my birthfamily and pretty much fell off a cliff.  I didn't want anything to do with anyone, didn't want to work, didn't want to be married, didn't want to have majored in English, wanted my whole life back so I could do it over and be who I finally thought that I was.  The best I could do was end what I came to realize was a marriage of incompatible people and try again. 

In retrospect, I was incredibly selfish and immature.  Maybe we *were* incompatible, but how would I know?  I didn't try.  I believe he will never forgive me for it.  I don't believe he has to.  Its not a requirement.  And I also believe there is nothing in this world that I can do to make amends for shattering his life.  I can apologize.  I can say it was all my fault, that he did nothing wrong.  But I can never, ever fix it.

Should I have to?

12 years later, he sends me an email to let me know the dog we had together has passed away, as he did last year when one of the cats died.  And I let him know about a mutual friend who passed.  We are polite, we don't ask questions or talk of personal things, but at least we are polite.  There is no meanness, no need to dredge up painful pasts.  I'm comfortable with that.

I remember a friend I had, she was a very needy friend and very controlling.  We had entered a contest together, the Milk Carton Derby during Seafair.  We didn't win the judging, but we did win a random drawing for two tickets on Continental Airlines, anywhere they flew domestically.  For me, it was great timing.  I was planning on going to Boston with my rowing club to compete in the Head of the Charles.  I wasn't sure how I would be able to afford to get there, so this ticket was like a gift straight from God.  My friend, though, thought that we should use our tickets to go somewhere TOGETHER.  I offered a compromise, I would take extra vacation days while in Boston and after the race was over, she and I could do some touring around New England.  It would be in the fall, the best time of year to be in the Northeast. 

My mother's cousin's widow lived in Boston, in a very fine old neighborhood, in an enormous house.  It was three full stories with a basement, she came from old money.  She very generously offered her home to me and any of the other rowers who needed a place to stay. 

My friend wasn't interested in this shared housing, and she tried to find herself a hotel room in Boston.  She could not find any hotel that wasn't already booked.  She called me, angry and demanding a solution.  I said I hadn't realized that so many people would be in town for the race, maybe she wanted to change her mind and stay at my relative's house?  She SHRIEKED at me.  "People aren't in town for your FUCKING RACE, you idiot, they're there for a convention.  Your stupid race isn't that important!!  And no, I don't want to stay at your cousin's house with a BUNCH OF FUCKING DYKES!!!!"  And hung up on me.

She never spoke to me again.  I left her a couple of half-hearted messages, hoping to patch things up, but she never returned my calls, and frankly it was a relief.  (And just for the record, I had a WONDERFUL time in Boston.  We took a silver medal in the women's 8, and a couple of us rented a car and drove to Vermont and did a bunch of sightseeing and had a wonderful vacation. SO THERE.)

I have wondered about her since then, whether she still hates me.  What she would say if we just randomly ran into one another at the grocery store or at a restaurant.

Would she expect me to fall on my knees and apologize?  Would I want to?  

I wouldn't expect it of her, even though I thought her behavior was horribly rude and selfish.  She probably thought that I was the one being selfish.  And rude.  I think where the disconnect happened was that she had very high expectations of me, expectations I wasn't going to fulfill.  That was the beginning of a painful breach that has never healed.

Another person comes to mind, a man who, though I didn't date him for long, was a big part of creating the codependent monster I eventually became.  He was an alcoholic, much older than me.  In the months that we were together, I became unbalanced as I tried to fix him, control him.  The relationship was one of the worst in my life.  He was always at the bar, drinking.  He never came home when he said he would.   He would pick on me for my clothing or my weight or my hair.  I was never good enough.  He cheated on me.  He gave me an STD.  After I finally grew the ovaries to throw all of his belongings in black plastic garbage bags and put them in his car, I spent years being furious with him.  I wanted him to SEE how wrong he had been.  To acknowledge it.  TO GROVEL ON THE GROUND AND BEG MY FORGIVENESS.  To change. 

The things that went wrong with J and I, for a while I did the same thing.  And even when he owned his part in things, I still felt unsatisfied.  I was still angry and I wanted someone to PAY.  To grovel.  To fix what they had broken.

As time passes, I realize that I do not have that right.  A person can only apologize for what they own as a wrong.  If there are reparations to be made, if they have the ability to make them, ok.  But most often, in friendships and interpersonal relationships, there is nothing the other person is going to be able to do that makes you feel better.  That part, the getting over the anger part, that's up to ME.  And damn, that's harder than hell to do.  To stop expecting people to fix the broken thing in me.   Its happening, though.  I think I'm starting to understand the concept of accepting responsibility for my own repair.  At the same time, learning to stop being endlessly angry with the people I feel have hurt me.  Being mad isn't going to make them admit their offenses.  Being mad isn't going to make them sorry.  I need to let it go, write it on a piece of paper and burn it in the fireplace.  Cry my tears and let the river flow away, taking my pain and anger and hurt with it.

Because I too would like the forgiveness of others.  I dont' want to, cannot, spend my whole life groveling for forgiveness, trying to fix the broken parts of other people.  Its not my job.

Someday, I think, if I work on this hard enough, I really will know peace.  Someday.

Mommy doesn't do blood

Cuts, scrapes, stubbed toes - these I can handle.  I handle them well, in fact.  I am the Empress of Band-aids.  In my house, Band-Aids are the placebo for everything that goes wrong.  I mop up the blood, apply a little sticky-backed patch of Doctor Mommy Goodness and off they scamper, back outside to bust something else.  This blood is no problem.

All mommies are Superwoman.  And with few exceptions, all mommies have their kryptonite.

Mine?

Needles.

I am squirming in my seat just typing the damn word.  Needles give me heebie-jeebies of EPIC proportions.  But only medical needles.  Not tattoo needles.  Not sewing needles.  Just the kind of needles that the doctor or dentist uses to put UNDER YOUR SKIN or IN YOUR VEINS.  Omigod, I almost just passed out.

It started at a very tender age.  My childhood pediatrician hated me.  Poor Dr. Tucker, if I so much as thoughtI was going to get a shot or have my finger poked for blood, it took five people to hold me down.  By the time I was in my twenties, I had to caution every doctor I had to put me horizontal for bloodwork.  More than one doctor or phlebotomist insisted "Oh, no, its just a little draw, you'll be fine."  They found out the hard way that I was going horizontal, one way or the other.  Involuntarily works just as well, folks, except you risk injuring your patient.  I've fallen off more than one exam table.  Once I tried to donate blood, because my fireman father - who, incidentally has some kind of kooky award from the blood bank for donating something like 1,000 gallons in his lifetime - insisted that I was not a true American or a patriot or even a human being if I didn't donate blood.  So I donated once when the building I worked in was doing a blood drive.  I made it all the way through the procedure, then passed out in the elevator on the way back to my office, scaring the shit out of some poor man who was riding with me.  He thought I'd died.  (Dude, my fingers are going numb right now.  I can't even THINK about that day without my eyesight fading to black)

I thought pregnancy would cure me of my aversion.  Remarkably, for both of my pregnancies, I did OK with the blood draws and the IV's.  Anything for the baby, I supposed.  But the postpartum surgery I had after A was born quickly proved that my pregnancy-induced-tolerance was only a temporary phenomenon.  Remember how I posted a little bit ago about how its not really funny if the doctor gives you too many stitches in your perineal tear?  Yeah.  So I had to have surgery to correct that.  So I could, you know, GET LAID AGAIN SOMETIME IN MY LIFE.  And I went in, got all dressed for the prom in my open-backed butt-hanging-out hospital gown, reclined on the preop bed, and promptly passed out when they put in my IV.   Oh how I miss the days when anesthesia just meant they put a big mask on your face, you breathed in a few times, and you went down for a nice long nap.  No.  Now they want to stick needles in you.  JUST MY LUCK.

So the whole point of this post, the reason I'm telling you all about how big, tough, me is a total weenie when it comes to needles and blood, is that C had to have a blood test.  My secret, shameful parenting fail is that neither of my children has had basic bloodwork done.  EVER.  I can't do it.  I can't take them.  But C needed to have some blood tests done - long story short, it is likely that C has a double-gene mutation that, if he has it, would cause his body not only to not uptake Folic Acid but also not to process it into the end product that the body needs.  This condition also has some indications for people with anxiety disorders.  For those who take meds for their anxiety disorder, it can cause the meds to make them very nauseated, and mostly rendered them ineffective.   My poor little C has pretty bad anxiety disorder - likely genetic.  He's been having a very hard time lately.  Our pediatrician doesn't think he's going to survive kindergarten very well in his current state, and I concur.  So we want to try some low-level medication to see if he has good results.  Except if he has the gene mutation, medication won't really help.  So he needed a blood test to help find out if that's the case.

I just couldn't.  Could. Not. 

All the credit for getting that done goes to his dad.  And when he called me to let me know it had been done, I almost passed out in my chair as he described the event.  (I think he did it on purpose.  There has to be some way to get me back for the Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts that was our marriage). 

I won't be able to look at the band-aid on his arm without my knees going week and my stomach doing a little flip.  That's how bad I am.

My name is Mary and I'm a Weenie.

Where my insides are coming out, or so it seems

Note:  This post is not for the faint of heart.  If you are put off by discussions about ones' lady bits or if you pass out at the mention of blood, childbirth or anything related to women's reproduction, move along.  Shoo.  The rest of you, come along with me.  We have to talk.

I posted last week that I got my Mirena out.  Now let's preface this by coming to an understanding:  I LOVEDmy Mirena.  That little plastic critter was a godsend to someone like me.

 

I used to have horrible, nightmarish periods.   When I was really young, first starting my cycle, I had massively heavy bleeding.  I remember a family trip to Banff, we had a Volkswagen Rabbit then.  I started what was probably my third menstrual period ever, and I honestly thought I was going to bleed to death.  Or die of embarrassment.  I was soaking through Maxi pads like they were kleenex.  I feel sorry for whoever bought that car.  (Dude, those brown stains in the back seat?  NOT JUICE.)  In my late teens and early twenties I started getting cramps that seemed to have originated in the third level of hell.  I was later diagnosed with endometriosis, and had laser surgery to clear it up. It helped for a while, but eventually the stuff came back, and while not every cycle would be bad, about every third cycle I would have a day where I could not get off the floor without the aid of heavy-duty opiates.  Percocet was my BFF. 

Pregnancy and breastfeeding, for me, were better than birthdays, Christmases, getting my driver's license and turning twenty one.  I bid farewell to my periods with nary a regret.  I got pregnant with my daughter on Valentine's Day 2001, and other than a few cycles after she was born, have been mostly blood-free ever since.  Breastfeeding kept my periods light, at least once the Lochia got done frightening the living snot out of me (if anyone had told me that, postpartum, I would pass a blood clot the size of an orange I might have passed on the whole thing.  No fanks!).  In 2005, after my son was born, as soon as my first cycle showed up I went and got the IUD inserted.

I wasn't in love with it at first.  I am one of those people who react to it by bleeding.  A lot.  For a very long time.  I bled for six weeks straight with that muthafucka, and during that time period I hated the thing with unrivaled passion.  Finally, one glorious, blessed day, the bleeding stopped.  And it pretty much stayed stopped until...last Thursday.

While my little progesterone-emitting friend was having a long staycation in my uterus, my monthly cycle was an infrequent and timid little visitor.  Aunt Flo went out of the country for an extended period and her wallflower of a cousin Trickle came to call instead.  Trickle was so uncertain about overstaying her welcome that she could be counted on to depart quickly, usually after a day or so.  She was sometimes so quiet I couldn't even tell she was there. 

Five years.  Every single month a non-event.  Oh yes, I was spoiled.  Rotten.  Paybacks are such a bitch. 

I got my Mirena out on Wednesday.  I have been bleeding like a stuck pig ever since. Now, I expected I would get my cycle back, but my GYN said that it would probably be quite light for a while.  LIAR. I have been bleeding like a stuck pig for the fifth day in a row now, with no sign of letting up. 

Now, before you yell at me to call my doctor, I already talked to Dr. Google, and Dr. Google introduced me to a significant number of women who had their Mirena taken out and bled for as long as several weeks.  So I'm going to give this a little time before I get concerned.  If this is normal, great. 

My dilemma at this point is whether I want to either get another IUD or go back on the pill in order to regulate my cycle, or do I just stick it out and let Mother Nature handle things in Her own way?  I'm more of the mind to let my body sort itself out for a bit, but honestly, I don't know how much more of this shit I can take.  Aunt Flo's on vacation again, but this time she sent Sister River in her place and frankly, she's not such a great conversationalist.