Parenting

The Shitty Options For Preventing Pregnancy

by Karen Alpert
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
A close-up of a white-pink round box with contraception pills

Awwww shit, the six-week, post-baby checkup. You know what that means? I have to have sex again. Uhhhh, I mean I get to make magnificent love to my adoring husband. Not that I don’t enjoy sex. It’s just that right now I’m kind of exhausted, breastfeeding, hormonal, in pain down there, want to murder him because he doesn’t have to breastfeed, and did I mention exhausted? I mean I could literally fall asleep crowd-surfing at a Metallica concert, but you want me to waste valuable horizontal sleep time having sex? Besides, do you know what can happen when you have sex? You can get preggers. Been there done that. So anyways, this is what my six-week checkup was like.

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OB: So what are you using for birth control?

ME: Our baby.

OB: (blank stare)

ME: Seriously, he’s like constantly laying between us and cockblocking my husband.

OB: What about when your baby’s not there?

ME: (blank stare)

OB: Have you thought about what you might want to use when he does start sleeping in his own room?

ME: I don’t know, isn’t there like some magic pill that I can take that will make me temporarily infertile?

OB: Yes, it’s called the pill.

ME: Nahhh, F that shit. I have to remember to take it like every single day. I’m talking about ONE pill I can take and it’ll make my whole system go kaput for a while.

OB: Yes, it’s called the Kaput pill.

ME: Really?

OB: No, not really. What about a vasectomy?

I’m pretty sure she’s suggesting this because she thinks I shouldn’t breed anymore.

ME: I don’t know, that’s just so final. I mean my husband’s 100% done but I’m only like 98%, so we’ll probably have another. And yes, I know I’m 40 (quit looking at me like that, biatch), but didn’t you see that lady who just had a baby at 62? So I ain’t closing that door yet.

Yada yada yada, we discuss some of my choices, and here’s my take on why a cockblocking baby is a better birth control choice for me than any of the options on the market:

1. The IUD. So all of the sudden I have all these Mommy friends who are using IUDs and at first I was like, “Hmmm, that could be kinda cool,” until I heard them all bitching about the little strings. The WHAT?!!! The little strings. Yeah, apparently these little strings hang out of your cervix and you’re supposed to reach in there and check once in a while to make sure they’re still there. I’m picturing a permanent tampon string in there, only there are two so it’s like you accidentally put a second tampon in because you forgot there was already one in there. Grrr, I hate when that happens. Or maybe they’re more like threads like when the hem of your sleeve has a little thread dangling off it and you try to rip it off but every time you pull it it just gets longer and you finally have to bite that shit off. Only these threads are dangling from your cervix, and I’d constantly want to rip them off so thank God I’m not flexible enough to bend over and bite them off with my teeth. And this is why I can never have an IUD.

2. Condoms. First of all, condoms cost like $9,000. Not really, but they cost money and I remember when there were like buckets of free ones in college (unless you went to some religiousy college where the teenagers with raging hormones practice abstinence, bwahahahahaha!). But seriously, paying for a condom each time I have sex makes me feel like I’m paying for sex, which is hilarious because these days you pretty much have to pay me to have sex. Hmmm, wait, does that make me a prostitute?

Plus, can we discuss the physical condom itself? You pop it on the tip of his peeper and you’re like why the F won’t this thing unroll? Unroll damn it! Forty seconds later, you figure it out. Awww shit, that sucker is upside down. Well, if that’s not a buzz kill, I don’t know what is. And once he’s “done” with the condom, it’s basically like a water balloon full of spluge that he tosses in the trashcan so the whole trashcan smells like sex. Awesome. Not.

3. Female condom. Do you know anyone who’s ever used this? Nahhh, me neither. So I looked it up and here are some of the advantages to using a female condom— it’s 95% effective (which basically means if you have sex 20 times, you’ll get preggers, at least according to my F’ed up math). It’s safe for anal sex (if you can handle the idea of putting a ring up your tush hole. I don’t know why that sounds worse than putting a penis in there, but it does). And the outer ring may possibly stimulate the clitoris while you’re having sex (so let me get this straight? Not only am I the one dealing with birth control, but now he doesn’t even have to work hard to get me off?). Okay, so those are the advantages to using this method of birth control.

The way I see it, here is the biggest disadvantage to using a female condom—you have to say you use a female condom. Blagggh. I guess you can say you use a Fem-Con and make it sound a little cooler like Comic-Con, but then people will just ask you what a Fem-Con is and you’ll have to whisper, “It’s a female condom,” and they’ll laugh and think you’re kidding, but then when they realize you’re not kidding they’ll stop laughing and look at you weird and think you’re gross. No way ho zay.

4. A Diaphragm. There are two reasons I am not wearing an F’ing diaphragm (shit, that’s a hard word to spell). 1. Aren’t diaphragms only for people who were born in the 1950’s? And 2. All I can picture is carrying the case around in my purse and then one day it falls out in front of the cashier at Tarjay and she sees it and she’s like, “Heyyyy, I wear a retainer too,” and I’m like, “It’s not a retainer, it’s a diaphragm.” And then it’s just a whole lotta awkward silence while she packs my bags.

5. Cervical Cap. Okay, I really didn’t know what this was so I looked it up and according to Planned Parenthood, “The cervical cap is a silicone cup shaped like a sailor’s hat.” Ennnnh, wrong, F that. I am NOT putting anything inside me that looks like a sailor’s hat. Hey look, it’s Fleet Week in my vajayjay! Then again, if I were single and living in New York, I would totally wear this for Fleet Week. Damn straight I support the Navy, check out my cervi cap!

6. The Sponge. Blaggggggghhh, I feel gross just typing that word. Do I seriously need my birth control named after a cleaning product? I clean enough shit around here already. Plus, what the hell is the point of using a birth control that is only 80% effective? I shit you not. Twenty out of 100 women get preggers on the sponge. It’s like Russian roulette in your hoo-ha. Only you don’t die if you lose. It’s worse. You have a crying, screaming, cockblocking, pooping baby.

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