An Open Letter to the Pill from my Uterus

Dear Yaz,
Fuck you. Just fuck you. I used to have periods that were light, cramp-free, and over in three days. Now, thanks to you, I am a clotted, bleeding mess for a week at a time, only comfortable when my body is contorted as tightly as possible into the cannonball position. Your advertisements claim to make periods better, and you have actually somehow made mine worse. Which is ironic, actually, because it’s not even a real period, it’s your nasty and unnecessary interpretation of it. You cavort around in the disguise of a “natural period”, wreaking havoc to my uterine walls, when everyone knows all you are is just withdrawal bleeding. You disgust me.
What’s more, you’ve turned the rest of me into a head-case. Where once I was even-keeled, I am now subject to violent mood swings. Where once I was feisty, I go whole days in a fog of lethargy and vague depression. In short, you suck. You are only good for one thing, and that is keeping me free of fetuses. But I’ve had it, Yaz. It’s over. Your bad qualities vastly outweigh your contraceptive ones. Consider us through.
Signed,
My Uterus
PS – My Breasts would like to add that you made them larger, and they are not cool with it.
Ahem. That was my TMI way of putting a call out there to all of you heterosexual feminists. I had the misfortune of attending a Southern Baptist high school for the sex-ed portion of my education, and as such I need y’all to fill in the gaps, if you don’t mind.
I have deemed August “Contraception Month,” which is to say, I am taking a month to explore all the contraceptive options and asking women about their personal experiences with it, before making my own decision on a method. Obviously, my situation is slightly biased: I managed to land myself in a long-term monogamous relationship, so I’m not that excited about using only condoms, but I’ve also worked up a significant ire against hormonal birth control. However, I want to hear everybody’s perspective. What I’m hoping is that this can serve as kind of a feminist guide to birth control that women who are frustrated with their options might be able to get a little bit of guidance from.
So, let’s talk birth control: What positive and negative experiences have you had with different types of birth control? Does hormonal birth control work for most women, or have a lot of you encountered these sorts of problems? Is IUD insertion as painful as it looks? What financial concerns have you faced in looking for a good method of birth control? Have any of you been successful in procuring sterilization at a young age, or tried and failed? Has natural family planning worked for many of you, and if so, how? What the fuck happened to the sponge? Let me know.
I realize this post smacks of heteronormativity, but I think that this is an issue worthy of some serious discussion all the same, because there is a lot to discuss: my ever-growing suspicion that hormonal birth control was invented by men to emotionally subjugate women so they could keep claiming we are unfit to hold public office; what utter bullshit it is that, as women, we bear almost the entire weight of responsibility when it comes to contraception (excepting STD protection, obviously); whether there is really a good method of birth control, or if, as I suspect, they all suck to varying degrees.
Either way, let me know what you all think. Is there any hope, beyond the ever-illusive male birth control pill?