A Mom's Awkward Experience With Contraception

I distinctly remember the first time I went into a store with my high school boyfriend to buy condoms. I was mortified, as if practicing safe sex was the teenage equivalent of selling trade secrets to Russian spies. We drove the extra five minutes to the Walgreens on the shady side of town so no one we knew would spot us. If we could have completed the transaction in a dimly lit parking garage wearing trench coats and sunglasses I'm sure we would have. It was a solemn affair, certainly nothing to laugh about, and by the time we procured the contraband we were too emotionally exhausted to use them. Which was, of course, the most effective form of birth control possible.

But then I grew up. I got married, had three kids, and lost most of my childish shame over all things reproductive.

As a mother of three young children, I don't have time to skulk around in shadows, waiting for the store to empty out enough that I can grab a box of condoms from the shelf and hightail it to the self-checkout station without anyone noticing. Thanks to childbirth, I've had more hands than I'd like to count in and around my nether regions. Thanks to breastfeeding I've had my boobs out in all manner of public places. And thanks to the need for a quick and spontaneous sex life that can work around toddler sleep schedules, bathroom runs, and water requests, I've had to learn to let my embarrassment about contraception go and embrace the fact that it's all kind of funny when you really think about it.

I recently had the pleasure of being fitted for my very first IUD. For any of you who aren't aware, an IUD is essentially a tiny piece of plastic that is inserted into your uterus and releases hormones to prevent pregnancy. It's a little bigger than the size of a quarter and shaped roughly like a tiny crucifix. Nothing says guilt and shame quite like having a crucifix shoved into your cervix.

I knotted my hands together as I lay on my back on the examination table in my OB/GYN's office. The bright lights and sterile gowns left me nowhere to hide from the discussion of my sexual practices. My legs being spread wide in the stirrups didn't help either. Suddenly backdoor condom purchases and whispered pharmacy orders for birth control pills seemed more attractive and I was starting to wonder if I'd matured at all since high school.

My phone buzzed angrily in my purse. Couldn't the world get along without me for five minutes? Someone was always needing something, which reminded me why I was getting an IUD in the first place. The nurse peered at me from between my legs as she squeezed lubricant onto the cold metal speculum.

"Gee, someone's popular."

She wasn't really listening for a response, just making small talk, the way you would over the butcher counter of your local grocery store. The funny part was she wasn't even remotely uncomfortable as she stared into my most private of places. In fact, she was bored. Suddenly all my humiliation evaporated and I couldn't stop laughing.

"Yep, why do you think I'm here?"

OK, so maybe I haven't exactly matured since high school, but if having three children has taught me anything it's that there should be no shame in taking control of your own body. Especially when it comes to sex. Once the nurse stopped laughing I was suddenly so much more comfortable, which is saying a lot considering it felt like she was about elbow deep in my business at that very moment.

But I was no longer embarrassed. I'd come a long way since that shy girl who insisted on double bagging the box of condoms so no one in the parking lot would know what I'd just purchased. I was no longer confined to the shadows. I was right out in the open, bare-butted under the bright fluorescent lights.

It was the end of the contraception world as I knew it, and I felt fine.