A few weeks ago, I got my third IUD.

You’d think I would have been prepared. I am one of the many women who girded her loins against the possibility of a “Handmaid’s Tale”-style dystopian future by getting my first IUD shortly after the events of Nov. 8, 2016. The idea that my uterus would calmly surf the waves of political unrest for at least another 12 years was appealing.

At that time, I elected for the copper IUD, which is hormone-free and works by releasing copper ions, which apparently interfere with “sperm movement” and “egg fertilsation.” Um, who discovered this and how??

The insertion, which I’d been told would be a “little pinch,” was by far the worst pain I had experienced during my lifetime. Afterwards, I felt vaguely unwell and crampy for the next few days. It seemed worth it, however, because I wouldn’t have to worry about birth control for over a decade, like some kind of witch.

The side effects, which I was indeed warned about, include the possibility of experiencing longer and heavier periods, but I was not specifically warned that my vagina might gush blood like the hotel hallway in “The Shining.”

For six-ish months, everything was perfect between me and IUD numero uno. Then, abruptly, I began suffering from menorrhagia, which is a catch-all term for abnormally heavy or prolonged menstrual bleeding. After an ultrasound revealed that nothing was wrong with the IUD placement, my gynaecologist decided that the best course of action was to remove the copper IUD that was turning me into a mid-30s version of Carrie at the prom and replace it with a hormonal IUD, which offered the added benefit of treating my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

I went through the extreme pain of having the copper IUD removed, and then more extreme pain when it was replaced with the Liletta, which like most hormonal IUDs (Mirena, Liletta, Kyleena and Skyla) sounds like the name of a discontinued Bratz doll.

For the next eight years, the Liletta served me well. The excessive bleeding stopped immediately. Even better, my new hormonal IUD eventually stopped my periods entirely, an amazing and underrated side effect I feel we don’t talk about enough.

Recently, however, Liletta was approaching the end of her reign, and I found myself once again staring down the barrel of a Trump presidency, this time in a post-Roe climate that was even more hostile to women’s reproductive rights. With conservatives going after IVF and other previously noncontroversial forms of reproductive freedom, and women losing their lives over arguments about foetal heartbeats in emergency rooms, I wanted to make sure my uterus was locked down before the president-elect took office, and thus we come to IUD number three.

My previous IUD experiences had been extremely painful, but enough time had gone by to make it hard to remember just how excruciating the insertion can be. And it was excruciating. This time, my new gynaecologist had to use a cervical dilator to open my cervix enough to access my uterus. I whimpered and heavy-breathed my way through the removal of the old IUD and the sharp knife-like cramping during the insertion of the new........

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