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When I was 23 years old and my son was 6 months old I decided to get Norplant implanted into my arm because I did not want to have any more children until or unless we were financially able. It was 1993 and this was touted as the miracle birth control that you did not have to think about. I knew I did not want to have anymore children right away.  My ex-husband felt that he wasn’t sure he wanted anymore at all.  We weren’t financially in a good place and didn’t want to risk an unwanted pregnancy.

Norplant was in my opinion America’s biggest mistake in birth control and has since been taken off of the market due to so many issues.  You can read about that here

However, within months I went to doctors and complained about headaches, extreme weight gain (that occurred after his birth and after Norplant not prior to either).  Heavy bleeding with my periods and periods that lasted far too long or did not arrive for months at a clip. Within months of having Norplant placed in my upper left arm (5 capsules in a fan shape) I was constantly sick.  I complained of constant headaches and was given a plethora of headache medications and most of them didn’t work.  It was a constant low-grade fever that made me feel tired and miserable constantly.  Thankfully I was a fulltime stay at home Mom because I could not have held down a job to save my life.  I also didn’t have health insurance for long periods of time and the Norplant was placed in my arm thanks to the welfare system.  And the welfare system was all about giving you birth control but I had to go to doctors for 6 months straight in order to have the devices removed.  When they put the devices in my arm swelled and was black and blue.  When they removed them (they inserted and removed in the OB/GYN’s office with one small incision and local anesthesia) the doctor had to put his knee on the elbow area of my arm and yank them out so hard I thought he was going to pop my elbow out of the socket.

The entire Norplant incident in my life was mentally painful and physically exhausting.  Upon removal I still got headaches and while they weren’t as severe they were just as constant and miserable.  My girlfriend Joyce had the same experiences with Norplant and we’ve both regretted our choices all along to have it implanted in the first place.  She had her Norplant removed 2 weeks after I had mine taken out.  The welfare system paid to have mine removed because my medical bills due to side affects were too constant for them to say no to my request. 

When I had my son my periods had returned and were normal.  Then I got Norplant and my periods were shorter but far bloodier (sorry but I’m going for pure honesty here).  Upon removal my periods completely disappeared.  They just stopped.  Around the time I had Norplant inserted I gained 85 lbs within 3 months.  I attributed this oddity to being Norplant related but could not grasp it or figure it out at all.  I was frustrated and angry with doctors and without good health insurance that gave me choices as a patient I just gave up for quite some time. 

For years when I went to gynecologists and complained that I had NO period they told me “here take this birth control pill and it’ll be fine”.  But they never did any testing and they never investigated why I gained 85 lbs AFTER having a baby and/or why I had other symptoms.  I mostly ignored some of my symptoms because after all I had a new baby, financial problems and a frustrating marriage.  Those things sapped me of energy to think about myself and my well being.

I had Norplant in my arm for about 6 or 7 months prior to removal.  When the decision was made that it had to come out my ex-husband went and got a vasectomy without much discussion with me.  I suppose during that time he decided more kids were not in the works for him.  Oddly it pissed me off but secretly I didn’t care because I knew I wasn’t truly in love with him and did not want any more children with him.

Norplant was a nightmare and next to my choice to marry ex-husband it remains one of my biggest mistakes to date.  I made the decision offhandedly and trusted doctors and did no research.  There was no internet in 1993 and I was not the same questioning person I am today.  Norplant…you sucked!  I will and have hated you for 14 long years.
 

I went to the oncologist yesterday.  Rick went along.  Dr. Oncologist (the guy that I saw four times but he saw it all with regards to my Uterus…and…my Vagina….oh yah and my Cervix too) told me that I am a high risk for female cancers because I have PCOS.  He also told me (and actually looked directly at me while doing so!) that I can go back to Dr. OB/GYN (who is really funny and even he too has been all up in my shiz) and go on Clomid.  Or perhaps he said that Dr. OB/GYN will send me to a Reproductive Endocrinologist.  We shall see on that one.  He said it was up to Dr. OB/GYN but that he would send him a nice professional letter with his ongoing recommendations and treatment.  He closed out our relationship by stating, “we need to get an egg…and some sperm….yah we need that too…in the right place and then you’ll be all good to go!” 

The thing I always liked about Dr. Oncololgist was that when he would tell me what was happening and why and he would repeat his question of “you went to Dr. OB/Gyn wanting a baby…right?”  I would always respond with, “yes but it’s important to me that I am healthy and ok above all else.”  He would then repeat, “Yes but you want a baby.” and he would continue speaking about my file while he looked every where (the ceiling, my file, his hands, my shoes) but at me.

Either way, now that Dr. Oncologist looked right at me and smiled that means I will live.  I’m convinced he doesn’t look at his patients because he’s not sure if the big C is going to take them away and he doesn’t want to get attached.  He shook my hand twice and I thanked him for taking my non-cancerous female parts seriously and helping me.  (you think I didn’t say that?….you’d be wrong!)

Goodbye Dr. Oncologist that doesn’t look directly at possibly dying people, I liked you because you’re smart smart smart and because your staff is awesomely helpful.  (not that Dr. Oncologist will ever read this….because he won’t.  He’s too busy getting smarter.)

So….off to make an appointment with Dr. OB/GYN who has seen my friend’s innards too, but we don’t care because he’s funny and he births him a lot of babies and he will never deliver a cancer diagnosis…so he can always look right at me.

 We’re excitedly reserved.  I am oddly grateful for my experiences from sitting in an oncologist’s office repeatedly looking at plastic girl parts with different stages of plastic cancer attached to them.  It profoundly changed me.  I will never put those waiting room patient faces out of my mind.  Never.  Perhaps the only way to do that is to concentrate on helping and assisting them instead of truly having a forever picture in your head.  I don’t know…..

I feel blessed to have had constant “concern” but additionally constant “negative” pathology reports. 

I don’t like my son’s stepmother.  I would like to make it clear as to what the real issue for me is.  I forgive her for all the crap she personally did to me in the past.  I’m seriously over those things.  If she hadn’t done those things I would still be miserably living with a liar and sociopath.  She now has to do those things and that’s truly wonderful to me. My recent post about her was all about how she pretends to be one thing but is another.  She does not admit that she was married or he was married when they got together.  She doesn’t even admit this to her own family.  But they have church gatherings at their home.  I find this all to be somewhat ludicrous. 

I know that my life today is entirely different than my life of then.  The way I live now and the things I have now in my life are priceless.  I am more grateful because of all the things I have endured in my past. I don’t dismiss my past, but there is no future in the past.

I do not like her because she treats the most precious person in my life like a nuisance.  And that truly breaks my heart.  So I lash out.  I lash out not personally as I am never afforded a chance to express myself towards her.  I hear about how she makes my son feel directly from my son.  I get angry because she spends endless hours in church and then treats someone she should care about like crap.  If my ex and I did not have any children together I would not have to deal with him.

Divorce is the end of a marriage; it is unfortunately not the end of the relationship with your former spouse when you have children.  Not unless one party abandon’s their responsibilities to that child.  Fortunately for my son, that hasn’t happened. 

The worst part of divorce is that everyone is forced to deal with additional parties that they themselves did not choose.  It’s like being forced into a relationship with people you did not choose, but rather perhaps your ex-spouse chose.

I think my ex-husband could have chosen better.  Anyone at all would be better if they just treated my son with respect and kindness.  Anyone that had his best interests at heart would be better.  Anyone that even cared the slightest bit about him would be better.  Anyone else would be better.

If my ex-husband wished to speak to Rick about anything, anything at all…Rick would answer the phone and treat him with respect as he is the father of my child.  My ex-husband’s wife refuses to speak to me. How can that ever be good for my son?  She puts him in situations that make him uncomfortable, etc.  Only a selfish person treats a child like this.

She wanted my ex-husband.  She doesn’t want his child.  How is that love?

Sure I act catty and I have ill feelings towards her.  How can I not?  I do the best I can to encourage my son to get along with her.  To overlook her ill words. 

I could not keep him away from her if I tried…unless I wanted to completely remove my son’s father from the picture.  So long as he chooses to be married to her, then my son has to be subjected to her.  This is not my choice.  It is his.  We have joint custody and I like it that way because my son should not have to give up either parent, even if one of them chooses a bad spouse as his father has.  I believe my son has learned a lot from what he see’s via his father’s second marriage.  He also has learned what being happy will do for a person because he’s seen a transformation in his mother.

His father is not a bad one, he just married poorly and he’s too weak to take control.  I’m not ever going to be in a position to take control of a bad stepmother unless I want to remove my son from his father’s life.  If anyone thinks that’s a good idea then they are just being selfish and dismissive.

I barely speak about my child these days because while there are issues, every divorce comes with them, I have learned to feel fortunate that my son has a father who loves and cares for him immensely.  There is no perfect world.  In a perfect world I would find my ex-husband a nice wife who cares about him and his child equally.  I would pick someone that doesn’t treat him like a child and mandate what he can do with his money.  I would pick someone…anyone better than her.

I’m happy.  Even he deserves to be happy.  I can’t imagine that he is.  He cannot speak openly and freely to me if his wife is there.  That indicates to me that there are issues bigger than I’ll ever fix for him.  I simply can’t.

I can stand in front of Rick and talk to my ex-husband. I don’t have anything to hide and I can be myself in front of anyone and everyone.  My husband doesn’t have jealousy issues, etc.  The other day I noticed a picture frame in the library.  It’s an old picture frame that I never threw away because it has pictures of my son as a baby in it.  It’s a multiple picture frame and also has a picture of one of my dogs I loved for a long time.  There are two photos’ in it of myself and the ex-husband from when I was 20 years old, one of them being from our trailer trash reception with the crappy yellow cake his mother bought us.  Those pictures are old of course.  The frame was on a pile of stuff.  I noticed the other day that Rick placed it on a library shelf in the library facing forward like all the other picture frames.  Surely he saw the pictures.  But he’s obviously ok with it.  I had a life before him, he’s well aware and secure with it all.  That’s a lovely thing to have, I appreciate it in ways that other’s may not.  He knows I love him, that I am living in the now.  That life goes on and that those chapters in my life are over but the book is still who I am.  Rick never said a word to me about that picture frame.  He simply placed it on the shelf and moved on.  That’s what a mature person does.

If my son’s stepmother did that my son would be so blessed for that act of maturity.  Instead he has a stepmother that won’t even allow him to have a picture of himself and his mother in his own bedroom.  Because if you pretend I never existed it will make you feel better?  I just don’t get it and so it all angers me….and I can’t direct that anger towards her or work anything out with her.  IE: the frustration.

My son is an amazing kid and deserves better.  But I can’t make other peoples choices.  I allow my son to have a father, because that’s the right thing to do.  Along with that….he gets a stepmother that his father chose.  Not I.  That choice is not mine.  I don’t care about the Internet’s opinion either.  Divorce is never without ongoing issues when there are children involved.