Holding Grief: My IUD Story
Preface: To anyone considering an IUD, please conduct as much research as you can. Speak with an OBGYN, your doctor, your friends, even me (email the editor and they can put you in touch with me).
Image: Abarna Selvarajah
“She was not even clear who the anguish belonged to only that it lingered.”
bell hooks in Wounds of Passion – a writing life.
This is a story about my journey with birth control. I’ve removed my hormonal IUD after eight months of overwhelming grief.
I thought about my IUD (Intrauterine Device) for two years before I got it. An IUD is a small, long-term birth control device that sits in your uterus. Having never had a safe relationship with my reproductive system, I wanted to know that I had some control over when I decide to get pregnant and with whom. The hollowness I had once felt in my womb was not a feeling I wanted to return to.
I was blessed to share my worries, concerns, and thoughts about an IUD with my really good friend. She had gotten one in the early months of 2018. She spoke to me about the discomfort that followed and the freedom she experienced with it. Doctors and other females I spoke to shared their mostly positive experiences with an IUD. They reassured me multiple times that the side effects were very uncommon and that it only happened to one in a hundred women. It was rare for me at the time to experience any community or support around my sexual health. Given the amount of information I had at the time, I still think back to the day I got my IUD and realize how little I knew. Those important facts I would only learn afterwards, like how your matrilineal reproductive history impacted how your body would react to the IUD, the extent to which different women bleed after insertion, and the god-awful cramps.
I had never talked to Amma about any of this before my IUD. Now I find myself thinking of how many obstacles she must have faced when trying to figure out her reproductive system by herself in a country with western notions of sexual health that were unfamiliar to her. Amma has never been open about sexual health with us, and I grew to understand why. In a sense, my Amma and I are connected by way of being lost when understanding the most intimate parts of ourselves. My body carries the scars of generations of women told that their body was not for themselves. Our pain is inextricably linked.
I used to hold so much anger for the doctors that I would visit nearing the time I had it inserted, doctors that would ask me very blunt questions to determine whether I needed a copper or hormonal IUD. Deciding between a wire that would make you bleed profusely and hormones that could change you in ways you wouldn’t even know was difficult. I kept switching my prescriptions until the very last day when I opted for a hormonal IUD.
“My body carries the scars of generations of women told that their body was not for themselves. Our pain is inextricably linked. ”
When I think back to the day, I don’t remember much of the procedure. What I do remember is my determination to have the procedure done and get on with my day, and just how naïve I was to think that that was how things would play out. After my insertion appointment, I got to a study space on campus and cried my eyes out to a friend because I was unable to move my legs. Another friend kindly came over to help me get back home. It was difficult to walk or even stand up, but I made it home. It was a perfect start to what the rest of my “adjustment period” (in quotation marks because I don’t think I ever fully adjusted to an IUD) would look like. Filled with feelings that would overwhelm my entire being and with the constant support of my friends, sister and partner. Throughout lockdowns and the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, I experienced my IUD.
The rage overwhelmed my entire soul in the first few months. And then the grief started to set in. Feelings that I had lost a part of me so integral to my character, a strength that I could never recover. I wish I could say that these feelings disappeared over time, especially after removing my IUD. But they didn’t. A mixture of rage and grief follow me to this day, but I’ve slowly learnt to embrace them as they come.
In the beginning, I would shame myself, saying that I had successfully revoked my ‘pass’ to be a Tamil woman because of the decision to get an IUD. But if I truly wanted to heal and embrace what my body was experiencing, I needed to acknowledge that this did not make me any less Tamil. In the moments that I felt an uncontrollable amount of grief or rage, Tamil was the only language that I could use to express my feelings. And night after night, I would stare at myself in the bathroom mirror and explain the pain in Tamil. My experience with the IUD brought me closer to my mother tongue, to a language that brightens my difficult days. It also brought me closer to Amma, who I eventually confided in and told about my IUD. She held me while I cried.
The IUD hasn’t brought nearly as much into my life as it has taken, but I find a sense of comfort in the sadness. I have also committed to a renewed relationship with my vagina. I speak to her now, thanking her for caring for me throughout this entire process. It’s okay to experience that grief, learn from it and appreciate your strength throughout. I find comfort in my support system, books, Tamil, and the nature that surrounds me with warmth.
