dear dorothy - a love letter to my iud
by leslee elwood
Thirteen years ago I went to see Dr Python, my gynecologist. I was 18, and I’m ashamed to admit it, the irony of her name took me nearly ten years to connect. Once I entered her office she spread my legs wider than my recently un virgin boyfriend had yet dared to attempt, and inserted the forceps. Clinically she appraised my cervix, crisp with youth and told me before she began that “this is a little taste of what labor will feel like.” A moment later she kicked in the sealed door to my uterus by brute medical force. For the longest time I was convinced another Dr with a gentler surname could have whispered an ancient and old spell up my vaginal canal before the faint glow of a magic symbol as old as motherhood itself would glow, and open with a choir in the face of true womanly power. However that was not the case, in this century womanhood is not witchcraft, theres no magic, it’s just pain.
Dr Python proceeded to expertly insert a Paragard IUD into my inverted uterus for which I am forever grateful. It was efficient and cold and painful and I have been dreading repeating the process ever since. It’s nearly too far past expiration to prolong anymore and I figure mothers day is as good as any to write the love letter to Dorothy my IUD who has no idea she’s about to soon be ripped from Kansas and land in a biohazard disposal bin.
Dear Dorothy,
Thirteen years is a long time to live with anybody; those two honors belong only to you and my husband. I know deep in your copper coils you wish I wouldn’t have wasted your youth and mine on a monogamous relationship. But you don’t know what it’s like up here and I’ve seen enough to know a variety of dick isn’t worth the risk.
Dorothy Dorothy Dorothy my dearest friend and closest confidant, without you I can for certain say I wouldn’t have had control over my own life these last formative years. I would have been at the whims of conception, bound by my womanhood and a thirty or forty year fertile window. Thanks to you I only have about a decade left. To do what? I have no idea.
It is because of you I have autonomy over my future and control over my meager finances. You have given me the freedom to work three days a week at a coffee shop while I pursue my passions, which have inevitably led to me working five days a week at a coffee shop. You have given me the path to have unlimited sex which I take you up on, sometimes, once a week. You have been on the battlefield cutting down my husband’s sperm for over a decade so I can make short films.
Soon we will be parted and a new Intrauterine Device will come into my life and while we will do great things it will all be because of the work we built together. I just need you to know how truly grateful I am for our time together and how I will miss you. While this is goodbye please don’t forget anything on the way out, like an ex needing an excuse to return. There is a class action lawsuit because Paragard are known to break upon removal.
P.S. If I pass out when you’re removed and I don’t have time to say goodbye or tell the Dr I'd like to keep you to make an uncomfortable piece of jewelry, just know you will always be with me.
Xoxo
- Sincerely Your Kansas
Leslee Elwood
My boyfriend was waiting outside Dr Python’s office ready to take me and Dorthy home. I popped three or four extra strength Advil in the car as he drove us through the suburbs of Denver where a house with a white picket fence and trampoline sat on every block. At home we watched Gladiatorand within 24 hours I was behind the counter at Gamestop. Spotting and cramping, and alphabetizing the playstation section. “Hello this is GameStop Belmar, how can I help you?”
He took a second to register my feminine voice before spitting my second favorite syllable in the English language.
“Bitch”
And hung up.
As I felt another drip drop from Dorothy’s implantation all I remembered thinking was I hope he didn’t forget to call his mother today.