This is the fourth year I haven't had Mother's Day with my Mom. It seems it took me four years to realize that I've could have been a candidate for Mother's Day. And then I look at my pills and hold them tightly to my bosom.
(Actually these aren't my pills. I've never had the pills in the round case. I'd like to think it's because my OB-GYNs have always though I was smart enough to take 28 pills in a row without a Playskool dispenser.)
I started taking the Pill after my second semester of college. I wondered why Mom finally felt my bad periods were suddenly worthy of medical attention - years later I found it was because I was dating a thirty-one year old.
Beforehand, once a month I'd wake up with cramps, I'd start vomiting, As You Do, and Mom would make me tea and give me Midol. I still think that's normal, that vomiting resolves menstrual cramps.
Midol never reduced cramps. Come to find out, it's snake oil, made in 1911 for toothaches and, later, hiccups. Here's an ad offering a hundred clams for a Catchy Advertising Phrase.
Here's my catchy phrase: Midol, A Useless Placebo for Girls Horrified Their Bodies Have Turned on Them.
In the fifties it seems they found that catchy phrase.
Back then being gay was indeed a choice. So those are my choices? Go gay with the Midol Hiccough cure or take those wonderful pain-relieving birth control pills every day for the rest of my life? The Pills, please, and thank you.
I sometimes wonder if those years from 11-19 turned me against my uterus and anything that might come out of it, but then I think of my childhood playthings, and it was never ever baby dolls. There was a life-size bride doll, and Barbies, of course, but what am I supposed to do with a baby?
And to think if I'[d been born just one generation earlier I'd have had two choices: condoms or Midol-induced lesbianism.
Mine never involved puking. It just involved feeling like a very rude person had put his fist up me and was trying to tear out my uterus by the roots. Dr. put me on the pill which in those days were in the Mattel (R) toy-like container. Then the calendar row. Xman convinced me to give up The Pill and so I would be in agony or a stupor for at least two days a month. Then I have a doctor cut out my uterus and I was never happier in my life.
Posted by: Becs | May 12, 2012 at 12:13 PM
I never had baby dolls either, or dolls at all, in fact. I did have a menagerie of toy animals. I showed no interest in babies at all until I was 35, then I had two in quick succession and was glad when they weren't babies any more, and haven't been interested in babies again. The second one I named after my cat at the time. She's never forgiven me.
Posted by: Big Dot | May 12, 2012 at 02:48 PM
The baby, or the cat?
Posted by: allison | May 13, 2012 at 12:46 AM
Both, actually. Things were difficult, for a time.
Posted by: Big Dot | May 13, 2012 at 03:23 PM
Becs - But do you miss your uterus moving during orgasm?
Big Dot - Ohhh, I had a stuffed purple snake I adored. And I had a high school boyfriend (also adored) named after his parent's dog, Joey. He's going by Joeseph now, which worries me, because it might have all been a lie about being named after the dog, which calls in to question what I wrote on his Congratulations On Your New Baby card : "Glad to hear you didn't name her Baggins."
Posted by: TheQueen | May 14, 2012 at 12:12 AM
Oh my god, PLEASE tell me that you're kidding about the uterus moving.
Please.
Also, know that I am sad because they took the birth control pills away from me after I had a pulmonary embolism. Bastards.
Posted by: Tami | May 14, 2012 at 09:52 PM
Tami - Wait - that's not true? Where did I hear that? I think it was in The Women's Room by Marilyn French. Orrrr - maybe it was on Thirtysomething. Have I been misled?
Also, Bastards. Have they no priorities?
Posted by: TheQueen | May 14, 2012 at 10:50 PM