Birth control is pissing me off

These are my guys, the 3 beautiful men of my life. A fantastic husband and two wonderful new sons to nurture.  I think that's enough, don't you? I mean, why not stop while I'm ahead? Why add more diapers to the landfills? But most importantly, why torture myself any further? 

Two super healthy, super vibrant little boys... two cases of Postpartum Anxiety. One handsome, successful, guitar-serenading husband... one failed permanent sterilization surgery (!) (we'll talk about that soon). Two pregnancies and two deliveries survived with body and va-jay-jay in tact (an Oprah term that tickles my funny bone)... add those two + two and get the approximate 4 hours of sleep I get before baby wake-ups begin each night.  

Shouldn't I be able to turn in my ovaries and leftover eggs to a Retired Reproductive Parts counter somewhere to receive a voucher for unlimited-for-the-rest-of-my-life, birth-control-free sex with my safe, committed, baby papa husband?? I'm 40 for god's sake. I've paid my dues. I spent my first 37 years trying not to get pregnant by enduring blotation from pill hormones, nonstop bleeding from an IUD, itches and irritations from latex, nonoxynol 9,  foam, and "the ring." I'm done procreating. I'm supposedly in the years leading to my greatest orgasmic potential. You'd think it's my time to fly, man. 

But no. The Costco-sized tacky electric blue box of Trojan-enz under the bed stares at me in mockery each time I look for a tucked away book to whisk me away from reality at bedtime. It tells me birth control is not a done dealio for me yet. It reminds me that I endured an entire Essure permanent sterilization surgery, full anesthesia and all, only to have it fail. Details: (sorry Essure peeps - I'm busting you right now) Essure is supposedly this awesome new non-incisional alternative to tubal ligation. It was a procedure in which tiny nickel coils were implanted in my fallopian tubes to cause scar tissue to grow and occlude the tubes within 3 months. The surgery went great. The 3 months waiting took forever. Then the x-ray contrast dye test showed that not only did my tubes not occlude themselves, but that one of the coils perforated a tube and is floating around somewhere. Lovely.

That was a circuit-breaker for me. It was so disgustingly disappointing, I had to simply turn off any and all internal dialogue about birth control. Which leads to a conundrum. I am a woman, a wife, with a husband, who is supposed to be carrying on some sort of sexual relation. But I don't want to have another baby. I don't want to worry about getting pregnant ever again. I don't feel like having hormones implanted in my arm, going in for a tubal ligation surgery, or using rubbers. The man ain't up for the big V-word. We're still paying all the bills for the failed Essure.  So I'm just kinda at a stand still. 

No cute wrap-up for this post. No round off, back handspring, double back flip with nailed landing. Just a dull sigh, confused shrug of the shoulders and lame question mark leading to nowhere for now.