When I was 22 I said, “I’ll have a baby when I am 23.” When I was 23 I thought, oooo there are just a few more things I would like to do before I have a baby, I’ll have a baby when I’m 24. When I was 24… and on it went. 10 years later I am practiced at many varied and highly creative methods of birth control. It’s amazing to me that I can find eight different types of gluten free crackers but I still can’t find adequate birth control. Here are a few things I have tried:

1.     In high school I used spermicidal foam, a diaphragm and condoms and the pull out method all at the same time.

2.     In college I said no to sex when I was horny because I knew that meant the baby wanted in.

3.     In my first long term relationship I went on the pill, which made me go bat shit crazy and dump him. Then I tried…

4.     Making a deal with God that I would quit secret smoking if I didn’t conceive and…

5.     Giving tired blow-jobs instead, and…

6.     Getting stoned. Because if you can’t remember, it didn’t happen.

7.     In my hippy days I stuffed Vitamin C and garlic and parsley and yogurt inside my vagina like the internet recommended which made me smell like seared ahi tuna so…

8.     I told the baby spirit that I am a bad host and they are not welcome.

9.     I got an IUD put in when I was 28. It fell out. I got another one put in when I was 29. It was inserted wrong and got lost up inside of me so we fished it out. Then I got another one put in when I was 30 but it made me anemic due to heavy blood loss so...

10.    After sex I would lie flat and imagine a litre of bleach washing through my uterus. I took a symbolic wire brush to my uterine lining to energetically scrub it clean of sperm. I doused my ovaries in an imaginary glue to make them impenetrable. I imagined a high-powered hose shooting water into my womb and spraying any of the stronger buggers out. Then I prayed for redemption. (Although un-romantic to be focusing so desperately on imaging my reproductive system as a bucket full of poison I think this tactic worked the best.)

11.     These days I make sure to pee directly afterwards.

I know my experiments may seem kookoo banana to some but then I checked out Planned Parenthood and they had the history of all birth control methods ever tried.

Here are a few:

• Chinese women drank lead and mercury to control their fertility and then they died. (Skuy, 1995).
• In the middle ages, women wore the testicles of a weasel on their thighs or around their necks.(Lieberman, 1973).

• Other protective amulets worn were desiccated cat livers or the anus of a hare.

• It was also believed that a woman could avoid pregnancy by walking three times around the spot where a pregnant wolf had urinated.

• My people, the Canadians, drank a potion of dried beaver testicles. (Skuy 1995)

I am 34 now and I know for sure that I want to get pregnant next year. I mean it this time. Really. I am in a stable and loving relationship and I want to have a baby.

I hope none of this previous voodoo hoodoo I have tried has had any lasting damage. I hope anyone out there looking down on me, weighing the pros and cons of who to choose knows that it would be okay now. I won’t gas you or bleach you or block you in any way. I will do my very best. I am filling my body full of candies and unicorns and light.