June 14th 2009

The Dog Ate My NuvaRing

Just so you don’t think you’ll be reading me in this spot all the time, God forbid, I’d like to introduce a friend who will be guest-blogging from time to time. Her name is Stefanie and we’re calling her blog “The Crazy Stories People Tell Stefanie.”

Stefanie’s in her mid-20s, from the Bay area of California, and lives on Capitol Hill. She’s smart, quick with a quip and one of those people who puts a stranger immediately at ease. People tell her stuff. She’d make a great reporter.

Stefanie has a huge blended family of friends from childhood, college, work, and Capitol Hill and these friends are always telling her crazy stories about themselves. If her posts inspire you to share something that happened to you or a friend, email her at stefanie@sexreally.com.

Two last things. One, Stefanie will identify you with a nickname. Two, her stories actually happened. We will trust that yours did too.

Laura Sessions Stepp

_________________

The Crazy Stories People Tell Stefanie: “The dog ate my NuvaRing.”

The other day I received the following voicemail from Anxious Girl. Anxious Girl and her boyfriend had been dating for several months when they had a sex snafu.

“I’m the poster child for why you should use two forms of birth control,” she began.

“You know how I’m on NuvaRing and we use condoms? Well apparently my NuvaRing fell out two weeks ago during sex! The only reason I know is I started my period when I wasn’t supposed to. So I called the guy I’m dating and asked if he remembered anything. He said ‘remember I showed you something a couple of weeks ago, and you didn’t know what it was, and then the dog ate it?’ That’s right, my dog ate my NuvaRing. I’m calling the vet right now.”

You have to be pretty down with your parts to use the NuvaRing. It’s a hormonal form of birth control that you insert into your vagina; it looks like a hollowed out diaphragm and you remove it every three weeks. Like some other forms of birth control, it’s 99% effective if you don’t screw it up.

I’m not sure what effect birth control has on a dog. But a quick Google search of “What happens if a dog eats birth control?” produced over 239,000 results. Anxious Girl is not alone.

After I recovered from the shock of thinking that Anxious Girl was pregnant (note to Anxious Girl: you should always lead with “NOT pregnant”) I called her back.

Me: “Are you OK?”

Anxious Girl: “Yes I was freaked out because I’m using TWO forms of birth control and I could have gotten pregnant! I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do not to get pregnant.”

Me: “What did the vet say?”

Anxious Girl: “The dog is fine, except for the fact that she is really gross because she ate something that fell out of my uterus.”

At this point I start hysterically laughing.

Me: “The dog ate your NuvaRing. That is like telling a teacher the dog ate your homework!”

Anxious Girl: “Are you going to tell everyone in your office?”

Me: “In what world would I NOT tell everyone this story?”

These are just the crazy stories people tell me.

[Editor FYI: Despite the way Anxious Girl told the story, the NuvaRing could not have actually fallen out of her uterus. NuvaRing is placed in a woman's vagina and cannot go any further into her body than the cervix.]