IUD

Success! For the entirety of our marriage, we've been bouncing from one form of birth control to another, trying to find the one that worked best for us. When we were still engaged at BYU, I went to the doctor for my premarital checkup. Because I get aura migraines, the nurse gave me a prescription for Camila, a progesterone-only pill, and told me to start taking it so it would already be in my system by the time we got married. After only a week on the pills, though, Todd and I agreed that this was not the form for us because I was a total grouch the entire time I took them, and not just because it was stressful planning a wedding virtually by myself. Todd went on his band trip to Korea/Japan, and I went back to the doctor. I begged him to let me have the estrogen pills, but he refused because it might increase my risk of stroke. I asked him how much the rates increased, but he didn't know. When I told him that it was my choice and that I was willing to take the risk, he told me to call Todd and ask his opinion. I informed him that a) Todd was on the other side of the world and b) it wasn't Todd's decision because it was MY body and, even though Todd was going to be my husband, he was still only my fiance and had no legal right to make my medical decisions for me. Despite all of that, the doctor held firm, and I walked home frustrated. When I complained to Todd about the doctor's attitude, he sweetly told me that, no, it wasn't his choice, but he would prefer if I found another way because he loved me and didn't want to risk losing me to a stroke. I looked at the list the doctor gave me, and read off the choices to him. Then I saw one I hadn't noticed before: Depo-Provera, a progesterone-only shot that is effective for 3 months at a time. We agreed that this sounded promising, and I called the doctor. He said he didn't usually prescribe it, but it was better than the pill, so he would leave the prescription at the pharmacy for me. I picked it up and got the shot in my bum on July1st, the day before Linds and Matt's wedding. I was one of their bridesmaids, so I had to stand during the whole wedding, and my rear was very sore. Fortunately, the soreness went away before our own wedding 3 weeks later. We stayed on the shot for the first 6 months of our marriage, during which Linds gave me my second dose. For that entire time, instead of the regular cycle I had for 8 years, I had nothing, which really freaked me out. This caused me to do a little more research and I found some pretty scary information about the shot's effects on fertility, bone density, and menstrual regularity. When we decided not to renew our prescription so we could start our family, I had to just wait for the hormones to drain out of my system. For another 3 months, I had nothing, but then it became apparent just how much the shot had screwed me up. I finally started again in March but to my horror I still wasn't regular. My cycles were sporadic but frequent: every other week or so. Entirely unpredictable. We had no idea when, or even if, I was ovulating, which makes planning a baby a bit more than difficult. Right after we went to another doctor to see if she could help us figure out what was going on, we found out we were expecting Evie! After she was born, Todd and I looked into other forms of birth control, because I swore I was never going back to the shot. We knew we were wanting to try for another baby later that year, so our birth control had to be short-term, and we already knew I couldn't do estrogen-based birth control because of my migraines. We decided just to go with condoms, which weren't particularly fun, until we felt the time was right to have our next baby. Right on schedule, we got pregnant with Elizabeth! After her birth, Todd and I did some more research. We knew that even though I was planning on breastfeeding exclusively for the first 6 months, we didn't want to trust breastfeeding alone because as someone I know put it, "That's how you get surprise babies!" We're planning on waiting a couple of years before trying for our next baby, so we didn't want to be stuck with condoms for 2 years. The estrogen-based birth control was still out. The progesterone-only contraceptives weren't working too well for us either. We actually have medical insurance now, so we looked at Paragard, the hormone-free copper IUD that is effective for 10 years. It seemed to have all the answers for us! I called the doctor's office for my 8 week postpartum appointment, and told them in advance that I wanted the IUD so they could have it ready for me when I arrived. Then the nurse told me that my doctor didn't usually insert an IUD during the postpartum appointment, but preferred to have his patients wait until 12 weeks postpartum. I am SO TIRED of having doctors tell me what I can and cannot do with my body! Birth control should be MY choice; they can advise me, but it should ultimately be up to me. Right? I talked to Todd, and we looked online to see what the recommendation was. Every medical website we looked at said that 6 weeks postpartum was fine, and we were already past that. We agreed that if our doctor really stuck to his guns and refused to give me the IUD, we would go to Planned Parenthood and have them do it for us. I went to my appointment and talked to my doctor in person. He explained that he preferred to wait so that the risk of perforation would decrease. However, when he saw that I was serious, he said that since I'd already had 2 babies, my risk of perforation was lower anyway and that he would do it for me. Yay! He had me come back today and he had everything ready for me. He had to use little pincers to open the cervix, and that HURT. But just when I thought I couldn't handle it anymore without fidgeting or screaming, he was done, and it was in place. He told me that I would probably spot for a day or two and maybe feel a little crampy; he also recommended, even though it was effective immediately, that we wait for a couple of days just to give my body a chance to adjust to having the IUD in place and to stop hurting, which is actually fine with me! I'm also supposed to go back in about a month for an ultrasound to make sure that it hasn't shifted and/or perforated. I am feeling a little crampy and am spotting just a little bit, but it's already better than it was, and I'm feeling happy and confident that we've finally found the right birth control method for us!