Contraception: The Poll

i get it now n/a!!!!! lol

oh god i used withdrawal for 12 years and it rocked but i suspect i had a good luck charm hanging over me

When my wife and I first hooked up, there were 3-4 times there with no birth control at all. Considering how fast she became pregnant when we decided to start trying for a baby, we shudder to think of the bullet we dodged.

one of life's biggest lols is that BCs often lower your sex drive

maybe that's what makes it work....

my kingdom for a male pill that will not cause most of my body hair to fall out

and/or my shapely bum to atrophy

Form of contraception on first date with current partner: none!
Times ejaculated into: 7

...blame me being drunk and not saying "condom?" before he entered me. I figured he'd pull out, he figured I was on the pill, and I was too embarassed after the first time to admit it, so I held my breath and kept going. The date lasted about 30 hours, I went to work and straight to the clinic afterwards. Got on the pill but didn't think to get tested... we're still together almost 3 years later and I have since been tested for STDs, all clear. Phew. Never pregnant ever, and came clean to him sometime around six months in when he was reading my emails (we were being silly.. reading each other emails to friends about our first date). I had emailed a friend telling her about the embarassing mistake and didn't think of it when we were reading old emails..

rhythm worked for years until we got (purposefully?) sloppy. Now we are parents.

Now looking for non-pill, safer-than-rhythm method...

do something nonhormonal, maybe diaphragm or cerv. cap

does cc stay in all the time?

Either way. You gotta take it out and empty it after your period, though.

oh god

im not good with the ickiness

You can always take it out before your period and do whatever you normally do.

does nuvaring stay in?

I think it comes out before your period and then you put a new one in.

yeah and you can also take it out for up to 4 hours (so if you want to take it out and have sex, etc)

god. im just gonna keep having babbies

i think nuvaring sounds funnest! i like hormonal, never had a problem

ok here's a question -- i want an IUD (mirena sounds ok, it's low hormone, right?) but they say that you can only get one "if you have had a child"

1) is this true?
2) if so, why? is it psychological (maybe you want to have babby) or physical?

ps currently using nuva, got no problem with it but trying to get rid of period-related migraines

you can get one without having had a child; my friend has one. but i think it could slip out easier or something? a physical thing, can't remember what it was.

i was getting really angry reading the website, because there were ZERO answers to my question and it just kept saying "Mirena could work for you if..." and "Mirena is not for you if..." but the two did not jive on the babby-having question.

also i have insurance, but it will not cover this thing, so i have to make sure i want it when i go in.

no clue what this website is but the bottom says you may have a smaller uterus if never pregnant http://www.epigee.org/guide/iud.html

sucks that insurance won't cover it :((((((((

no kidding
i wonder how much a vasectomy costs.

y'know the first day i went to see m,y obgyn when i was 12 weeks pregs with le beeps one of the first qs his nurse asked me was "do you want your tubes tied immediately following the birth?" uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

like lets try to grow this one first before getting all up in that tube tying bus, yeah?

that said, im so in love with my obstetrician PP refers to him as my boyfriend.

Doctors used to only give IUDs to women who'd already had kids because:

1. The medical establishment have a long history of being assholes who know what's better for you than you do,
2. The uterus is more accessible in women who have birth-ed a babby, and
3. The infamous FAIL of the Dalkon Shield and all the cases of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) that it led to made docs very nervous that you could get a bad case of PID from your IUD and end up infertile, so better not to use it until you already had one or more babby to keep you happy and fulfilled as a woman.

The only one of those that doesn't make me stabby is #2, and in fact it's perfectly fine to get an IUD even without ever being pregnant, it may however take more skill from the doc and it will def be painful/uncomfortable either way. Also, the new generation of IUDs are shaped differently and are easier to insert. So basically hormonal birth control can suck it.

HOWEVER, SUCTION-OPERATED menstrual devices such as the Keeper used to come with warnings (do they still?) that they were incompatible with IUDs because of the risk that suction could dislodge your birth control device.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/The_More_You_Know.jpg

My gf got an IUD despite never having kids (and stating that she never wanted any) because she was still smoking cigarettes in her mid-30's and on the pill and her OBGYN figured it was the better risk, health-wise.

^^^xp non-ironic, btw

apparently scalpel-free vasectomy will run you $400-$700 sans insurance
mirena is $586 and not permanent, still hormonal and possibly painful.

hm.

I wonder what the scalpel-free method consists of? I had mine done in the dark ages (1990) -- felt like the dr. was sawing at my nads with a piece of chert.

this is all so horrible

...

chert?

this is all so horrible
you mean, like the fact that people have to endure pain to gain control of their reproductive faculties?
yes, that is horrible.

yes, sarcasto, thats exactly what i mean

Yeah, SARCASTO. Serisly, she's like the most earnest person in Chicago. Probably in Illinois.

A. Manda, there are non-hormonal IUDs too; ParaGuard is one. I think more are available in Europe than here.

In Europe there's a "frameless" IUD called GyneFix that isn't T-shaped: more info here.

And an account of having it "anchored" into the uterus here:

ah geez
now i'm embarrassed. i would just like to know what i want (or, what we want) before we go to the doc. our insurance plan doesn't cover anything that doesn't involve getting hit by a bus/chronic condish.

Really Europe is about eight million miles ahead of us, in this arena. There are multiple copper-only IUD avail in England, and even more in Belgium where the inventor of the GyneFix lives. Also I think the non-hormonal ones last longer, I've been seeing ten years as a ballpark. Which is like forever in terms of fertility when you're already in yr 30s, basically.

awww...im just messin'. contraception does make me queasy though.

It's repugnant to me that American women are going overseas and paying the $500 insertion/doctor's fee out of pocket rather than limit themselves to USian options (and either no healthcare or plans that don't cover fertility planning anyway, which is...beyond, just beyond).

everything said above is true. Mirena is low-hormone and most women like it for the period control. The copper kind has no hormone.

I have had no children and it hurt like hell when it was inserted. The contraction I felt I thought could be similar to birth contractions. It felt like a hand reached inside me and balled up all my lady parts. But that only lasted for about 20 seconds and then I felt like I had been kicked in the nuts for the rest of the day. (I love how all of my descriptions of pain are based on things I've never actually felt). Fine the next day, not bleeding, nada.

My insurance covered it but I noticed on the bill it was $500-something for the device and $500-something for the insertion. My doctor said I could keep it for 5 years.

Susan, did the doc prescribe (or recommend) any kind of muscle relaxant or painkillers? I mean hit me with some Klonopin or I'm coming in on Valium.

She gave me a "cervix softener" to take six hours beforehand which was supposed to help. Besides that, she just recommended ibuprofen. I was much more anxious about it than I should have been. A few moments for five years of no worries is a good trade-off.

i agree that this doesn't sound SO bad, but compare to no-scalpel vasectomy
read here
it involves some freezing and some pinching.