- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Austin Babies
mcgee and others who have charted
Okay, so as an add-on to your pp and if you don't mind me asking, why chart as opposed to bcp or an iud? I have a horrible reaction to bcp and have been avoiding the mirena because I had it before kiddos and it hurt like hell and I ended up having to get it removed.
So, I'm just wondering if people do it because they don't like bcp or they don't want to use them or if your planning on having more kids and maybe that would make it easier to conceive the next time around?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: mcgee and others who have charted
I've always been on the pill. I tried the bc injection in college and hated it. I never had issues with the pill before having Alex. A few months after having Alex, I went back on the pill, initially taking the low-dose pill a bunch of moms use post-pregnancy. It absolutely killed my sex drive, which was already low after having a baby. I tried going back on the ortho-tricyclen I'd taken before we got pregnant with Alex, and I still had zero interest in sex. I thought perhaps it was because I was breastfeeding, but as I cut back, I still had no interest. Naturally this was driving poor DH insane.
We decided to try me going off the pill to see how that worked, especially now that I'm no longer nursing. I'm definitely starting to feel more like "me." We had talked about DH using condoms as our preferred form of BC, but to be honest, he really hates them. He does agree though that condoms + sex is much better than bcp and no sex, but he'd rather us work out a system that makes us both happy.
After trying the bc shot, I have no interest in using a hormone-related IUD. I thought about the non-hormone IUD, but I don't like the idea of having something stuck in me long-term, and frankly, a nestie here got pg on the non-hormone IUD. DH has offered to get snipped as we're pretty sure we're two and through, but I'm not quite ready for us to do something permanent just yet. Maybe in another year or two.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
I did it because BCPs made me have high cholesterol. After 3 months with no BCP and no other changes, I had dropped 60 total points.
We used spermicide for about a year and then started charting for about 5 months before we tried. I prefer the spermicide because i don't have to remember to take it every day like a pill, or change it every so often like the Nuva Ring (which was my fave HBC delivery method of them all). And it was effective. When we were ready, we stopped using it, and month #2 we got pregnant.
I also think that since we are in our fertile by choice years, it is just easier to chart and use another method than get back on HBC and mess with my hormones. Now that I'm off, I don't think I'll ever use it again.
Hormonal BC leaves me with high blood pressure (when normally mine is very low - even when pregnant!), no sex drive, head aches, weight gain, dizziness, nausea, and mood swings. Basically, you name it - I got it. I tried several different pills, the patch, and Nuva Ring and each one had different severe problems.
I never tried an IUD, but to me it's just another form of hormonal BC that would probably not help. That and when I was last on BC, we knew we'd be having babies in a relatively short amount of time.
I originally went off BC thinking we'd be getting pregnant within a year, but we weren't ready so kept charting for 2 years. I was lucky in that I had a very regular cycle, so charting really worked for us. Personally, I don't know if it would have been the right choice for me if my cycle wasnt' regular ... I think the extra work of watching my temps, cervix position, etc would have been more than I would do and obviously that's not safe!