Anne Rogers wrote:
.
Sarah wrote:
I was on one of the mini-pills briefly after Jamie was born and found it
to be a pain remembering it within the three-hour window. I set my watch
alarm, but it meant breaking off what I was doing to go and take it. I
found the IUCD much easier (I got the ordinary kind, not the Mirena).
Having it put in was unpleasant, but after that I just didn't need to
worry about it at all.

would it be helpful if Sarah explained why she went for the non hormonal
one?

grin Probably not, since my main consideration was saving the NHS
money. The Mirena is _way_ more expensive, and although it works out as
very good value over the five years of its lifespan, I wasn't planning
to have it in that long. I know it wouldn't have been my money (well,
indirectly through taxes, but I'd be paying those anyway) but after a
decade of working in the NHS and having to be constantly conscious of
resources, it went too much against the grain for me to ask for a Mirena.

Another consideration was the hormone involved in the Mirena, but the
only reason that was even a consideration was because at the time there
were all the milk supply issues caused by Jamie's tongue tie making him
unable to nurse properly. There's no evidence that progestagen has any
effect on milk production, and the amount absorbed systemically from the
Mirena is vanishingly tiny anyway, but I figured I might as well avoid
any risk. But I don't see that as that big a consideration.

A while back, I read on here that someone had been told by her
gynaecologist that the non-hormonal IUCD only tends to cause heavy
periods in the first several months after being fitted, and after that
they tend to settle down. So, if you have it put in while nursing, you
can actually miss that stage altogether due to having lactational
amenorrhoea during that time. I don't know how widely true that is, and
obviously I don't know whether I would have had problems with it if I'd
been having periods earlier; but I do know that when my periods
restarted, at just over a year post-partum, they were barely any
different from how they'd been before I got pregnant (and I was on the
combined pill then!).

I'm going to have my IUCD taken out now I've weaned, but that's only
because I prefer the freedom to skip periods that the combined pill
gives you. Apart from not being able to do that, the IUCD has been a
great method. I had a rough time having it put in, but, from reading
about and seeing other people's experiences, I would say I was up at the
higher end of the scale as far as pain levels go. It was definitely
worth it for the sake of having a totally hassle-free method of
contraception at a time when I had enough else on my mind. ;-) I'm
definitely going for the same method if/when I have the next one.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell