MY THOUGHTS ON CONTRACEPTION

Contraception is usually the very first thing your doctor talks about with you post baby, it's almost a little off putting if I'm honest during a 6-8 week check. After both sons I have felt that appointment is more to ensure I wont be getting pregnant again soon, as opposed to a 'How are you feeling' kind of thing. I'm well aware of the time your body needs to recover however, but having two children back to back would be something I made damn sure of never happened. Contraception after Patrick was a subject I didn't really want to think too much about, I've felt extremely frustrated with it over the years and given the fact I fell pregnant with Noah whilst using it, I didn't really have a huge amount of faith.

After I gave birth to Noah, at my check up I was immediately asked what where my plans for contraception now. Through a bit of pressure combined with the fact I was completely blindsided to be asked about such a thing - let's be realistic, I'd just had 28 stitches down below, I wasn't even sure it would work anymore. I fumbled some answer about the pill not working previously and me not wanting to use any long term contraceptive solutions to which she pushed the idea of the injection upon me - I caved and around 2 minutes later I was jabbed in the leg. This was probably one of my worst mistakes, I had done absolutely zero research around it, and what should have stopped my periods for three months instead gave me some sort of endless time of the month. It was definitely alarming as I'm regular as clockwork usually and with the knowledge we probably would expand our family one day, I certainly didn't want to be messing my 'working' system around. Thankfully it was a short term contraceptive, and three months later I did not re-book my second one.

I haven't really ever spoken about how I fell pregnant with Noah - it's definitely quite a story as I didn't actually find out until I was 21w+5, as you can imagine to a twenty one year old me and a not much older John, it was a shock. More so given the fact I was actually using the pill at the time - so I guess you could say my experiences have never been good. After Patricks birth, when the 6-8 'check' came along I was much more equip and firmly explained that for now I was happy using condoms but if my preferred method changed, of course I would be back. I've made no secret of the fact we don't intend to grow our family any more just yet, if ever at all so contraception is something that is a must for us. More and more I'm thinking about other methods for me, I'm incredibly wary about asking the doctor for their advice as whenever I enter one of their surgeries I feel like a little child again, finding myself nodding along in agreement to something I completely do not want. I have noticed websites offering a online doctor. Lloydspharmacy have possibly my favourite of all options I've seen, I was able to browse every single form of contraceptive pill on offer, it listed their side affects as well as detailed descriptions of each pill - what it does and doesn't do. This was fantastic for someone like me, who wouldn't feel comfortable asking all of those questions or even remembering the answers - to a doctor.

So it poses the question, what am I going to do about contraception? At the minute, absolutely nothing, we're more than happy with how things work at the moment and longer term options just don't sit right with me. I squirm a little at the thought of the coil, which is incredibly ridiculous given I've pushed two babies out and my smear test approaching really doesn't phase me. I'm not a huge fan that such forms of contraception also interfere with your hormones, fertility can diminish at any point and just because I have had two boys easily doesn't mean that will the same in the future.