My journey with contraception

I don’t think I’ve ever spoken much about my own journey with contraception and how I got to the point I’m at today…

This is going to be a long one.

I recently calculated that I’ve spent approximately 15 years of my life taking hormonal contraception.

I started bleeding when I was 10 or 11 years old and I was prescribed the hormonal contraceptive pill when I was 14 for ‘acne’. I was not sexually active at that time but it stopped me from having a period - which I thought was GREAT having never learned about the power of my period or anything else about it for that matter…

So I kept taking it.

I was taking the mini pill (cerazette/cerelle/desogestrel - depending on when I collected it from the pharmacy… they didn’t seem to care which brand I was prescribed or whether each brand affected me differently) so I didn’t have a period at all… for 15 years!

I had a break of a year when I was maybe 26 or 27 because I was struggling in my relationship at the time and decided that it was the hormonal contraception that was making me erratic. Turns out it was just the relationship doing that but that’s a completely different story…

During that time, we were using condoms but I was taking a really bad reaction to them and I still haven’t quite concluded whether it was the latex or the lube that I had a sensitivity to but it completely affected our sex life - even using the sensitive condom varieties.

Flash forward to the age of 29 or 30, I read the book ‘Period Power’ by Maisie Hill for the first time and attended a Conscious Cycles workshop with the wonderful Laura at Jackpine Theory.

It BLEW MY MIND!!!

What WAS this whole world of hormone and cycles and moon phases that I knew literally NOTHING about?!

How had I made it through almost 20 years(?!) of bleeding (or not in my case) without knowing this information about MY OWN BODY!!

I decided that I didn’t really want to take the pill anymore. I’d never really been keen on the idea of an implant or injection for fear that it might not be so easily reversible and I didn’t want a hormonal IUD because the whole point was to move back into a more natural rhythm…

[Disclaimer: I am not anti-hormonal contraception - I do think there is a place for it, I just think it needs to be an INFORMED choice after being presented with all of the options and not as a ‘solution’ to any menstrual issues as it so often is prescribed to be…]

So I opted for the copper coil.

What they don’t tell you (and which I have only really recently found out) is that copper binds to estrogen receptors so even though it does not contain synthetic hormones it can still have an adverse effect on your body…

HOWEVER it turns out that wasn’t the path for me either because, after deliberately booking into the sexual health clinic for my coil to be fitted knowing full well that I have a tilted uterus (which is also a lot more common than you would think), they weren’t actually able to fit it.

They didn’t know that straight away of course. I had to spend 45 minutes lying on their bed with my legs spread (and not in a fun way!) with three different practitioners raking around in my vagina before they admitted that they couldn’t find the entrance to my womb and therefore would not be able to fit the coil.

They did an internal ultrasound just for good measure and concluded that I apparently did not have any signs of endometriosis (not something I even knew about at the time) but also just casually mentioned that I probably wouldn’t be able to have children and even if I somehow miraculously did get pregnant it would be a problematic birth leading to complications.

So, overall, a delightful experience…

It was at that point - maybe 3.5 years ago now - that I decided I was going to track my cycle instead.

Now this is a WHOLE topic that I will be covering in great detail over time but at that point I knew absolutely NOTHING.

I decided to pay for the Natural Cycles app which involved me taking my temperature as soon as I woke up every morning so that it could tell me when I would be fertile or not.

You’re actually only fertile for approximately 7 days of your cycle - something else they never tell you - because sperm can survive inside of you for up to 5 days from the point of ejaculation. So your fertile window is usually the 5 days leading up to ovulation, the day of ovulation and the day after ovulation.

So for three solid years I used this app (which I do highly recommend by the way) to track my cycle and prevent pregnancy but I still didn’t really understand my body or why it changed or what impact my hormones were having. I just knew if it was a red day (no unprotected sex allowed) or a green day (good to go!).

THEN I found Red School and my life changed.

I started attending their free workshops and online courses and realised VERY quickly that this was work that I wanted to be part of and knew that their Menstruality Leadership Programme was something I HAD to do.

I read their book Wild Power and signed up to start the programme for the 2024 intake

In the process of both preparing to start the course and going on to complete it, I have learned SO much about myself and my menstrual cycle.

I have now tracked at least eleven cycles in depth and I have the most incredible understanding of and connection to my body and my emotional awareness throughout the menstrual month which just continues to grow and deepen with every single cycle.

I don’t use ANY contraception now.
Not even the tracking app.

I know when I’m fertile based on having this deep understanding of my own body and my own cycle including the changes to my cervical fluid, my mood and libido.

Menstrual cycle awareness has genuinely changed my life and I can’t WAIT to share the secrets of this power!