Charting does not always work and is not always an option.

[Kontessa]

 Charting has been impossible for me with my cycles coming and going as they please. By the time I have fertility signs, it could be too late. Say I ovulate on cycle day 18, and have signs of fertility the day before BUT had no signs the day before that and so had sex. I could still get pregnant. Sperm can survive for days. (ask me how I know! LOL)

 I had been charting for 10 years and so when I say charting is not an option I very much mean it.

 Last week I was in the hospital, it seems I have a heart condition and a few other things making another pregnancy right now life threatening to me. (Not that I am allowed to have sex right now anyway!) But when we are able to again I am certain I want to have something solid for birth control.

[Jaimee]

I think this was meant to be part of theBirth control that doesn't cause weight gain?? thread?  I haven't read the responses in this thread so I apologize if this is repeat info...  I just wanted to say I know what you mean about charting with wonky CF.  I ended up with TWO oops babies.  Since then I have been searching for a non-hormonal form of effective BC.  I joined the CTA thread and I learned a bunch of rules that I previously was not aware of that I should have been employing since I was bfing and couldn't rely on my CF to predict O in enough time to be safe.  I imagine you could effectively employ these much more conservative rules to your charting as well and use a barrier method during your fertile times (which will be a large portion of your cycles).  You could also look into the Marquette Method, which uses the CBE Fertility Monitor so that you do not rely on CF observations to predict O.  I've heard it's quite effective, though a pricier option since you need to buy the monitor and the test strips.  You could post in the CTA thread and lurk there watching the different techniques and rules women are using to avoid and see if you think they might work for you.  Lastly, is your partner willing to consider a vasectomy?  I know there are pros and cons to those as well and I really wanted to avoid it, but we may end up going that route as we really cannot have another oops baby and dh doesn't like the idea of using condoms or abstaining for huge portions of my cycles.

[Kontessa]

 Your right, it should be in the other thread and I am not sure how I managed that! We too have an oops baby.

 I think though my issue right now is that I posted for information mentioning that charting is not an option and it seems charting advice is what I get. Some people seem to be saying "if only you did this and this and this it would work!" and that just is not the case. If I mention it is not an option it would be nice to see people trust me. It feels a bit like when a mother says she can't breastfeed and yet gets all those comments "If you did this or this or this it would for sure work" not thinking to trust that she can't breastfeed as she physically has a condition that keeps her from doing so.

 Yes, I could buy a costly monitor and could abstain from sex or use a barrier but those are options after 13 years of marriage we are wanting to move past. We want to have to worry about this part of our lives for at least 5 years. If my health issues can not be fixed then we will be going to surgery to make sure pregnancy can not happen. 

 For now though I just want a pill to take with my vitamins in the morning, or something incerted... something simple so we can stop all the worry. I have been told certain birth control pills might even help my cycle get back to some what normal rather than ever other week and then gone for 6, back a week later and gone for 3 and so on.

 Something simple.

[Jaimee]

Well I'm pretty anti BCP, but it will regulate you while you're on it... once you go off it though you'll probably be wonky again b/c it will only fix the problem by adding synthetic hormones to your system- not fix the reason your own hormones are out of balance.  Plus you didn't want to deal with weight gain.  All the hormonal BC options can have that effect along with many others.  Do you have interest in trying to regulate your system naturally (or maybe you've already tried?) so that you could rely better on charting?

There is the copper IUD, which more natural, non-charting types often go for, but personally I have heard WAY too many horror stories to want to go that route for myself.  You can search for the threads about the side effects of the copper IUD- very strange.  Plus no one even knows how they work for certain and I know two IUD babies.  Really all that leaves you with is barrier methods (condoms, film, etc.) or surgery for either of you.  Since you know you're done and you really want something easy, surgery could be the right option for you. 

Edited by Jaimee - 7/9/11 at 12:43pm

[JMJ]

I don't know of any pills that do not cause weight gain.  There is a downside to everything you are looking at.  You are right that to make charting work with irregular cycles, it would require you to assume that you may be fertile for a significant period of time.  To get the effectiveness you may need with a life-threatening health condition, you would have to assume that you are potentially fertile quite early in your cycle, perhaps even to the point of assuming that you are fertile until you have confirmed ovulation.  I would disagree that there is not a way to make charting work, but I hear you when you say that you don't want to abstain or use barrier methods that much (and with a life-threatening condition, I wouldn't count on condoms to keep me from getting pregnant).

Sometimes, I think it's just a matter of choosing what is least bad.  I have quite long cycles... most of the time, and I can't always count on my CM either.  When we are serious about CTA, we often have to abstain for 3-5 weeks at a time, and then we have a week that we know we are not fertile and then a week on my period before it's time to start abstaining again.  Personally, I still choose that over taking a pill and dealing with all the things that would do to my body.

I don't mean to negate your feelings on this at all.  It's a matter of what you can make peace with.