Birth Control & Pregnancy

[monetmelly]

My doctor tells me I have nothing to worry about, but I wonder how taking birth control for years can affect getting pregnant. Does anyone know from experience?

[fishface]

I have never heard of women who had problems getting pregnant who attributed it to the pill. I know women who have been on the pill since their teens and ended up successfully having beautiful babies in their late twenties and early thirties.

Unfortunately some women do have problems getting pregnant but not all of these women spend years on the pill. I imagine it would be hard to figure out if infertility issues were caused by something naturally occuring or from pill usage. If by chance you do have fertility problems in the future I beg you not to punish yourself for them for your pill usage!

[UberMama]

What BC are you on?

I was on Depo Provera for years. I got off of it when DH and I wed. Until I started charting, DH and I were in the dark as to why pregnancy was not occuring. Oh, to be young and naive again! Thinking pregnancy would happen within a few cycles, ha! Turns out, I was anovulatory and I 100% blame it on my use of Depo Provera. I had to go ON BCP's for a month to induce ovulation, which thankfully worked.

I myself will never trust synthetic hormones ever again. I've tried other BC's and they've always screwed with my body in some way or another. Charting works a-okay for us when avoiding, that and condoms when we're making doubly sure!

[CalebsMama05]

ttcanother-ot but your link in your sig does not work

[UberMama]

Originally Posted by CalebsMama05

ttcanother-ot but your link in your sig does not work

The thread was taken down for review. I changed it to another link for now.

[airmide_m]

I can't give any specifics but I've heard of a lot of people feeling that taking hormonal birth control (various forms) made it difficult for them when the started TTC and had a prolonged anovulatory time. I was off and on the pill for several years and I've now been off the pill for 2 years and TTC for 1, though that may be due to other factors as well.

I recently stumbled across an article on Copper Toxicity and it mentioned that birth control pills contain copper and of course so does the copper IUD. With all the other forms of copper we get, that can lead to copper toxicity, which can cause infertility until it's corrected, as well as a lot of other negative symptoms.

Also, it's not important to everyone but some people might want to know -all hormonal birth control has the chance to actually *end* a pregnancy rather than *prevent*. Usually the primary way it works is to prevent ovulation and sometimes thicken cervical mucus, but if you *do* ovulate and the spermies get through, the third way it works is to thin the endometrial lining which basically means you conceive but then the baby gets down there to implant and can't so it starves and is miscarried. Most of the time you won't even know you were pregnant, that's often what happens with "breakthrough bleeding".

Thankfully my husband and I play to be either pregnant, breastfeeding or TTC for a few years, but if/when the time comes that we are TTA again, I don't think I could use hormonal forms of birth control again. There are lost of other risks and side effects besides just fertility. I'd probably use a combo of charting/nfp, female condoms and other barrier methods.