To not want to use contraceptives

[ps1991]

A month ago I gave birth to my beautiful first baby and DH and I are starting to look at contraception for the future however I feel very anxious about using any form of contraception. It took us 8 months to get pregnant with DS and although I know this isn’t a huge amount of time it seemed like forever. I feel like I don’t want to actively prevent pregnancy when it was so difficult the first time around. We do want another baby in about 3 years. I can’t seem to get this point over to my DH who just says ‘I don’t see what’s wrong with the coil’. Should I just suck it up and book a doctors appointment?

[PotteringAlong]

3 years is a long time before you want another baby.

8 months is no time at all.

I’d go and get contraception.

[anxiousmotherof1]

Condoms ?? I would never use hormonal
Contraception

[JessieMcJessie]

You’re contradicting yourself- if you want another baby in 3 years and absolutely not a moment sooner then you’ll to either use contraception or not have sex!

I suffered from infertility myself (my DS is an IVF baby) so I get that the idea of preventing conception is weird when you’ve tried for a long time (though 8 months is actually pretty average). However contraception doesn’t damage your fertility, it just controls it. You’re not doing anything that will diminish your chances of conceiving again at the right time. You can always come off it a bit earlier than you might have done if you’d been confident about conceiving straight away.

[Tinyteatime]

If you know you want another child and it doesn’t matter too much when then I’d advise you to use a mix of temping/natural cycles and condoms. This worked for me (but I had very regular cycles) for 3 years until I conceived dc2. I felt the same as you, I didn’t want to go back on hormonal contraceptives until I’d completed my family.

[IWantChocolates]

Another vote for condoms.

It took us over 2 years to get pregnant the first time, baby is about 8 weeks now. Due to our ages we'd like to try again in the next year so I'm not going on hormonal contraception. We're using condoms.

[MyBreadIsEggy]

We had 2 children 17 months apart, and then once my periods came back after the second one, I started tracking my cycles meticulously. We used that to do natural family planning, and used condoms during my fertile window. Managed to avoid any pregnancy for the best part of 2 years, then had one drunken slip up without a condom and I’m pregnant with DC3.
I’d never use hormonal contraception again, but we are sure this will be our last baby, and DH is booking in for the snip!

[ps1991]

3 years is not rigid, however I don’t think we could afford another baby until DS is at nursery. If we are lucky enough to get pregnant before that we would be happy.

I’m not a huge fan of condoms but @tinyteatime you have a good point with tracking my cycles, I was so used to doing it when trying to get pregnant I think it could work.

[Bigonesmallone3]

We used the pull out method between baby's, we wanted a little gap but if it happened before then so be it 🤷‍♀️
Then when baby turned 1 we started trying and bloody took 6 months before it happened!