Am finding this quite hard. Name changed as obviously it's a bit personal.
I know the normal port of call is a family planning clinic but there are none local to me. My GP surgery is pretty shit, and are only interested in promoting depo and mirena.
I've had depo, it's had a terrible effect on me - constant bleeding, not just spotting, headaches, weight gain and mood swings. I'm 42, I'd never taken hormonal contraception before and wish I'd never bothered, it very clearly doesn't agree with me.
After nearly a year on depo I've given up. Latest injection was due last week, I didn't have it.
So where does that leave me and my partner? I'm not prepared to take the chance of any form of hormonal contraception again. It clearly doesn't suit me. I know if I try the pill, or mirena, it'll be the same and my GP will keep saying blithely oh it gets better after 3/6/9/12 months. But it doesn't!
It's a relatively new relationship of just over 12 months. My partner isn't keen to have a vasectomy as he is only mid 30s (we don't want any more children, but if we split up, or I died -hopefully not! - in the next 10-15 years he might have children with a new partner). A vasectomy seems pretty final to both of us and I understand his reluctance.
So to my mind that leaves us with condoms. Not an issue for either of us except in that they do stop the flow slightly. I've also had condoms break in the past (once with my current partner) so that's a bit of a worry.
Are there any other options I'm missing? My cycle has been all over place for last few years (no period for 3 months, then one that lasted for 3 months, then every 6 weeks, every 2 weeks and then totally random) and all this even before the current constant bleeding, so we couldn't just simply avoid when I'm ovulating or whatever.