Giving up Nexplanon and relying on vasectomy

[ELS20]

Hi everyone,

I have been in Nexplanon contraceptive implant for 14 years now, I got my first one shortly after my son was born. My husband and I are approaching our 40s and have no plans for more children so he has had a vasectomy. However, I still have the implant as I am paranoid by things I’ve read about vasectomies reversing themselves.

The thing is, I think it would be a good idea to come of the implant now, as I’m presumably approaching perimenopause and I worry that I won’t understand/recognise my symptoms or it could impact my menopause in some other way. I think it would be better to enter perimenopause without hormonal intervention if that makes sense.

I’m just still so paranoid about the vasectomy reversing though. I have anxiety and I worry a lot about getting pregnancy to the point that it puts me off sex despite the implant and vasectomy!

Does anyone have any experience or advice for this?

Thank you so much

Can your husband have a test to check that the vasectomy is still effective?

Honestly though, the chances of a premenopausal woman getting pregnant by a man with a vasectomy must be one in a million.

Assuming you've had the testing to confirm that he's sperm-free three months afterwards, the chances of a spontaneous reversal these days are absolutely tiny - about 0.04% lifetime. Vasectomies primarily fail in the first three months, if they're going to fail, and the modern failure rate is much lower than the historical reported one because techniques have been adjusted.

Only you can decide whether that's small enough for you and trade that off against the hormonal issues. It is for me. DH and I were super fertile when we were trying but since he's got snipped I've gone without any contraception quite happily. You could consider some kind of natural family planning and/or using xondoms during your fertile period if you want to be even surer.

Thank you for the replies, I really appreciate it. I know the risings super low, I guess I just need to work out if it’s low enough for me or not. I’m just so paranoid about it.