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Deciding what matters to you, before anybody offers you a method

A method is chosen against a life, and you are the only person in the room who knows yours.

Lesson 1 of 4

10 min Text

What this lesson says

  • Whether you can rely on remembering something daily is the single biggest practical divider
  • What you want your bleeding to do is a legitimate reason to prefer one method
  • Whether you want a pregnancy in the next year or two changes the shortlist
  • Whether the method needs to be invisible at home is a real constraint, not a shameful one
  • Cost, distance and how often you can return are part of the decision, not details
  • Only condoms also reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections

This is general education. It is not advice about your own situation, and it does not replace seeing a clinician.

Written lesson.
  1. 1. Contraception is usually explained method by method, which is the least useful order for someone deciding. The decision turns far more on a handful of facts about your life, and if you arrive knowing them the conversation gets shorter and better.
  2. 2. First: can you rely on doing something every day, or at the moment, without fail? If the honest answer is no, say so. Missing pills is not a character flaw; it is information, and it points straight at the methods that are fitted once and then require nothing to be remembered. Saying it plainly is the fastest route to a method that will actually work for you.
  3. 3. Second: what do you want your bleeding to do? Lighter, more predictable, less painful, or ideally absent — these are different, and they genuinely point to different methods. It is a legitimate thing to ask for and not a vanity.
  4. 4. Third: do you want to be pregnant in the foreseeable future? How quickly fertility returns differs by method, and after some it can take several months to a year. If a pregnancy is anywhere in your plans, that belongs in the first minute of the conversation, not the last.
  5. 5. Fourth, and rarely asked about: does this need to be invisible at home? Whether a packet can be found, whether a clinic visit can be explained, whether a partner or a mother-in-law is likely to object — these are ordinary constraints for a great many women and they change which methods are practical. A clinician cannot take them into account if she does not know. You do not owe anybody the reasons.
  6. 6. Fifth: cost, distance and how often you can come back. A method needing review every three months is a different commitment in a city and in a village, and the public health system provides several methods free.
  7. 7. Sixth: only condoms also reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections. Everything else prevents pregnancy and nothing else, which is why condoms are often used alongside another method rather than instead of one.
  8. 8. Write your answers down before you go. Six lines is enough, and it turns a conversation about methods into a conversation about you.

All lessons in this course

  1. 1 Deciding what matters to you, before anybody offers you a method 10 min Reading now
  2. 2 Privacy, cost and actually getting hold of it 10 min
  3. 3 Switching, stopping, and what your cycle does next 11 min
  4. 4 Saying it in the room, and what to do if you are not heard 9 min

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