When to go off the pill?

chloe97

I will be 36 when I get married this summer and my FI and I will be TTC immediately. As we've discussed our wedding/kids plans leading up to our engagement, I always thought I would go off the pill 6 months before our wedding/ TTC just to make sure my body rids itself of the hormones and the skin/weight/mood issues that I've heard can happen after going off the pill clears up before the wedding. Obviously, we are going to be using other non-hormonal methods of BC between now and then. Anyway, now that I am the 6 month mark, I'm starting to freak out a little bit about condoms breaking and now I'm starting to wonder if I should just stay on until my wedding day and go off then. I talked to my doctor and she wasn't much help about giving me advice about when to go off- she said it coudl take 3 months for cycles to regulate, but that was it. If we didn't want 3 kids, I wouldn't be is so much of a hurry, but unfortunately time is not on our side at this point.  

I'm just wondering if any other brides-to-be or OMH have had any similar experiences or insight to share?  

lilacck28

Maybe I'm too blase about this/ missing something but.... why so worried about condoms breaking? Make sure they're not expired, and the right size, and you'll most likely be okay. And if the "worst" happens, and you get pregnant.... well, it will be 0-6 months earlier than you wanted... but that's not THAT much earlier than your ideal.  Plus, many women really don't show for months, so...  

VulgarGirl

According to the planned parenthood website you can get pregnant as soon as you get off the pill. According to The Bump it can take a normal healthy couple about a year to conciceve. Then there's the whole temping, charting stuff to add in. Sometimes it happens quick, sometimes it happens slow, often time there appears to be no rhyme or reason.

LadyMillil

From what I've read it can take up to 6 months to start ovulating again after going off the pill. However, you can start ovulating right away and can get pregnant the first month off BC. 

I would go off the pill now in case you do take awhile to start ovulating again and use condoms to prevent. If you temp (use Fertility Friend to track temps/cycles) you will know when (if) you are ovulating and you can avoid sex during your fertile window so even if a condom breaks you won't get pregnant.

chibiyui

I'd go off the pill now, because you have no idea how long it can take your body to regulate itself after hormonal birth control.

Condoms should be enough protection. You can always have him pull out before he finishes for more peace of mind though.

JennyColada

I went off The Pill when I was going to get my IUD and was off it for a month.

Honestly, I didn't notice any changes in weight or mood or acne or anything. But I could just be an odd case.

If it were me, I'd just stop taking my pill when I get home from the honeymoon (a big thing for me was that I didn't want to risk having my period during my wedding or honeymoon).

themuffinman16

If you chart your cycles and find when you are most fertile every month, and use extra precautions, you should be fine. I would still be on hormones to regulate my endometriosis (until I was closer to TTC). Recently,  I read a book  called Taking Charge of your Fertility.  If you chart your cycles, it is very easy to avoid getting pregnant.  If only read this book a long time ago...  I would have gone off the pill before the wedding, as well.

bethsmiles

SO and I use condoms as our birth control method and I haven't gotten pregnant. If a condom does break (we've never had one break) you can just take a Plan B pill.

theartistformerlyknownas

Use condoms, pull out, avoid sex during your fertile window, and you'll more than likely be fine. There's a slight chance you get pregnant (possibly even a smaller chance than if you remained on the pill, because it's not perfect either). But would getting pregnant a few months before your wedding really be the end of the world? 

I went off the pill in December and got pregnant in January, but that's not necessarily the norm. It can vary wildly. Honestly, I was pretty overly optimistic when I went off the pill and then freaked myself out that it would really take much longer to regulate than I assumed, and wished I had gone off sooner. That was obviously not a super valid concern though. But everyone is different, and you should do what feels like it will cause you less stress. 

Weigh the stress of potentially delayed babymaking against the stress of potential premarital babymaking - which thought is less scary? Go with that option.

ashley8918

I, personally, would not go off of BC until I was actually ready to have a baby. Just in case. But i'm in no real hurry.

Weesh

ashley8918 said:

I, personally, would not go off of BC until I was actually ready to have a baby. Just in case. But i'm in no real hurry.

Good advice because I got pregnant immediately after going off the pill.  If you have regular cycles before the pill, chances are your cycle will be regular going off the pill.  I had my last period on 1/1/15, and we started TTC.  I got pregnant immediately.  We are thrilled, but still a little shocked that it happened so quickly.

My doctor told me that I could stay on it right up until we were ready to conceive and warned me that this could happen, but I figured it would take a few months, like everyone else mentioned.  Be very prepared (although you seem to be ready) that you could conceive immediately without another form of BC.

southernbelle0915

I would go off the pill now. In the mean time, use condoms (I've had one break ever when I was an idiot high school kid) and charting.

I used to think you could get pregnant like ANY time protection wasn't used. And didn't realize its actually pretty unlikely unless you're in the fertile period.

chloe97

Ok all this is good insight. I think I am going to go off now and start charting. I just got my basal thermometer and started taking prenatals. If we got pregnant now, it wouldnt be horrible from a showing perspective. I'm actually more concerned with a potential miscarriage right before/ during the wedding or honeymoon. I've had a lot of friends deal with losses the past few years so that's been on my mind. We are and will continue to be super careful though. I guess I just needed to hear other what other people would do in my situation.

FiancB

Recommended is typically 6 months but that just sounds like overkill IMO. I don't really want to deal with another method for that long. I think I'll be going off at about 3 months, start charting for practice, and then go at it. 

I've been on and off the pill over the years and I maybe notice a little bit more acne and mood swings for the first month and then I'm good. Also have never had a condom break, did have a couple slip off at which point I took Plan B. Still never been pregnant. 

But we're already married and getting pregnant a little earlier than planned wouldn't be the worst thing so there's that. 

SBmini

It took us six months to conceive after going off the pill. I've heard it can take 3-6 months to get out of your system. Also, if you DO get pregnant before hand- you aren't showing at all until 4-6 months,depending on your body, so I wouldn't stress too much about it. The whole not drinking at your own wedding thing would be a drag, though. 

chloe97

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

ashley8918

chloe97 said:

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

Um, why would you have to hide it?

emmaaa

I would go off the pill now. H and I have always used condoms to prevent pregnancy. If you are careful for the next six months, you could be fine. 

bethsmiles

chloe97 said:

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

No reason to hide it. Besides, people can do basic math, if you did get pregnant before the wedding people would figure it out once they count backwards from the due date. But really that doesn't matter because it's none of their business.

SmileDamnit

ashley8918 said:

chloe97 said:

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

Um, why would you have to hide it?

I wouldn't want to publicly announce during first trimester, at a wedding or otherwise (...nor did we. Only a handful of close friends and family - and random internet strangers - knew I was pregnant until after all our genetic testing was done and I hit second trimester). 

theartistformerlyknownas

bethsmiles said:

chloe97 said:

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

No reason to hide it. Besides, people can do basic math, if you did get pregnant before the wedding people would figure it out once they count backwards from the due date. But really that doesn't matter because it's none of their business.

I think she only means if you weren't yet at the point where you would feel comfortable telling people (like most people in the first trimester), you would have to somewhat hide it. I don't think you'd need to pretend to be drinking; just say "I don't want to get drunk at my wedding."

sal2015

bethsmiles said:

chloe97 said:

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

No reason to hide it. Besides, people can do basic math, if you did get pregnant before the wedding people would figure it out once they count backwards from the due date. But really that doesn't matter because it's none of their business.

I think she means hiding it if she's still in the first trimester, which a lot of people do because of the potential for miscarriage.

ETA: PPs had it covered before I posted!

ashley8918

SmileDamnit said:

ashley8918 said:

chloe97 said:

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

Um, why would you have to hide it?

I wouldn't want to publicly announce during first trimester, at a wedding or otherwise (...nor did we. Only a handful of close friends and family - and random internet strangers - knew I was pregnant until after all our genetic testing was done and I hit second trimester). 

Fair enough. I took it to mean "zOMG no one can know I got pregnant before I was married!!!"

chloe97

Exactly. I wouldn't want to deal with telling 200+ people, many of whom I don't know well about a miscarriage. 

SmileDamnit said:

ashley8918 said:

chloe97 said:

Though it's not the ONLY reason I don't want to get pregnant before my wedding, the thought of paying for everyone else to drink and not be able to drink a cocktail myself is not appealing! Plus, assuming that it's the first trimester- the thought of having to hide it from all your guests and pretend to be drinking when you are not seems exhausting. 

Um, why would you have to hide it?

I wouldn't want to publicly announce during first trimester, at a wedding or otherwise (...nor did we. Only a handful of close friends and family - and random internet strangers - knew I was pregnant until after all our genetic testing was done and I hit second trimester). 

Exactly. I wouldn't want to deal with telling 200+ people, many of whom I don't know well about a miscarriage. My brother and sister in law (who also was 36 at the time) didn't tell any of us she was even pregnant until after her 20 week ultrasound. After watching a friend go through the agonizing choices she had to make after she got really bad news at her 20 week ultrasound, I completely understand the desire to keep it to yourself as long as possible when you are high risk. She ended up losing her baby and she still has people asking her about that baby because she told people after the 1st trimester. I'm not saying that any of that will happen to me, but it just makes me very very wary of announcing anything publicly. She says those questions are like reliving the whole experience all over again :-(    

PrettyGirlLost

Seems like you got some good advice here, but talk with your OBGYN as well.

LadyMillil

PrettyGirlLost said:

Seems like you got some good advice here, but talk with your OBGYN as well.

This. When I went for my last physical I mentioned I was planning on TTC in the next year and my doc did a bunch of tests. I'm currently "on the bench" for TTC because the tests identified a health issue I didn't know I had that needs to be fixed before I can safely be pregnant. 

SBmini

I should have added to my post that I wish I went off BC sooner. I stopped taking it after the honeymoon, but I wish I had stopped before the wedding. Because now I'm having an August baby... in Phoenix. 

chloe97

Eeeeek....@SBmini that is how I feel about the potential of having a winter baby in Chicago! We haven't been able to go outside for more than a few minutes at a time in a month! I would go crazy in our 2 BR condo with a newborn unable to leave the house. 

Yes I definitely agree about seeing a physician beforehand. You bring up a good point about needing to see my primary care doc in addition to my ob-gyn. I may try out a new ob-gyn. Mine left the practice in December and I wasn't too thrilled with her replacement. She didn't even tell me to start on prenatals when I told her about our plans. She just said "give us a call when you have a positive test."

theartistformerlyknownas

chloe97 said:

Eeeeek....@SBmini that is how I feel about the potential of having a winter baby in Chicago! We haven't been able to go outside for more than a few minutes at a time in a month! I would go crazy in our 2 BR condo with a newborn unable to leave the house. 

Yes I definitely agree about seeing a physician beforehand. You bring up a good point about needing to see my primary care doc in addition to my ob-gyn. I may try out a new ob-gyn. Mine left the practice in December and I wasn't too thrilled with her replacement. She didn't even tell me to start on prenatals when I told her about our plans. She just said "give us a call when you have a positive test."

Other good reason to check in with your doc (or a better one) is if you need any boosters on your immunizations, they should be done at least a month prior to getting pregnant. My OB/GYN ran antibody tests to see what my levels still were because vaccines don't necessarily last forever. You'll want to pass that immunity onto your LO to protect them before they can safely be vaccinated themselves.

katiekessler123

My sister, who was on the pill for many years, went off of it and was pregnant within one month. You potentially could get pregnant very quickly.  I'd consult with my OBGYN, but wait until after the wedding.  

FiancB

Good thought about the tests. I already got my annual done but I have a standing order for blood tests that I haven't done yet, and I haven't gotten around to it and also never brought up TTC. Also on a teratogenic drug so I need to know if I should stop that ahead of time.