Looking for a new form of birth control

[phathom]

So me and my wife are going on 2 years married. We are not ready to have kids yet, but do want to in the future. When we first got together she got on the pill and has been on it up until a few months ago. It really affected her emotionally and she was not the same person with it, also it made her develop a skin condition that we are still treating. So hormonal birth control (pill, shot, patch, nuva ring, etc.) are not options for us.

With substantial amounts of lube, a condom irritates her so much to the point we can't even finish (also due to me lasting longer with one) so she is against that as sex becomes painful and not pleasurable for her with me wearing one.

IUD and Marena isn't an option due to the possibility of it attaching to or damaging her uterus and making it where we can't have kids one day which we definitely do want, just not now.

I suggested me getting a vasectomy and getting it reversed when we wanted kids, but that has too great of a risk of it not being able to be reversed and us not being able to have kids later as well.

So what options does that leave us? So far we have been doing the pull and pray method, which she says is better than condoms because she's not irritated but it's not guaranteed and she feels unsatisfied because I get going a lot into it and have to pull out, so emotionally she doesn't feel complete even if she did climax before I had to pull out. So far it's the best option we can think of, but I wish there was something else that was more stable of a method and didn't have to have me pull out. Any suggestions?

[Daniel_]

I would advise a non-latex condom, coupled with a silicone lube.

She's most likely slightly sensitive to latex, and the water based lubes will wear out and soak into the skin. Use of a pure silicone lube will prevent that, and the non-latex condom will be thinner and more "real" feeling, so you won't be as delayed.

[JStrider]

what about a diaphragm?

[phathom]

Thanks for the quick replies. I think you might be right about the latex deal. Also about the lube. We were using either Trojan or Beyond Seven condoms with moist water based lube. I guess the cheap and quick way to see if it is the material that's irritating her or if it's what it's made of would be to try out your suggestion and pick up some silicone lube and non-latex condoms and see how it works.

We have thought about the diaphragm method, but with the size of her and it and me, it is pretty impractical for us. I am about average in length but with how small she is I can't even get all of it in normally without "bottoming out". Probably not a good idea as we'd have to change up a lot of stuff to work around it to avoid knocking it loose/off.

I think we'll give the other condoms and lube a try. Also does anyone here have any experience with female condoms? How well do those work and how comfortable are they? I've read about them, but haven't seen any in stores around here and obviously haven't tried them. Are they worth a shot? What are the drawbacks to them?

[deimos]

The vasectomy and reversal isn't a good idea. When I got my vasectomy, the doctor emphasized that it's basically impossible to get reversed. Even the most optimistic chance is very, very low. I realized this is true after witnessing him cutting out an inch of each vas, melting the ends, then burying them away from each other.

Vasectomy is great for when you decide to not have anymore kids. But it's a nuclear option.

[PonyPotato]

Really, you're not leaving many options. An IUD has a very low possibility of damaging the uterus - have you done any research at all? The chances of complications from an IUD are very low, and they are extremely effective. If you were to consider an IUD, look at Paragard - Mirena is a hormonal IUD and will likely have similar emotional effects to birth control pills.

Otherwise, you really just have the option of tracking her cycle, pulling out, not having sex at all, or potentially using a sponge or diaphragm (though if she's sensitive to latex, she's likely to be sensitive to spermicide as well).

I am not on hormonal birth control anymore due to similar emotional issues, and my current SO and I track my cycle. We only have sex on "safe" days (2 days in a row with no cervical mucus) and even then we use condoms. He also prefers to pull out if I'm not on my period, but that's a silly paranoid guy thing. I understand what she means by not feeling quite as fulfilled when you pull out.

The rest of the month, we participate in other sexual activities, so it's not like we're only intimate 10-14 days out of the month. A lot of people think the arrangement is dumb or paranoid, but it works for us and I think it has actually strengthened our relationship because we make an effort to cultivate physical intimacy in ways other than vaginal sex.

[genuinegirly]

Have you tried vaginal contraceptive film (VCF)?
It's great but with only an 80% success rate, we usually paired it with a latex-free condom. It's a dissolving film with a spermicide called Nonoxynol-9. The only catch is that you have to insert it 15 minutes before having intercourse. I never had any problems with rashes or irritation, but apparently that's a fairly common issue with Nonoxynol-9 based products.

There are a number of contraceptive gels that contain Nonoxynol-9, but I haven't tried them, so perhaps that's where you're more likely to encounter irritation.

[Shagg]

I've only had one experience with VCF and it was not a good one. I either had an allergic reaction to it or got a UTI. Since it happened right after sex I'm leaning towards allergic reaction. I'm a guy and I have never had a UTI or any similar experience and trying to take a piss 20 minutes after we finished up was the most godawful painful thing I have ever had to go through. I gave it 6 hours before I took a trip to urgent care. They gave me sulfa and a painkiller that turned my pee fluorescent orange. They didn't give me a diagnosis because I refused to pee in a cup due to the pain. The treatment worked, but I had also popped a couple Benadryl about 2 hours before going to urgent care. Not sure if that had any effect.

[ASU2003]

Have you only tried one form of hormonal BC? I thought that different types of pills may have different effects?

[phathom]

We have done lots of research on IUDs, we need something a little more reliable than 80% for the sheets. We have tried 3 different kinds of hormonal birth control. The one that didn't make her physically sick we used for a while, but as said we stopped because of the issues that she did have.
Picked up some non-latex, extra thin condoms today. Going to see how those work out.

[snowy]

If,as you claim, have done lots of research on IUDs, and are convinced perforation is an issue, then I must come to the conclusion that you actually haven't done much research at all. As PonyPotato pointed out, the actual risk of perforation is incredibly low (1 in 1000 women). If the clinician has considerable experience sounding the uterus correctly and inserting the IUD, there should not have a problem. Mine walked me through the procedure on a dummy uterus before she did it so that I could see what she was going to do. Certainly, there are a lot of people on the Internet posting horror stories about IUDs--but if you look, there are just as many posting positive stories. Further, millions of women have been using IUDs in Europe for decades now. The Guttmacher Institute has a good paper here: Popularity Disparity: Attitudes About the IUD in Europe and the United States about the reasons for the popularity of the IUD in Europe.

In terms of cost-effective birth control, it cannot be beat. Thanks to family planning services at my university, I paid $0 for mine--insertion, checkup, and everything--and it will last me 5 years.

Also, in terms of hormonal birth control, has she tried the NuvaRing? It has the lowest dose of hormone on the market right now, and since it's not an oral BCP, it shouldn't make her nauseous.

[PonyPotato]

Snowy, NuvaRing made me nauseous. And moody. Even though it's a low dose. It affects everyone in different ways, and (obviously) some women are a lot more sensitive to hormones than others.

Good luck with the non-latex condoms!

[phathom]

About the IUD, she talked to her doctor about it and her doctor told her that there was a minor risk of not being able to have kids later, that it was not significant, but if she wasn't willing to take that risk that she should avoid the IUD. My wife doesn't want to take any risk about that, no matter how minor.

As far as hormonal birth control, she was on that worked best and most recently was a low dose pregesterone only pill and that worked well for not making her sick, but it did cause her to develop a skin condition as a side affect. Also it made her very grumpy, irritable and partially depressed (all of them we tried had this effect on her) She never got nauseous from any of them, that wasn't the problem. It was the grumpy, irritable part that was the main problem.

This actually worked very well for birth control, because we rarely did anything at all because of how it made her. She never wanted to do anything when she was on it because she was always irritable and pissed off. About a week or two after she stopped taking it (and all the time before she started taking it) she has completely changed as a person to someone who is very happy, active, and loving life, also very loving and affectionate. Because of this, she refuses to go on any hormonal birth control ever again because she hated the person she was when she was on it.

[Daniel_]

VCF is bad stuff!

It's basically N9, which is proven to be irritant and increase the chance of getting an STI.

[-Aaron-]

Monthly injections of testosterone work wonders on men. Causes you to stop producing fertile sperm.

Not FDA approved as of yet... find yourself a Hollywood or compassionate doctor.

Also far less mood and side effect issues.. you just elevate testosterone to levels your body goes to once sperm production is complete... which is why you're horny when fertile... about every 8 hours. Properly dosed injection is usually good for a month.

[phathom]

I've actually looked into that and want to get it. I thought It wasn't available yet. What's it run? Who would I see? An urologist? For now the thin condoms are working great for her and OK for me.

[Shadowex3]

I'm going to risk coming off as a troll and just say that I think at this point your wife is being somewhat excessive about what constitutes a risk worth being concerned with. If she wants methods with no risk at all then you really simply have no choices at all because everything in this world that is actually effective will have a risk of either failing or causing infertility somehow, that's just how life is.

At some point there is an inherent level of risk just associated with being alive and taking actions.