Birth Control and Weddings

[NerdGirl]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/71296/

Just stopping by to say that you're allowed to have sex when you're menstruating. It can even make your cramps better.

You may now go about your usual business.

[Zedability]

I'm going to go ahead and guess that newleywed BYU students probably have enough to figure out on their honeymoon without adding menstruation into the mix, haha.

[Marduk]

Yeah but that sounds gross. I mean, for the dude.

[Imogen]

Yeah but that sounds gross. I mean, for the dude.

Most guys I've been with haven't been bothered by it, but I am.

[Emiliana]

Once you've been together awhile, sure, but I don't think that would make for the best first-time experience for either person. She'd be embarrassed, he'd be weirded out, and the whole thing would be even more awkward.

[krebscout]

On the plus side, it's automatic birth control.

[Portia]

Isn't the so-called "period" on The Pill fake? A placebo effect?

[Whistler]

well, if the pill is working right no egg is released, so it's technically not a period, but it's not a placebo, since it happens whether or not you think the medication will work. right?

[NerdGirl]

It's "fake" in the sense that it's just a withdrawal bleed caused by stopping taking progesterone rather than the period that you get during a normal menstrual cycle with ovulation and everything else going on. But it's still real in the blood coming out of your vagina sense, although many women have lighter and shorter periods on the pill. In both cases the actual bleeding part happens because of the sudden drop in progesterone levels. When you're not on the pill, there's a structure that develops in your ovary after you ovulate called the corpus luteum that secretes progesterone and some other hormones. Progesterone maintains the lining of the uterus. If the egg isn't fertilized, the corpus luteum dies after about 14 days and progesterone levels suddenly drop and nothing maintains the lining anymore so you menstruate (in pregnancy other stuff starts happening to maintain progesterone levels until the baby is born). With the pill you don't ovulate, but there is progesterone and estrogen in the pill (although some are just progesterone, but they aren't as effective). Estrogen builds up the lining, progesterone maintains it, but then stopping them for a week drops the progesterone and you menstruate. So I would call it a period still, but it's just being caused in a slightly different way.

[Portia]

But if she wants to avoid period sex couldn't she just skip those pills?

[NerdGirl]

Probably - if you skip the week of nothing pills and start the next pack right away you usually won't get a period. But you might still get spotting or enough breakthrough bleeding that it's like a period, and that can be unpredictable. Doesn't usually happen if you're just doing the back to back thing once in a row, but it can. I took birth control for about 15 years because of really irregular (the more frequent than they should have been kind of irregular) and heavy periods, and I would still sometimes get random bleeding at random times and lots of it. Probably the best way to go about it though for this particular questioner would be to set a wedding date, and then after the date is set get out a calendar and work backwards to figure out a good start date for the pill so that she's nowhere near period week for the wedding date and honeymoon. And then start taking them a few months before the wedding. Which is pretty much what the writers said in their answers, now that I went back and looked at the question again.

[thatonemom]

Not that anyone asked, but that's also why you may start bleeding if you forget a day or two of the pill.

I think the biggest issue is that most girls at BYU aren't engaged long enough/don't start the pill early enough that they end up fighting irregular bleeding by the time the wedding comes around anyway. Everybody's different and all, but it really can take a good 3 months for your body to get synced with the pill's schedule and not have as many side effects. Sometimes longer. So, start early I guess.

[Imogen]

I stopped taking the pill, and now I RELIGIOUSLY check my period app. I know when it should start and end, and if I ever get married, I will be prepared to schedule around that because I don't want to be worried about it on my honeymoon.

A guy I know who jut got married had a really dumb fiancee. His now wife was on her period at the wedding and on their honeymoon. To Mexico. Where they swam with sharks. dumb dumb dumb.

[Tally M.]

I stopped taking the pill, and now I RELIGIOUSLY check my period app.

I was gonna say, "There's an app for that?" and then I realized that there's an app for everything.

[UffishThought]

Ditto. Cool, though.

[Portia]

Wow, I'm glad I'm so regular! Others know that I may be irritable when there is a full moon. I actually intend to avoid the pill; it seems that the guys I'm with have no objections to other forms of birth control. Women in my family seem to react badly to it.

I'd be less worried about the sex than about staining the dress. Eek.

[Imogen]

I stopped taking the pill, and now I RELIGIOUSLY check my period app.

I was gonna say, "There's an app for that?" and then I realized that there's an app for everything.

There are several. I actually track it with two separate ones.

[Tally M.]

If only I had a smartphone...

[Marduk]

You could use, you know, a CALENDAR.

There's an app for that. That was created thousands of years ago.

[Tally M.]

Touche.