Coming off pills, how long to wait?

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-15-2002
Coming off pills, how long to wait?
2
Mon, 05-08-2006 - 4:30pm
Hi, I was here a couple months ago with questions becuase I was just starting the pill after about 3 years without them. Now, I am looking at when I need to come off the pill before we decide to try for pregnancy. I know I wasn't on them long, I have a lot of circumstances that affected why I went on them that have now changed, so now I am ready earlier than I thought to have more children. We are aiming for early fall as the earliest to get pregnant. I know last time I was on the pill they advised to allow 3 months after coming off before trying to conceive. I was wondering if that is still the recommended time allowance. I am on my 3rd cycle of pills, so since I haven't been on them long will that affect my coming off of them, hopefully my cycle returning to normal quicker? Last time I did this, my cycles were quite long after coming off the pill- over 40 days. Is that common? Anyway, thanks for your advice. We want to do everything right as we are a little wary of anything that can cause birth defects as we had a daughter with birth defects. Though hers could have had nothing to do with the pill, I don't want to do anything that will complicate matters.

Miriam, mom to Elise (9), Will (5), Seth (3), Emma (in heaven), and little one due 06/17/13

Family Photo

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Tue, 05-09-2006 - 7:34am

Welcome back!


Three months is still a good time frame to get your natural cycles back and to make sure everything is working properly.

Judie Cl for Birth Control 
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-15-2002
Tue, 05-09-2006 - 2:39pm
Thanks for the info. I will be charting as I learned that between my two daughters and that was our main form of birth control. I like it because my cycles tend to be a bit long anyway and I ovulate about a week later than you would expect, so that means that my due date is not very accurate if you use my lmp. With my first daughter, which I had just come off the pills my cycles were so long (over 40 days as I said before) that my due date would have been 2 weeks different if I had not had the ovulation date. Using that due date she was born 4 days late, so I would have been rushed using another due date. So I will be definitely keeping track so that I can show the doctors if they start pushing me to induce, etc. because of due dates.

Miriam, mom to Elise (9), Will (5), Seth (3), Emma (in heaven), and little one due 06/17/13

Family Photo