Hi all - I am currently 4 weeks postpartum with my first baby. I have my 6-week follow up with my OBGYN in a few weeks and I’m preparing for the birth control talk. I’m looking for your thoughts and opinions.

Here’s my story. I have always had irregular periods. My sister has PCOS so we always assumed I also have due to the non-existent periods. In high school, when my mom brought me to the doctor about it, I was put on birth control and told to come back when I wanted to get pregnant. I came off birth control in June 2020 when my husband and I started thinking about ttc. I got a natural period in July and October 2020, but not again until May 2021.

In March 2021, I went to my GP who did blood work and an ultrasound and said everything was normal but she would refer me to the fertility clinic after 6 months of ttc. I got into the clinic in October and got my official PCOS diagnosis in January 2022.

The doctor prescribed me 3 rounds of Letrozole and 2 refills of provera (to induce a period). I took my first dose of Letrozole at the end of January and got pregnant in early February. Unfortunately, that pregnancy ended in a missed miscarriage at 12 weeks.

I gave my body 8 weeks to heal and did another round of Letrozole in June, and I successfully got pregnant in July. I am so thankful to have welcomed our precious rainbow into the world on March.

However , I know I need to start thinking about birth control options and family planning. My husband would like to have another baby and have them pretty close in age. Ideally (and selfishly), I don’t want to get pregnant until after April 2024 (I don’t want to be pregnant on my 30th birthday and I was technically pregnant for a year between 2022/2023 (and it wasn’t a fun pregnancy)).

I’m exclusively breastfeeding so I know I might not get a period for sometime and I know that’s not birth control because I can still ovulate. I don’t really want to go on birth control because I want to see what my body does on it’s own (my sister got regular periods after she gave birth to her first baby!).

I also don’t want to waste another year ttc unsuccessfully on our own and then have to wait for another referral to the fertility clinic.

I just don’t know what to do! And yes I know condoms are a thing!! I just need to get this out lol. Thanks for listening/reading!