I had the Mirena put in 3 months ago. My daughter was almost 4 MO. The reason we decided to go this route was we were not sure if we wanted a 3rd and we did not want to do anything permanent or semi-permanent at this point. I am not sure about it yet. I CAN'T take birth control pills as they raise my blood pressure and make my headaches/migrains worse. The only positive thing out of the Mirena so far is that my headaches are few and far between. So, here is what I have experienced with it.
1. Not much pain during insertion at all, just some mild cramping several hours after that lasted for a few days.
2. I did bleed heavily for 1 month strait non stop! It was longer than I bled after delivery of both my children.
3. Had to have the spots that were bleeding carterized 3 times. Did not hurt at all but really helped the bleeding.
4. For the last 2 months my bleeding is not consistent with a normal period. Some days a little heavy, some days a little spotting, some days nothing. In 2 months, I think I have had maybe 7-10 days where I did not have to use a tampon, pad, or panty liner at all. My OB said that was somewhat normal for the first 3 months.
5. After 2 weeks after insertion, milk supply went down and that is why I started the Domperidone.
6. My husband HATES it!!! He said no wander it is birth control, you can hardly have sex with the thing.
My OB has inserted over 400 and has not ever had one pregnancy while a patient had the mirena in. I go back on Tuesday and am not sure whether I will have him remove it or not. Everyone is different and every OB is different. I don't know if the pregnancies are because it was not inserted correctly or it moved out of place. You do have to check the strings yourself to make sure it is in place. My OB check mine every 6 weeks to make sure it has not moved. The pamplet says once a year to have it checked at your yearly if you check your strings once a month yourself. There is a new one that I think was just FDA approved for the US. My OB will be certified and trained on it by the end of the year. It is called Implanon. Go to Implanon.com and click on US customers. There is good literature on it, but I did not like the side effects of it compared to the Mirena.
You have my email address, so feel free to contact me if you have any more questions.
K.