Back to My Natural Cycle: Coming Off Hormonal Birth Control Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe coming off hormonal contraception — the combined pill, mini-pill, patch, ring, implant, injection and hormonal coil — and why people stopped: to conceive, migraine with aura, a blood clot or a sister's clot, low mood, a flatness noticed only when it lifted, a partner's vasectomy, insurance ending, or curiosity. Writers describe the mechanics: asking three times to have an implant removed, waiting for the injection to wear off, the first real period, and charting with a thermometer and an app. Then the honest range of what followed — periods back in weeks or not for nine months, acne returning angry, hair shed in handfuls, desire returning, a pregnancy in the first month, mood that improved and mood that did not. For several, stopping revealed what the method had been masking: PMDD, fibroids, endometriosis pain, a thyroid problem, or perimenopause. Writers include women over forty and fifty, a nurse, a runner, and people who took it for pain rather than contraception. Later chapters cover partners, those who went back on and are content, and the gap between what the internet promised and what actually happened.

Who it's for

For anyone thinking about stopping hormonal contraception, people who have stopped and are waiting for their cycle to return, and partners and clinicians who want to know what it feels like.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 239 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.