The Pill Only Works If You Remember to Take It, So It Didn’t Work for Me

I was 15 years old when I started taking the pill. By the time I got to college, I struggled to take it at the same time every day. I would forget to bring them if I spent the night at my boyfriend’s house—or I would throw it up if I was hungover. I just genuinely couldn’t keep up with taking it on time every day. 

I remember sitting in class and not being able to remember whether I’d taken my pill. If I was moody—or, a couple of times, when my period was a little late—I would freak out, worrying I was pregnant.

At one point I also had bad side effects when I switched pills. I took the new one for three months and fell into a mild depression. Luckily my best friend and mom made the connection that the depression had started when I started taking the new pills, and I went off of them immediately. 

It was really clear that I needed another option. When I was 20, I talked to my best friend, who’s a nurse. She recommended the birth control implant—also known as the contraceptive implant—which releases a low, steady dose of the hormone progestin, so I looked into it and loved a lot about it. (Progestin thickens the mucus on your cervix, which stops sperm from swimming through to your egg, hence preventing pregnancy. It can also stop eggs from leaving your ovaries; with no ovulation, there’s no pregnancy.) I was definitely scared about the pain that might come with having the implant put in my upper arm and later removed, but I told myself it would be “one hour of discomfort for three years of freedom.” Getting it inserted really wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated: They numbed my arm, and I think that needle hurt the worst. The rest was easy. So easy, actually, that after I removed my first one—it doesn’t last forever—I had another one put in.

I have a tiny scar, but it’s extremely discrete. It’s about the size of a freckle and the color of my skin. Most people have no idea that I have an implant that’s the size of a matchstick in my upper arm because it’s not noticeable. 

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I love that I don’t have to think about my birth control. As a professional in corporate America, I have an intense mental load: work, taking care of my apartment, planning my upcoming wedding, arranging my friends’ birthday parties, and tackling items on my everyday to-do list, like grocery shopping. Being able to take birth control completely off my mental list has been so amazing.

I have friends who literally leave a night out to go home and take their birth control pill, and I love that I don’t have that problem. I love being able to do whatever I want, when I want, and not have my life controlled by something like taking the pill at the same time every day.

Having a birth control implant really gives me a sense of freedom. It also gives me a sense of control over my sex life and has allowed me and my fiancé to stop using condoms—which really brought another level of intimacy to the relationship. We have the flexibility to be spontaneous now. (Because I was so inconsistent with taking the pill before, we often had to use condoms when we had sex. Now we don’t.) We’ve been able to experience a new level of intimacy that isn’t controlled by whether we have a condom with us. 

But the best part is that I rarely get my period; I only get it about once a year. When I was on the pill, I had terrible periods with heavy bleeding and cramps. Since I switched to an implant, when I do bleed—which, again, is about once a year!—I don’t get cramps or heavy menstrual bleeding.

This is a little weird, but it actually brings me comfort to be able to feel the implant in my upper arm. It’s like a teeny, reassuring ridge under my skin. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. And that’s kind of a reminder that I’m covered, and there’s something working to ensure that I won’t get pregnant. 

Paige Bennett, 26, works in public relations and lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. 

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Originally Appeared on Glamour