Getting off birth control to get pregnant can be as easy as waiting a few weeks and conceiving immediately, or as difficult as struggling for months without success. The absence of hormones like the pill or the removal of an intrauterine device (IUD) means that your system is suddenly pivoting to make way for reproduction, and that doesn’t always happen overnight.
If you’re looking to remove an IUD and start a family, it’s normal for your cycle to be a little unpredictable at first. This is especially true if you have been using a hormonal IUD.
Luckily, there are many tracking options nowadays that estimate your ovulation window. It’s also helpful to be aware of what factors actually hurt your fertility post-IUD, and whether or not an at-home insemination kit could be a game-changer for you.
Although tracking ovulation after IUD removal might be challenging, it’s possible to simplify this prep work and increase your odds of conceiving. Here’s everything you need to know, as well as some tips to give yourself the best shot at success.
1. It Takes Time for Your Body to Adjust
Your body needs a minute to reorient itself following an IUD removal. It’s very common to experience irregularity in your menstrual cycle at this time, so if a month or two goes by and you haven’t conceived yet, it’s often just because your body is getting back to a more balanced state. Women attempting this later in life have an added hurdle: the age-related decline in fertility. Still, most people are able to return to their pre-IUD fertility within a month or two.
Copper vs Hormonal
It’s worth noting that there are some significant differences in aftereffects between a copper IUD and a hormonal IUD removal. Both options are removed the same way (by your doctor) and may come with short-term symptoms such as cramping and spotting. The removal of the hormonal IUD, however, tends to be tougher—you may notice weight gain, mood changes, fatigue, headaches, nausea, and even a decreased sex drive.
Neither IUD has any lingering birth control strength once it’s taken out, so your menstrual cycle should become stable again in three months or less. For those whose cycles were already irregular before getting an IUD, this waiting period could be longer. It all depends on your body’s individual physiology, which pregnancy is especially dependent on as well.
If There Is Pain
If you had an uncomfortable experience with your IUD, either when it was inserted or removed, it’s because the IUD is going through the cervix. Imagine putting in a tampon–it’s not painful because it’s placed outside of the cervix, like an insemination syringe would be. The IUD, however, goes through it, which can cause pain, especially if your cervix has never been opened (during childbirth).
2. There Are Many Options to Track Ovulation
Once your body starts getting back into the regular swing of things, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with, well, you. From a fertility perspective, that means tracking ovulation after IUD removal by gathering reliable data on your body so you can find out when you’re most likely to be at your optimal fertility.
Ovulation refers to the most fertile moment of a woman’s cycle, occurring between each period around the midway point of the menstrual cycle as an egg is released for fertilization. Although it happens on the inside, there are several ways to track your ovulation and start predicting that moment with greater accuracy.
It’s crucial to track your menstrual cycle and isolate your fertile window each month (2-3 days in length), and within that, your ovulation window (12-24 hours in length). That’s when you’ve got the best chance of getting pregnant, so all your efforts should be focused on making the most of it.
Several tracking options give you a glimpse into your unique cycle data: the most popular include ovulation tracking apps, ovulation prediction kits (OPKs), basal body temperature (BBT) tracking, and cervical mucus monitoring. Transvaginal ultrasound is also an option, though it’s an in-clinic procedure that typically precedes in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Pherdal’s Ovulation Tracking Course provides pros and cons of different methods and educates you on how to track your ovulation effectively.
3. Other Factors Can Affect Your Fertility
There’s little evidence to suggest that IUDs are detrimental to fertility once removed, but additional factors affecting your fertility might be to blame if you don’t get pregnant in the span of three months after the IUD is out. Ovulation tracking aside, anything from age to lifestyle to underlying health conditions could hinder your efforts to conceive without your knowledge.
A partner or a donor can introduce fertility complications as well. They may have a reproductive issue preventing pregnancy, such as male factor infertility. The big takeaway is that infertility can be complicated (and frustrating), so a visit with your doctor or a reproductive endocrinologist (REI) may be necessary to shed light on your situation.
4. An ICI Kit Removes the Guesswork
Intracervical insemination (ICI) kits are a great first option for many people working on the fertility puzzle. They cost a fraction of expensive in-clinic options like IUI and IVF, and allow you to take a hands-on approach that preserves your privacy, autonomy, and well-being.
ICI from the comfort of home has shown to be on par with IUI in recent studies, making it a low-stakes, low-investment alternative for prospective parents, and with PherDal, you get the same degree of sterility in your kit that you do in a clinic.
PherDal’s ICI kit empowers you with the only kit on the market that has both FDA clearance and 100% guaranteed sterility for extra peace of mind. Nobody else can promise that level of protection and cleanliness, and we offer you three separate sterile syringes and collection cups for maximized potential during your ovulation window.
Let’s be real: it’s not worth risking your health on a non-cleared, non-sterile kit, which exposes you to all sorts of foreign bacteria and negatively impacts your fertility. You’re doing everything in your power to successfully conceive, and this sensitive undertaking (and area of your body) deserves a kit that gives you every advantage.
Is this the first time you’re hearing about ICI? Find out if an at-home insemination kit is the right choice for you by taking our two-minute quiz.
For Further Support
The ups and downs of fertility tracking (and fertility science in general) can leave you feeling lost and isolated. As a PhD in biology who was diagnosed with unexplained infertility, I know the anger and anxiety that comes with being told you need a $10k loan for inpatient treatment while never being told there are at-home options to try first.
That’s exactly why I created PherDal in the first place. Now I’m a proud mom of two thanks to our revolutionary ICI kit. It’s a clinically tested, 100% sterile, FDA-cleared resource you can trust that ups your chances of getting pregnant safely and comfortably at home.
PherDal is in your corner as you embark on the journey to parenthood, regardless of your infertility status. Unexplained or otherwise, we’re here for you.
