The essure sterilisation procedure, one year on

I say one year on… it’s actually 15 months on, but it’s taken me so long to finish writing this post (as with all posts) that my original draft and actual life timeline are way out of sync.

Anyway, so: the essure procedure. The last time I wrote about it was 3 months post-procedure and I was having a bit of a head wobble about the whole thing. I’d had some heavy bleeding, which at one point put me in A&E with a suspected ectopic pregnancy, and some contact dermatitis caused by a nickel sensitivity. I spent a lot of time googling essure side effects and found some bloody terrifying scare stories.

15 months on this is all but a memory. The random heavy bleeding stopped almost as quickly as it came on (assumed “settling in” / scarring – i.e. part of the process that causes the actual sterility). I have only recently started wearing my watch again after the initial irritation from the strap occurred, but it hasn’t flared up at all. I no longer have issues with painful intercourse or discharge, and other symptoms I’d worried about – weight gain and fatigue – turned out to be mostly related to my drinking (surprise surprise).

My periods are regular as clockwork most months and, most importantly, I’ve not popped out any babies lately. Surprisingly, I’m also yet to experience any feelings of regret either. I occasionally get a bit broody when I see other people’s cute babies online, but mostly I look at how happy and comfortable I am (despite life’s stresses) with how things are, that I wouldn’t want to change anything. I will never not miss baby cuddles, but I know for a fact that I would miss sleep, and flexibility, and freedom, and time with my existing babies more.

With something like this it’s easy to get carried away with panic at the first sign of a problem — as with all things in life, people are quicker to complain when it goes wrong than compliment when it goes right — and with essure there’s no shortage of scare stories to terrify women into avoiding the procedure, but I would have no problems recommending it to anyone wanting a permanent birth control solution.