The freaky thing was my body did fine on the pill for 6 years except for having spotting (very common side effect) and low sex drive. Then, my doc switched pills and all hell broke loose. I gained 20 lb. of water weight in 1 month (no, I'm not kidding)--7 months off the pill 7 lb. has gone away but my cycles STILL are not normal--I became depressed, anxious and extremely moody (this is also common on the pill) to the point where it was hurting my marriage, my abdomen over my uterus became hard and bulgy, I had NO sex drive whatsoever, couldn't care less about it...These side effects did not reverse even after trying a pill I had previously done OK on. It's like my body freaked out. I think something changed with my metabolism or something after I stopped taking antidepressants (which I'd always taken while on the pill).

The worst is these side effects can kind of creep up on you so that you might not even realize it's the pill.

If you MUST go on a pill, I'd recommended staying away from the new low dose pills. They are notorious for causing breakthrough bleeding and I had a lot more side effects on them. I wish I had never tried to change from the older triphasic pill I was taking that had been pretty much OK except for the low sex drive (Ortho-novum 7/7/7).

Now, I'm off the pill and doing FAM (fertility awareness method). The discipline of it might be hard for some women, but I find I love it. This involves taking your basal body temperature daily and charting it as well as observing your cervical fluid to pinpoint when you ovulate. So, before I detect ovulation (just to be extra safe) we use condoms. Three days after ovulation until my period, no protection; this is about 2 weeks without having to use protection to avoid pregnancy. It works. You have to be disciplined to use it but it's not that hard and I love knowing exactly where I am in my menstrual cycle any given day. Plus, there are zero side effects.