Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Everyday

There are so many new forms of birth control out there, and so many advertisements, that I am sick of listening to it all.

YAZ--A new form of BC that takes care of the symptoms that are caused by PMS
Seasonale--A new form of birth control that allows you to have a period only once every three months
Mirena--A new form of birth control that prevents pregnancy for up to five years
NuvaRing--A form of birth control for idiots

Okay, so that last one isn't an accurate description, but come on! I am really offended by some of the tactics the marketing people use to try and convince women that they are too stupid/crazy to take a regular birth control pill or use any other form of BC than hormonal methods.
Everyone remembers the YAZ commercials with the women discussing their periods in a nightclub? While it no longer runs, I (and every other person I know, including my OB-GYN) HATED that ad. Number one, very rarely does a group of female friends discuss their menstrual symptoms unless something weird is going on, and then they may decide to keep those problems between themselves and their doctors. Number two, who goes out and then decides that the topic of conversation is going to be how miserable they feel? Honestly, if that was the game plan for the evening, everyone would have been much happier staying at home in pjs with ice cream and a screening of Dirty Dancing. While that particular commercial is no longer making the rounds of daytime TV, a slightly more annoying one that is all high energy and bright colors is. Ad execs, you are marketing a birth control pill to grown women, not the newest knock off Barbie that looks like it should be working a street corner rather than taking up residence in a little girl's toy box.
Seasonale is not new. Taking a regular BC pill continuously in order to avoid Aunt Flo has been well known and documented for years. I myself have even practiced this with a "regular" pill in the past. However, I have heard of some pretty bad side effects from the Seasonale version, including a continuous period for the first cycle of the pills (that's three whole months in case you weren't doing the math) and an unplanned pregnancy that wasn't discovered until three months after conception; three months which included some pretty dubious behavior on the mommy-to-be's part and a hazy recollection of who exactly was the proud papa. Why this kind of continuous usage has these side effects and just using a normal BC pill in the same way doesn't (at least in my own experience) I have no idea.
The IUD (or intrauterine device) is the most commonly used form of BC in Europe. It used to be widespread in the US until the '70s when one type ended up poisoning some women and killing them. Apparently, it's been long enough to begin re-marketing the product under the name Mirena. It also has a really annoying commercial with a bunch of gingers and while I applaud the fact that it does disclose some of the more unsavory possible side effects, it doesn't even bother telling potential consumers one important thing: lots of doctors don't insert them. It is considered one of the most effective forms of BC, mainly because it doesn't rely on the lazy/moronic consumer to do anything other than visit their dr., but not having access to it does seem to make the use a little more difficult--at least in my humble opinion.
The NuvaRing is really just like pill, only it only needs to be remembered once a week instead of once a day. This is the main commercial that irritates me. I, of all people, know that remembering to take a pill everyday at exactly the same time can be difficult what with the stress involved in everyday life. But that's not the point of the commercial. It talks about how hard it is to take something everyday. It's not hard--just pop the thing and take it (hell, pill heads always seem to remember). Insinuating that it's difficult to take the normal pill, therefore you need to have this thing you only remember once a week, is implying that your market is either stupid ("So you mean I put this in my mouth and swallow it, every day? Wow!") or so lazy that your marketing is a waste of time because they will probably not use the ring anyway.
I haven't decided what kind of BC I will be using after baby, but I am certainly getting all kinds of info thrown at me. Maybe I'll just do what the girls at East Rankin were told--hold an aspirin between my knees and make sure it doesn't fall out. ;-)