Emily, who is 39 and from Glasgow, had an abortion in 2021 after finding out she was pregnant while using a tracking app as contraception.
In 2018 she came off the pill which she’d been on since the age of 17, initially to control acne.
“My mood was low, I was putting weight on and I couldn’t lose it. I was experiencing symptoms like low libido. I gave it a break and as soon as I came off it I felt infinitely better,” Emily said.
Looking for a non-hormonal alternative and wanting to avoid the experience of having a coil fitted, she chose to use the menstrual cycle tracking feature on her iPhone Health app.
In 2021 she found out she was two months pregnant with her then partner of four months – who is now her husband.
Emily said: “I got a urine infection which kicked my cycle out of sync a little bit. Before I knew it a couple of months passed and I’d not had a period. I felt really unwell one day and thought either this is Covid, or I’m pregnant. I went home and took a test for both. The pregnancy test came back positive.
She says her partner, now husband, was amazing.
“We spoke about it and read lots of resources online. We barely knew each other at the time and didn’t live together so we decided we couldn’t go ahead and have a child.”
Following the termination, she decided to try a different contraceptive.
“[With tracking apps] I know your cycle needs to be really regular and really consistent. I didn’t want to gamble that risk again,” she said.
She opted for the the non-hormonal copper coil.
“I’ve always had lower back pain but, since the coil, on my periods that is now worse. And I now get pain during ovulation. It’s not ideal, but it is what it is.
“It enrages me that in this day and age there’s so much medical research in other areas, but then we have a contraceptive pill over 50 years old and this barbaric coil insertion procedure.”