When you go for it they insert a sound to find out the depth of your uterus then they insert the coil through a fine tube, it hurts quite a lot but it's ove r very quickly and it's well worth it as it stays in place for several years in most cases. A coil can be ejected this happens most often in the few days after insertion but it's not likely to happen - in the case of women who got pregnant and insist they had a coil when pregnant this is what usually happened, their coil was ejected and they didn't realise it, so it makes sense to check your strings every month as you're advised to anyway. Childbirth lasts hours, a coil insertion lasts a few minutes so it isn't too bad.

Not all women stop having periods but the literature says about 70% do, and of the 30% whose periods don't stop they usually lighten considerably (in England a Mirena coil is prescribed for heavy periods as well as birth control). I decided last time my coil was changed to go for a mirena although my normal coil had never caused me problems I fancied the idea of possibly having no periods, I was told it was the norm that periods would tail off over 6 months or so but for me my first period after the mirena was about half the normal flow, the month after that it was just spotting and after that no more periods yay.