I started taking birth control (Alesse, the 28 day pack) back in May. At that point I didn't really put much effort into taking my pill on time, would regularly miss days and double up, all that jazz. Now that I'm in a relationship and am sexually active, my method of operation has switched. As of this month, I've been really good at taking my pills at 10:30 am, with the exception of being off by ~45mins-1hr. My boyfriend and I use male condoms as a back up, and made sure to look up how to properly put them on (it was a process but after different attempts with new condoms we got it right!
) and we also filled it up with water after we were done to check for leaks (first time, put our mind at ease). My question is,
1) Is there a window for pills to be effective? If I'm off by 30, 40 minutes or so is it still considered perfect use or typical use. Whats the effectiveness for both of these? I seem to find conflicting numbers.
2) How effective is the male condom + pill combo? Perfect use/typical use.
3) Is it obvious when condoms break?
Thank you very much in advance for answering my questions! My bf and I want to be fully informed, we've already done a lot of research and taken a lot of things into consideration but wanted to consult/confirm things and I figured here would be a good place to ask.
