a few birth control questions... condoms and FAM

[magentakitty]

I have a few birth control questions:

This question might sound like common sense, but since we use condoms during my fertile phase (we are a young married FAM couple) I am curious about why they sometimes fail. I know they are about 90% effective. Is this potential failure due to breakage or can it fail when it has not been broken and was used correctly? I guess I am asking… if we don’t have a condom break, would it be 100% effective in preventing pregnancy? If we use it perfectly w/ no breaks, is it possible to get pregnant, and by what mechanism?

Second question… ok. So we are a FAM couple as I stated. Trying to prevent for maybe 2 years (just a rough estimate… might be a bit longer or shorter). How long do sperm live? I’ve heard 5-7 days at longest. Is it significantly possible to actually get pregnant 5-7 days before ovulation, like have you ever heard of this happening? I ask because this cycle has been a bit odd. My ovulation day is usually day 13 of my cycle. This month I randomly ovulated on day 11 (fertile CM started pretty much right after my period and temp jump so I am sure this is the case although a bit odd), I believe. I think we might have had unprotected sex on day 6, but I honestly can’t remember if we used condoms (I think we are using the first 5 day rule, but I can’t remember for day 6 since we are a bit more lenient at the beginning in terms of starting to protect on days 5 or 6 ish)! I am not too worried as it would be very unlikely, but given my early O, if we were unprotected on day 5-6 ish, could I get pregnant? This remote possibility dawned on me this morning when looking at my chart. I’ve been charting for 1.5 years or so, and I never O’ed on day 11 before and I am Certain I did.

Thanks ☺

[Karyn]

Condoms can fail even without any error on the user's part by breaking or slipping off: it's not common for those things to happen if they're used properly, but it can happen. We can't say that any method is 100% effective, but if a condom was used correctly with no slips or breaks, then you can trust that the condom did its job and you did not have a viable risk.

Per your second question, sperm can remain viable for that long, but to the best of my knowledge, it would be pretty unlikely for pregnancy to happen this way. (Maybe another volunteer or staff member will be able to give you a better idea of how likely or unlikely it is.)

[Heather]

For more information (and the correct effectiveness stats) on condoms, check here: Condoms.

Too, the general advice when using FAM when you have a change in your patterns is that you should then figure for the next few months or so, you can't really make predictions like you can when your cycle stays regular and on an ongoing pattern. So, moving forward from this last change, you just probably want to switch to your backup method as your primary method until you seem to be in a solid pattern again. And, of course, if you want the highest effectiveness you can get buddying FAM and condoms, you will want to always use condoms, rather than only using them sometimes.

[magentakitty]

Thanks! I think it will be fine... 8 DPO now so i'll be sure in a few days. I like your idea of being extra careful before O for a few cycles as this time was 2 days early than the day it is almost always on. I can tell when O occurs clearly, so I am very comfortable unprotected after O... it's just when to start preventing before based on when O occurs that can be confusing...

[magentakitty]

as i suspected my period arrived 13 days after I thought I ovulated... so we are safe ... will monitor more closely this time in case this is my new normal!