Scarleteen

Hi! I'm a new user, so my apologies if a similar question has already been posted before. Also, English isn't my first language, so pardon any mistakes or weird sentences.

First off, I'd like to provide a little background info: my (21F) last long-term heterosexual relationship ended 3 years ago. I've had penetrative sex before on multiple occasions, using only condoms (sometimes combined with withdrawal). They've never failed, and I've never been pregnant. Since I haven't been in a hetero relationship in a while, I don't use any hormonal BC such as pills, as my sex life has been pretty sporadic and infrequent (let alone situations that could cause pregnancy, as all of my recent partners have been female) + I have some health issues due to which I'd rather avoid hormonal BC if I can.

I've recently found a new male partner. We'd engaged in sexual "stuff" such as making out or dry humping, but yesterday was our first time having intercourse. We used a condom the entire time, and it had no visible tears, breaks or leaks (as far as I could see) once we finished. It didn't slip off, and my partner is experienced enough that I trust he knows what he's doing.

I've never been too worried about pregnancy scares before. Usually, I would barely think about it afterwards; maybe worry a little if my period is late, but those worries disappeared as soon as I started bleeding.
However, very recently, my sister went through an unintended pregnancy. For the first 5 months, her menstrual cycles stayed regular (bleeding, cramping, duration, etc) and she had absolutely no pregnancy symptoms aside from gaining a little weight. As a result, she didn't even know she was pregnant until she was already halfway through. As far as I understood, she and her partner were using protection at the time. Her doctors didn't find any health issues regarding the bleeding (as in, any other potential reasons for bleeding besides menstrual periods). Her baby was born perfectly fine last month.

Knowing my sister's experience, I can't help but worry that I might go through the same. I feel like I won't be able to relax now, even if I do get my period. I'm aware that condoms aren't 100% reliable, which only makes me more worried, even though they've worked for me in the past.
Yesterday was the last day of my current cycle, so I need to wait another month for my next period. Do you have any tips on how I can ease my anxiety a little?

Hi hedera,

It totally makes sense that this pregnancy anxiety is coming up after your sister's experience. I'll start by saying her experience is quite rare, but I understand still feeling anxiety about it.

You're correct that no method of birth control, including condoms, is 100% effective if you're having the type of sex that can lead to pregnancy. I hear that you've used condoms + withdrawal in the past. Did this help ease some anxiety? Combining methods is a great way to increase effectiveness. We even have a whole article about this that could be worth checking out: The Buddy System: Effectiveness Rates for Backing Up Your Birth Control With a Second Method.

So while we know no method is 100% effective, when used correctly, condoms do a pretty good job. I love this excerpt from our article, Have a Little Faith in BC:

For instance, the pill has been found, through study, to be over 99% effective in perfect use, and 92% effective in typical use. That means that for every 100 people each year using the pill typically, it will fail for 8 of them; for every 100 people using it perfectly, it will fail for less than one (in the case of the pill, that works out to a failure for about every one in 2,000 users). In the United States alone, about 1.5 million people use the pill each year. If everyone for whom it failed posted about it on the internet in some way, saying it didn't work? That'd be about 120,000 people: that's a LOT of people. It's no wonder people see a lot of anecdotes saying something doesn't work, because for a lot of people each year, every single method fails.

But what often gets missed, left out, or goes unnoticed or unmentioned is that every single method we have that people can currently use works, without failing for WAY more people than those it fails for. Every method. Going back to the pill as an example, if everyone who the pill did not fail for posted online that'd be, at a minimum, 1,380,000 people. Now that is a lot of people. Way more than 120,000.

Feel free to take a look at both of the articles I've provided and let me know if anything sticks out to you. We can certainly discuss some specific ways to ease pregnancy anxiety if this is something you're interested in after taking a peak at these resources. Too, I could see if a member of our team speaks your preferred language if that's something you're interested in

Hi Amanda, thanks for your reply! English is fine for now, thanks for the offer though.

I've taken a look at the articles you linked, they're both very informative. Regarding the first article, I do feel like combining methods in the past helped ease my mind a little; this time, we kind of forgot to discuss it, though, in the "heat of the moment" as they say.

As for the second article, it does feel somewhat calming knowing that every method has been carefully tested, and that those efficiency numbers didn't come out of thin air. However, reading about a stranger's rare experience online and seeing it happen in real life, especially to a close family member, feels a lot different – it becomes less of a statistic improbability, and more of something real that's happened before and that could easily happen again. Hopefully that makes sense, excuse my rambling .

All in all, I think some more specific ways to ease the anxiety wouldn't hurt. Thanks in advance!

Hi hedera,


It absolutely makes sense that seeing someone close to you have that kind of surprise pregnancy while on birth control would make it seem like a far more likely experience than otherwise. I will say that, when people find themselves pregnant while using birth control, there can be the possibility that they used it imperfectly or something had happened to make it fail that they weren't aware of because they didn't have information about that risk; so your sister may have had something in the mix that decreased the effectiveness of her method without her being aware of it.

In terms of dealing with pregnancy anxiety, these two articles are good starting places: You're Not Pregnant. Why Do You think You Are?, Anxiety and Other Mental Health Resources