Scarleteen

Hello new user here. Let me start off by saying I had a few pregnancy scares in the past (which were for example, sperm to hand to hand situation), likely due to anxiety and pressure from my parents to choose abstinence first. Now that I am an adult and dating someone, I think I'm ready to be intimate, but my anxiety is still kicking in

for example, he fingered me on Oct 23 and I gave him oral sex on the 24th, and we dry hump on the 29th (all on my fertile week), I got anxious afterwards what if he had sperm on his fingers when he fingered me (his fingers were dry) or by some miracle some semen got onto me although both lanes of clothing have no wet spot, almost positive that semen was NOT near my vagina/vulva, etc .

To help relieve my anxiety, I started taking combined pills on the 27th with the help of an OB, so it is almost a week from now. We have not have sex but planning to this week (a week after I took the pill)

So I just needed someone to talk to since Im still scared of pregnancy d/t fingering, will be having sex with the pill (with condom btw) like I'm still thinking to do a pregnancy test even after all these precautions, I have known users who just do pull out or just use condoms but my mind can't process to do those things . are these feelings still normal?

As much as I have anxiety about it, I still want to be intimate with my partner as he leaves the country to work in another country

Hello and welcome to the boards!!

I’m sorry to hear you’ve been struggling with pregnancy anxiety. None of the situations you’ve described pose a risk to pregnancy, as indirect contact with pre-ejaculate does not pose a risk, and because it is impossible to become pregnant when you have cloth covering your genitals. I’m glad you’re deciding to use the buddy method (condoms and the pill) for sexual encounters that do pose a risk to pregnancy, because the buddy method of combining birth control methods lowers the risk of pregnancy significantly.

How does hearing about the buddy system make you feel regarding pregnancy risk now?

I keep telling myself that I'll be fine, and that the combination of condom and pill offers low to almost none risk if used perfectly, but I still have this crippling anxiety in my head, and I feel bad that I feel like I'm the only person who feels this way, while other individuals who just use one protection (or none at all) get to sleep at night

Hey there!

You are absolutely not the only person who feels this way. We get these types of questions all the time and have a forum under the Supporting Each Other page here for posts like this. Like you mentioned, abstinence only education (plus a near non-existent health ed curriculum in most K-12 classrooms) make the consequences of sex extra scary. Which sucks because sex can be so fun! When you're using contraceptives like you have been, you are way less likely to experience pregnancy as a consequence. Here's an article about the pill that has some statistics and here's one about condoms. Maybe becoming more familiar with how it works will help ease some anxiety.

Does having access to the forum and some articles help answer the questions you had?