Feeling really uneducated..

[spillthestars.livejournal.com]

So I feel like I need to not worry about this but I have been..
Background: I fooled around with this boy about a week ago on a Saturday night. We did not have penetrative sex but his penis was right at my vagina for about a minute. I understand how strange this sounds but I'm really worried that I could be pregnant from this. I have heard multiple times that you can get pregnant without penetration from "precum. " I feel really irresponsible after I realized what had gone on. I am on birth control but messed up the pills a couple of days before this. Saturday was about the 7th pill of my pack but the two pills I screwed up were Wednesday and Thursday, I usually take these at 8pm but I didn't each until the next morning. I had started spotting because of this but was done by Saturday. Basically I just need somebody's expertise on a situation like this. I am very worried and I have to wait about 10 pills before I will get my regular period. Thanks for any input. :(

Comments

[pyraterose.livejournal.com]

You can NOT get pregnant from precum unless the man has recently ejaculated and not urinated in between. Especially because he was not inside you, your chance of conception is so ridiculously low, you'd probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning whilst riding a unicorn through the streets of Atlantis. Basically there is no chance whatsoever.

Did you JUST start the pill or have you been on it awhile?

[spillthestars.livejournal.com]

I have been on the pill for probably 5 years, due to really painful cramps. He did not ejaculate before this happened. Thanks for your input and giving me a piece of mind about it :)

[pyraterose.livejournal.com]

Yep, no problem :) I was so freaking paranoid when I started to have sex and the more I learned about how things actually worked, and not believing the scare tactics I've been taught all my life, my mind has really been at ease :)

[inchoate.livejournal.com]

THIS! Can't get pregnant from precum (comes from the Cowper's Gland) unless, like pyraterose said, the man has recently ejaculated (contains sperm), in which case the precum can carry out residual sperm. Urinating flushes out all residual sperm and the pH kills anything left behind.

[devonrexlvr.livejournal.com]

Your chances of getting pregnant from not having penetration and a glob of semen deposited in the vagina is virtually none. No need to worry if that's not what happened :)
Also, precum does not on its own contain sperm. It can, however, carry sperm already existing in the urethra into the vagina and risk pregnancy - if ejaculation occurred recently with no urination to clear the urethra.

[spillthestars.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your input! He had not ejaculated recently, I was unsure if precum contained sperm because so many sources and websites say differently. I tried to look up my situation on the internet and became really freaked out. Haha, I think that's why people go crazy self-diagnosing! Thanks again :)

[archangelbeth]

Even aside from the incredibly low chance of sperm in his precum (I do not say 100%, but then I almost never say 100% about anything), you're on HBC. While the spotting was likely from the hormonal drop, your protection would still be very good -- even typical use HBC has an effectiveness in the mid to high 90%s.

You may wish to talk to this fellow about his STI status (i.e., if he was tested recently, or if he was totally unicorn bait), however, if there was genital contact. HPV and HSV are both transmitted via skin contact (though HSV, at least, is aided by moisture), and some other STIs might be contagious that way as well.

(Another thing: I'm going to be pedantic! (Sorry!) You're on HBC. You do not have a regular period. What you get is a withdrawal bleed. The hormones drop, the uterus sees the signal and bleeds. So far, so good, that's how it works in a regular period, for the uterus. However, on hormonal birth control, your uterus and your ovaries are no longer on speaking terms. In a normal period, the ovaries are least likely to be ovulating then. On HBC, your ovaries are waking up during the placebos/no-pill-days, because you're not keeping them hypnotized with the artificial hormones. If you go more than 7 days without hormones, your ovaries could potentially wake up enough to ovulate, even if your uterus is still bleeding.

Hopefully you already know all that! I'm just a paranoid pedant; I've seen the occasional story of someone on HBC who would extend their placebo week past 7 days, "Because they were still having their period" and didn't think that they were supposed to take the hormone pills till the bleeding stopped.)

[soultied.livejournal.com]

"You're on HBC. You do not have a regular period... *insert rest of your explanation here*"

I'm not the OP and I sincerely apologize for butting in, but I just wanted to thank you for explaining what happens while on HBC. I honestly did not know any of that (because I'm an idiot), so you have officially enlightened me!

[archangelbeth]

I am glad to be helpful! But you're not an idiot. Doctors don't tell people this stuff, because it's simpler to say things like "HBC makes your body think it's pregnant" (more nuancedly, it makes your body think it already ovulated and shouldn't do so again) or "when you take the placebo pills, you have a period." But those simple things lead to questions like: "I'm on HBC; won't the pregnancy test say I'm pregnant?" (No, pregnancy tests look for hCG, not the high levels of progesterone that hCG causes, which is primarily responsible for keeping the uterus from flushing the uterine lining during pregnancy.) Or "I'm still bleeding, so I can't possibly be ovulating, right?" (See above.)

It can take a fair amount of digging, and figuring out good keywords to search on, and having some minor medical background (I used to be pre-vetrinary; pre-calc kicked my tail, but I still like medical stuff) to translate medical jargon...

So. Not an idiot! O:>

[spillthestars.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the explanation about the hormones! This boy is someone that I've newly started seeing and we have had the talk about being tested. Hopefully, he is telling the truth, but I do trust he is. All of this information definitely puts my mind at ease.