ok to stop taking birth control following emergency contraception?

[tinyblackswan.livejournal.com]

this is a follow up to this post because only one person responded to me (thank you) and I still desperately need help (this journal is my only hope really...)

so, I took my regular birth control as plan b 11 and a half hours after the condom broke. I took 4 pills then another 4 pills 12 hours later. As I wrote in the other post, I had been on the pill for 8 days before this happened, but I skipped one pill so I was one pill behind and I forgot to take a pill the night this happened.

I really, really, cannot cope with waiting or taking a pregnancy test. If I'm pregnant, I'm dead. It costs something like almost a thousand dollars to get an abortion in this country. I have no money and no one to help me.

my last period was November 15th.

My question is- should I keep taking my regular birth control, or stop it to induce a withdrawal bleed? (I am not likely to be having any more sex in the foreseeable future) Will that empty my whole uterus and get rid of whatever might be happening in there? or is it possible to have a withdrawal bleed and still be pregnant at the end of it? I really need to see some blood right now to prove to myself I'm not pregnant. I'm sorry if I sound insane but I am completely freaking out. I'm hoping the emergency birth control worked because I feel depressed, weepy and crampy. But I need to know for sure.

My main worry is... If I stop taking my regular birth control, am I going to start ovulating and maybe become pregnant after the fact from sperm hanging around inside me?

Comments

[nickelshoe.livejournal.com]

Sperm can survive five days in a hospitable environment, possibly up to 10. Since you were on birth control at the time just with a few errors, your body was not the best environment for the sperm, so that;s on your side.

I don't think there's evidence that forcing a withdrawal bleed helps. The sperm hang out in the fallopian tubes, I believe, not the uterus.

I think that stopping your birth control is riskier than continuing it. I hope everything works out for you.

[gryphonwing.livejournal.com]

I'm sleepy and this is likely to be long and rambly.

If you can, I would strongly suggest taking your birth control for another week or so and then letting yourself have a withdrawal bleed. You *could* have a withdrawal bleed at this point and still end up pregnant - bleeding right now wouldn't actually prove anything. I don't think it would happen; the dose of hormones you already took should be plenty effective at preventing ovulation. But this would be the extra-careful option.

I think it's highly unlikely you're pregnant or about to be. My understanding: you were on birth control, had missed a pill. You had sex. Then you took some massive hormone doses to act as emergency contraception. You were already at a pretty low risk of pregnancy before that, even having missed a pill in the first week. I understand that a pregnancy would be a terrible thing at this point, and that you want to be as sure as possible that you don't end up pregnant. So far, I think you've done that. And yes, the depressed/weepy/crampy is probably the result of the EC - sounds like a large dose of hormones to me. It doesn't tell you anything but that you took a large dose of hormones, though.

Keep in mind that in order to be pregnant, you have to have sperm hanging around (or showing up shortly thereafter) when your ovary releases an egg, which meets up with the sperm and then makes its way to the uterus and implants. It's a complicated multi-stage process. Your birth-control-as-EC is intended to interrupt that process, primarily by preventing ovulation - but it may also interfere with other aspects, such as implantation. I think there's still not a lot of evidence about that, either way.

If you keep taking your pills (one a day) until a week after the sex in question, you should be fine to stop, have your withdrawal bleed, and start over with a new pill pack. The large dose of hormones you just took should stop your ovaries from doing much either way, but going another week would be extra careful. You'd be making sure any sperm still floating around would die before your ovaries were at any risk of waking up.

You might see some bleeding before you actually stop taking your pills - taking a whole bunch of hormones at once is a good way to confuse the uterus and can mean erratic bleeding for a while. I mostly mention this so you won't panic if you get breakthrough bleeding. :)

I really do think it's extremely unlikely that you're going to be pregnant from this incident - not impossible, but few things are. I know it's hard to hear that you'll have to wait a couple more weeks to test, but there's not a lot you can do about that. Bleeding right now won't really prove anything anyway. If you're anything like me, you'll spend the next couple of weeks trying not to panic and making worst-case-scenario plans... keep breathing!

[jennifer0246.livejournal.com]

I think what you're describing sounds low-risk for pregnancy, and that you have taken every reasonable possible step to ensure that pregnancy does not result from it. You can stop taking your BCP now, and start a new pack at your convenience, using backup for 7 days.

[archangelbeth]

I agree with nickelshoe. Sperm hang out in the fallopian tubes, not the uterus, and it's better not to compromise one's protection for at least another 7 days, I'd say.

Unfortunately, bleeding or lack thereof is really orthogonal to pregnancy. The only way to be 100% sure is a pregnancy test. However, 7 days of pill-taking, plus -- hopefully? -- making up the missed pill the next day, should have you very protected, even if it's not the perfect-use protection.

(There are some online resources for abortion funding; you might want to investigate http://www.fundabortionnow.org/explore/international and see if there's anything in your country? Not that I think it's likely you'd need it, but you might feel better if it turned out there were options.)

*offers hugs*