To think most accidental pregnancies aren't really accidental?

[IAteAllTheTomatoes]

If someone really doesn't want to get pregnant they are there are so many ways to prevent it that it's rarely a real accident?

Contraception, vasectomies, morning after pill etc.

I know contraception fails but if someone really doesn't want a pregnancy, they can double up & just more than one method?

Is it a lie that people just tell themselves?

Personally, it was a total shock for me as I believed I was infertile my whole life. I had a lot of valid reasons to believe this that I won’t go into, but it’s safe to say I never conceived for years on end. I had accepted I would most likely never have any children of my own, and stopped using contraception (as there seemed to be no need.) Then boom, one day it happened for me out of nowhere, totally unexpected.

This is one hell of a weird thought, but bear with me: if contraception failure is so common, how the hell did none of the current generation of royals have children before marriage? Zara, Eugenie & William were all with their partners for 8-10 years before they got married. Beatrice was with the same boyfriend for 10 years. And they must all be quite fertile, because they all had children relatively soon after marriage.

It's still indicative the manner in which the question is asked though.

"I think most "accidental" pregnancies are actually not accidents" is not the same as "I wonder what the various reasons behind unplanned pregnancies are", for example.

It's the same question but without conveying a preconception or bias about the answer.

There are many true accidents, that you’ll never hear about when contraception is taken properly. My family was complete, we always used condoms (hormonal contraception made me feel awful) one the condom split, I took the morning after pill immediately which also failed and had a termination at just five weeks pregnant. It was absolutely devastating and traumatic too but was the right decision for our circumstances. The only people who know about this are my two best friends and my husband who supported me throughout. These are the accidental pregnancies you don’t hear about where all steps were taken to avoid pregnancy and the pregnancy is terminated. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone. It’s not something I’d ever share with anyone else even those really close to me as I fear the judgement and I find it very hard to talk about.

I'm currently pregnant at 41! We've always used condoms.... except this one drunken fumble. I took a double dose of the morning after pill the next day..... yet here I am 6 weeks pregnant. My relationship is in bits and my boyfriend has now accused me of purposely planning this pregnancy! Because a termination is something that I just can't bring myself to do.

My life has literally been blown apart!

I have an amazing career and 4 children with my ex husband aged 24-12. So yes! Although rare it can happen!

Yes, obviously.

I agree. I have 3 friends who have all apparently fallen pregnant on contraception. 2 stopped taking her pill and 1 made a few holes in a few condoms. They all stick to the story that they fell pregnant while using protection.

Double contraception failure here. they do happen

i know 3 couples who have had accidental
pregnancies. In all 3 cases they had tried to have kids for years and ended up having IVF then fell pregnant naturally not long after the IVF baby was born. They weren’t using contraception but that’s because they all believed they were basically infertile. A happy surprise for all
of them but definitely not planned!

Did you take the morning after pill after ovulating?

If my best friend was on this thread she would be saying how accidents do happen as it happened to her. We both know that for her that's a crock of shit and she planned it 🤣

We got pregnant by accident. Genuinely. But we had been together 8 years so it was a happy surprise. We were a bit naive perhaps!

In response to did I ovulate.... we had sex on day 14 of my cycle.... the day according to my period tracker that I did ovulate. The pharmacist did say it might not walk.

I completely agree with you op. Of course there are genuine accidents, which imo is when neither condom and pill/coil etc work and you get pregnant. Nothing is 100% but the number of unplanned pregnancies that happen aren't accidents imo they're just that, unplanned as they weren't trying for a baby but also wasn't using condoms and was half ass taking their pills or they weren't checking their coil was in the right the place. I've had 3 pregnancies all planned, and non unplanned and that isn't by luck, it's by taking the necessary precautions.

yet oblivious of the fact that ALL pregnancies are caused by men.

Men acting alone??? It takes two baby.
In the very early days of the pill a friend ate something dodgy and had a 24 hour sickness bout but she still took her pill. A couple of months later she was pregnant and had triplets!

I can’t use hormonal contraceptions, tried all the ones I’m allowed to have and every single one made me ill.

After our first we used condoms, none of them ever split but I still fell pregnant with my second, it was a lot sooner than we’d have liked so it was an unplanned pregnancy but very welcomed.

Mine was a good few years ago now, the post ovulation thing was never talked about. It was just
“take it within 72 hours”, not the chemist or the talks at school.
thats a good chunk of the month it won’t work

Did you get caught out? I didn't know about the ovulation thing either 😔 I'm baffled by the whole situation if I'm honest x all 4 of my children were planned and conceiving wasn't easy at all. So this pregnancy along with my age has completely blown my mind x

I have 5 kids, only 1 was planned. Twins on contraceptive pill, one on mini pill, one with implant. These things happen and I am grateful for them

My Doctor got pregnant unexpectedly- she had a contraceptive failure- a mirena coil.

I don’t know one person who got accidentally pregnant.

My accidental pregnancy definitely was an accident. I'd just started on a new pill and waited well beyond the supposed first safe day to ditch the condoms. Didn't realise for 4 months and had a late termination which haunted me for years (wrong time of life, wrong man, as it turned out - the pregnancy made me realise that.)

Pill failure here

Not a weird thought at all - when people are operating within a social milieu where unmarried births are really taboo, unmarried births are rare though not unheard of. In much of Asia, even in the highly developed countries like South Korea and Japan, this is still the case; the % of births taking place outside marriage is really rare. There are quite a few abortions though. So, there are some unintended pregnancies (though not a massive number compared with western countries) but few end up proceeding and ending up in the birth of a live baby.

Unmarried childbearing used to be about as taboo in the west as it still is in much of Asia; the royal family is essentially a hangover from these times. I do not know how widespread this is among the aristocracy and upper classes generally; that said, as a general rule, there is now a strong inverse relationship between social status and the % of births out of wedlock in countries like the UK.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, of course, is complex. The extreme taboo against unmarried births in places like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan does result in greater social stability, perhaps, but it has also been pointed out as one of the reasons why fertility rates are so low in these societies; in countries like the UK, US and Western Europe, unmarried semi-planned and unwisely-planned pregnancies may put strain on the social fabric in some ways (as it results in a lot of kids and mothers who need various kinds of support), but it also just adds a lot of extra births that otherwise might not be there. I intend on encouraging my own daughters to grow up thinking that it’s normal to be stably married before you get pregnant, but from a selfish point of view, it

sorry, posted too soon

from a selfish point of view, it is also, in some ways a benefit to me and others that other women are careless enough about procreation to keep the fertility rate higher than it is in Korea et al. The very low levels of births in these societies will also destabilize the social fabric in the future, in different ways.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.