If you have CHOSEN to not have children ...

[canttellyouwhereorwhatido]

Have you ever fallen pregnant by accident ?

I am staggered by the amount of MN who have had accidental pregnancies and am trying to understand how this happened. Are you regularly aborting because the contraceptive options are so unreliable ? Or is this a cop out for those who want babies but partners not keen and manipulating the situation as an 'oops' ... sorry about that but I don't believe in termination ?

If it is unreliable contraception . Are the failure rates simply lies made up by the manufacturer ? If so, something needs to be done to ensure more reliable contraception. I am assuming here that child free couples have just as much (imagine a LOT more ) sex than those with kids ... OR is it as simple as , 'it's no good just having the pill/condom/ diaphragm etc if you don't use it according to manufacturer's instructions ?

No, I was always careful about contraception (past tense because I'm now post-hysterectomy). If I'd accidentally become pregnant I'd probably have had the baby adopted, so I could take advantage of maternity leave at work.

I’ve been sexually active for 32 years and am (I assume) right at the end of my fertile years.
I’ve never had a pregnancy. Pill from age 16, then mirena(s) from 23 ish

No, I’ve never accidentally gotten pregnant, I’m so careful with my contraceptives because I really don’t want to have an abortion. But I read something like 52% of all babies born were accidental pregnancies where the woman chose not to get an abortion, so maybe I’m extremely lucky?

Anecdotally, of the last 10 babies born into my family or to my friends only one was planned/tried for. The others were all accidental pregnancies. Which does give me actual nightmares. (As do women who didn’t know they were pregnant and gave birth in a toilet/went to hospital thinking they had appendicitis and came out with a baby/thought they had food poisoning and gave birth in a taxi etc. - so scary!).

Yes, I chose not to have children but got pregnant unexpectedly - I'd had to stop taking the pill due to migraines so we reverted to condoms for a while, then the withdrawal method which appeared to work perfectly well for several years. We assumed our slapdash contraception was adequately effective (or maybe I wasn't very fertile), but after years of complacency I was suddenly 6 days late and pregnant at the age of 40.

I had a swift termination and a mirena coil fitted at the same time. I do think about what could have been (and how old "she" would have been now) but if I ever had any doubts, all ambivalence vanished the second I saw that positive test. I did NOT want a child.

You must be joking!

Both of us were always serious about not wanting to be parents, so we have always been very careful. No withdrawal or ‘Catholic roulette’ for us.

Or is this a cop out for those who want babies but partners not keen and manipulating the situation as an 'oops' ... sorry about that but I don't believe in termination ?

Spot on. In my experience, the majority of ‘accidental’ pregnancies are not actual accidents.

Nope.

No accidents in 32 years of being reasonably (but definitely not obsessively) careful with contraception.

You will get flammed for this. But I often wonder this as a mother myself. I doubt you will get many coming forward to admit it.

Never pregnant, take contraception v seriously. It is remarkable how many women are very cavalier about contraception even when not “ttc” but I think this is mostly because they are indifferent or would be happy to fall pregnant.

I've never wanted children. I've had one accidental pregnancy at age 33 which I terminated at 8 weeks. I was using natural cycles, but not being absolutely dedicated to it which you have to be for the claimed high 90s% accuracy. Now using condoms - I was just sick of hormonal contraception after taking it for 14 years. Wouldn't hesitate to have another termination if I fell pregnant again.

I have two friends who are steadfastly childfree by choice.

One has never been pregnant as far as I’m aware. The other was pregnant, once, and had an abortion in a very straightforward way.

I always wanted kids and tried for a year with my first. Fell pregnant accidentally with number 2, and kept him, it wasn’t the right time but I wanted two so it was just how it worked out. I wouldn’t swap him for the world but it wasn’t easy

i feel lucky to live in a world where my friends who don’t want kids have the option, and those of us who do have that as well.

Thank you all for your candour (I promise I'm not a journalist just mystified by the amount of accidents reported on MN ) to be honest with you all I am not cbc.. I wanted kids and it took five years.. and then got three.. but ALL planned . I just didn't find it that difficult once I had decided I wanted them ..

I will be even more honest now despite the the expected flaming .. if you REALLY don't want children then it seems it's not that hard ? I honestly believe there is a lot of duplicity going on with pregnancy....

If and when men have control of their fertility beyond not having sex ... then I think birth rates will plummet.

Childfree and thankfully I've never got pregnant. If I did I would abort. When I'm sexually active as well as being on the pill I take pregnancy tests every couple of months, as one of my greatest fears is being one of those women who only finds out they are pregnant too late to abort or even as they are giving birth.
I very, very actively do no want children.

Child free and no accidents here.

if you REALLY don't want children then it seems it's not that hard

I suppose it is about motivation. If you 100% do not want children, ever, then you take no chances; you follow instructions to the letter for your method of contraception.

If someone does want children in the future, just not at that time or with that person, then there isn't perhaps the same fear that will inspire meticulousness in preventing pregnancy.

And of course, there are women who have 'deliberate accidents' - anyone who denies this is naive.

Once with a copper coil fitted. I was the 1 in 1000. It's not just people relying on withdrawal etc that can fall pregnant unplanned.

I suppose it is about motivation. If you 100% do not want children, ever, then you take no chances; you follow instructions to the letter for your method of contraception.

I think this is a bit ridiculous. Even with perfect use, you can get pregnant. There are over 200,000 abortions a year in this country - I'd imagine that a sizeable proportion of those are women who are careful. Very few women want to end up in a position of needing an abortion. It's absurd to say "well if you really don't want children, you'd be more motivated and would be more careful". The only way of taking no chances would be abstinence.

I got pregnant once by a genuine accident despite being very careful with contraception. I had an abortion - it was a very easy decision in the sense that I never considered continuing the pregnancy. But it wasn't something I wanted to have to do, so was being careful.

I’m not so sure. My cousin has 9 children, all ‘accidents’. She wanted children, her husband didn’t. He knew she was lax with the pill, would sometimes take it, sometimes forgot. He didn’t like condoms. She tracked her periods and he’d say he’d pull out on her fertile days but usually didn’t. He still maintains all of their children are completely accidental. All 9 of them.

I also years ago worked with a man who didn’t want children but his wife had tricked him. Into 3 children. Tricked him…

I'm not saying it can never happen - all methods of contraception have a stated failure rate when used correctly - but it's rare.

I actually WAS my mother's deliberate accident. My father left just before I was born, babies don't tie down philandering fathers.

But going back to my own pregnancy (I posted earlier), I was 100% against having children but after 20+ years of contraception, some unusually early menopause signs and repeated validation of the withdrawal method over several years, we took not getting pregnant dangerously for granted.

I’ve never been pregnant by choice. It was a stigma in my day unless you were married so we were quite strict with birth control. It seems more lassaiz faire these days.

No. No accidents but then I was really diligent about making sure it never happened.

@canttellyouwhereorwhatido Really interested in what you mean by "If and when men have control of their fertility beyond not having sex ... then I think birth rates will plummet." Men do have control of their fertility - condoms.

I helped my adamantly CF friend access an abortion in her 20s. She had fallen pregnant while on the pill. This was pre abortion Ireland so a difficult process. 12 years later, she is mid 30s and still does not want any.

I know a woman who years ago begged her GP to prescribe her the pill as her abusive husband kept getting her pregnant. It slowed down the pregnancies but she still ended up with her sixth DC a few years after getting it.

I got pregnant while taking the pill religiously. We decided to keep as this was still before the abortion repeal in Ireland and we knew we wanted to have kids someday. It was still massively upsetting at the start and I felt so judged.

Your posts are very anti-women. No contraception is 100%. Men DO have options of their own to avoid pregnancy, I find most of the time they don't want to be bothered with them 🤷🏼‍♀️. If a woman falls pregnant accidently, the first thought shouldn't be "she did it to trap a man"

Definitely think that while there are some genuine contraception failures even with perfect use, the majority of "accidents" are a predictable consequence of not using protection in the prescribed way. I have had four cycles where I wanted to get pregnant, and got pregnant on three of them. I've never got pregnant when I didn't want to...

@Fiveseconds - have the two men you talked about not heard of a vasectomy?
You make a mistake once, maybe twice but seriously....