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 ?

There's a lot of assumptions and judgement coming from you, OP.

I think peoples definition of "planned" can vary massively

There was a recent thread where a women repeatedly referred to her baby as not "planned" but also said that she had been having unprotected sex (not even the withdrawal method) with her partner.

And I know plenty of parents whose second children in particular weren't "planned" but they were pretty slapdash with contraception because they knew they wanted a second baby at some point so took a "what will be will be" approach to it

And then you have my friends daughter who was told there was absolutely no chance she would have a baby. Then after baby number 1 she was told it was a miracle and she would never have another one. After baby number 2 she got a coil and stopped listening to doctors! So her babies weren't planned per se

But in terms of condoms I believe the actual effectiveness rate of them in reality is closer to 70% than the 90 odd percent quoted due to people using them incorrectly and getting careles with them.

I fell pregnant three times between the ages of 32 and 35 despite using the pill perfectly (as I had since 17, with no pregnancies for the first 15 years). No explanation. Not overweight. In the end I after two abortions I felt fine it was meant to be so had a baby at 36. Didn't want to have an only child (I am one) so had another at 37. Then had my tubes tied. So I didn't want children but am a MN with children. Love them, of course. Perhaps not what I would have chosen.

I've never ever been pregnant.

I'm one of the few people I know without kids who have never been pregnant. I'm not including friends who've been pregnant and sadly miscarried or those who've had abortions.

My friend got pregnant a couple of years ago "by accident" but she felt she was running out of time (41) and she will now admit they weren't using contraception. Although even that isn't 100% effective.

That why I was saying to the op I disagree that when the pill for men is available it will reduce the birth rate. Men can use condoms, vasectomy, withdrawal and fertility tracking but still find themselves with multiple ‘accidental’ children or multiple children they were ‘tricked’ into having, so I really don’t think another form of contraception for men will change things much.

Sexually active 40 yrs. Accidentally pregnant once aged 35. He failed to pull out. Swift termination.

It’s probably that if people aren't 100% against getting pregnant then they aren’t as careful as they could be. That doesn’t mean they are trying to get pregnant. Then there’s error in using contraception, and it might fail accidentally as well.

If and when men have control of their fertility beyond not having sex ... then I think birth rates will plummet.
I strongly disagree. I'm amazed at how hard men will push/hassle/manipulate to ejaculate inside a woman with no condom, no discussion of contraception and no interest in her sexual pleasure.
I'm also amazed by how positively they often regard the possibility of a pregnancy, even the ones who carry on about not being tied down or trapped.
On the other hand, I've heard horrible stories from friends and relatives about men getting angry and abusive just before or after they've ejaculated inside the woman in question, accusing her of not taking responsibility for contraception, when he clearly hasn't done so either.
I think both sexes lie to themselves and each other about their responsibility for pregnancies; it's not just women.

The person who started this thread has children. Also this is the Mumsnetters without children board which is why those of us without children are posting here.

That poster didn’t say she would get pregnant to give it away and get maternity leave. She said if she got pregnant she would choose adoption over abortion and made a comment that she would take advantage of the maternity leave available to her. Childfree women are not purposely getting pregnant to have maternity leave.

MN without children wasn’t set up for parents either, especially ones who make nasty comments about childfree and childless women like calling us cold or abhorrent or asking us why we are here.

Yes I have. Condom broke, took the morning after pill within 12 hours but I must’ve already ovulated as it didn’t work and I got pregnant anyway. Had a termination.

I can’t take the pill for medical reasons so just use condoms and it hasn’t happened since, this was 10 years ago. Accidents do happen though they’re not all “accidents”. I know someone who got pregnant with a coil.

Birth rates are going down already. Fertility rates in the uk are at around 1.6 so clearly people are managing to use contraception pretty effectively. All my friends have the number of children they decided they wanted and no more. If contraception didn’t work many of us would have masses of children, like they did in the past.

I’m always shocked to hear people regarding the “pull out method” as a method of contraception, it’s not… sperm can be released before ejaculation which I thought was common knowledge.

This is so strange. There are far easier and less painful ways to get time off work!

Nope. Because I read leaflets that come with my pills....

So you're lucky then. If you were the 1 woman in 100 that gets pregnant a year while taking the pill perfectly, nothing would have changed, except your luck.

Of course some people are careless, and of course carelessness will result in more unplanned pregnancies than taking it properly. But plenty of women take their contraception perfectly, and still get pregnant. And they're not any different to you. Women can get pregnant on contraception that involves no action from them, like the coil. They can't have been doing it wrong, or being careless, they're just unlucky.

It's not lucky to fall into 99%+. It's unlucky to fall into the less than 1% failure rate. I am not lucky, simply majority, they were unlucky (if they really did it properly and took precast when pills would have been weakened).

Plenty of times I have seen on MN and elsewhere women being surprised that some medicine interacted with their contraception, that they didn't know D&V is an issue, that they didn't know x and y. It's all easily finedable. Accidental pregnancy rate on this site would sometimes suggest that no contraception works more than 5%...

I agree with coil, there really is no chance to fail through own actions. That is trully an accident.

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 also worked with a man who did the reverse. Wife didn't want kids so he left off the condom. Quite casual about announcing it, too.

Childfree and no accidents here.

Because this is the board for MNetters without children, in case you haven't noticed where you are. The board that MN agreed we could have, so that's why we're here. Why are you?

If you don't like our posts, please feel free to leave and find a board more to your liking.

@Sauerkrautsandwich fair enough - not unlucky then.

I just don't like the tone of some of the posts on here that accidental pregnancies are either a scheming woman trying to trap a man, or a stupid woman too foolish to read the instructions on the pill. And that women who haven't had an unplanned pregnancy are just better at it.

I am a mum of 2. I have never become pregnant accidentally and I'm shocked about how many people are so blasé about it.

Termination and not morning after pill?

Morning after pill is not always effective. It depends on your ovulation window