Okay so just to preface I do NOT want to have kids and if I ever did it’d be when I was 28-35.
My ex and I have had unprotected sex the majority of the time since July 2017 and I’ve never once had a pregnancy scare. I’ve been on BC the entire time (nexplanon to depo to Paraguard). We’ve only tried using condoms about 10-15 times at best.
Is this expected/normal that I’ve had zero scares the last 4-5 years? I’ve seen so many targeted TikTok posts of people saying “I’ve never used protection and never gotten pregnant” and then the response is “That’s infertility”.
I know I likely have endometriosis or some kind of problem along those lines that I’ve had for 7 years, and I’m going to have an exploratory surgery done soon to identify the problem. But I was just curious if my situation of not getting pregnant all this time while on BC is normal?
Honestly? It’s a crapshoot. Infertility is so specific and complicated and affects folks in so many different ways. I have a disease called PCOS which is one of the leading causes of infertility (which works well for me because I also do not want to have kids), but then a lot of folks with PCOS get pregnant, and I’ve seen some studies saying that fertility gets better for folks with PCOS the older they get.
Also it depends when you were having sex during your cycle. And your cycle in general, do you have a regular period or is it irregular? There are just so many factors that come into play. Honestly I think when it comes to the human body, especially for those of us born with a uterus, anything outside the realm of super fertile is considered abnormal, which also ends up being majority of people. Also there are all sorts of things that can make it harder to get pregnant, but still not make someone infertile, so it could always be something else as well.
So I’d rather venture the question what is normal? And I’d say both having pregnancy scares and not having them while both on and off birth control is normal. Unless you go through testing and are actively trying to get pregnant and doctors rule out a lot of stuff, you aren’t really classified as having infertility issues until that point. Since I’m not trying, I’m not even considered technically infertile, just that my OBGYN knows that I likely would have issues with fertility if I wanted to conceive because of my irregular periods.