I have a hard time believing that the failure rate is 0%, since I can think of at least three ways abortion has been known to fail. First, it’s possible for a pregnancy to go completely undetected. Rare, I know, but you’re not going to successfully get an abortion if you don’t know you need one. Second, there have been cases of an abortion going wrong and resulting in a live birth. Again, rare, but it’s been known to happen. Third, it’s possible for complications from a botched abortion to endanger the woman. This doesn’t happen much nowadays, maybe, but you did leave open the question of the competence of the doctor.
If there’s a 4% chance of getting pregnant in a year, then over the course of 17 years there is a slightly greater than 50% chance of having at least one pregnancy.
I’ve been wondering about this for years:… Can anyone explain what causes the 2% “perfect use” failure rate of condoms? Does sperm slip thru the latex molecules 2% of the time, or something like that? … Or is it that a small percentage of condoms come defective with microscopic holes, or something of that nature?
What exactly goes wrong that 2% of the time (assuming “perfect use”)?
Thanks
It’s probably due primarily to the chance of breakage.
Defects in the condoms themselves. Either holes, like you mentioned, or random breakage, like Chronos mentioned.
Since the OP is seeking advice, this is probably better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
If she’s sure she doesn’t want kids, Essure is one option. It is done outpatient, in the doctor’s office, and while she needs to use backup for a time afterwards, many women are satisfied with the results. Cheaper than a tubal ligation, too.
And then you leave yourself wide open to the chance the woman may have a change of heart once she’s pregnant along the lines of “I’m almost at the end of my fertile years, this is probably my one chance to have a kid and I might regret it if I abort it so I’m going to keep it.” Then it sucks to be you, daddy!
Just get a vasectomy. If you are confident you don’t want kids, there’s no reason not to. Trying to rely on the pull out method or fertility awareness when you are serious about not getting pregnant is asking for trouble. If you think there is a chance you might want kids later on down the road, then just have some sperm stored before hand.
Not all advice is going to be useful, of course
Oral only; no one ever became pregnant as a result of oral sex.
Reminds me of an old parody song, about quite another very effective 
method:
I’ve got - rhythm -
I’ve got - rhythm -
I’ve got - TEN KIDS! -
Who could ask for anything more?
Thanks for all the great information and advice everyone. Much obliged!
Did she share on the board what the three methods were? (If she’s till around I could ask her directly.)
Depending on her exact issues with hormonal contraceptives, she might be able to handle something like the NuvaRing or Mirena, where there are hormones, but they’re typically localized rather than systemic. One of my best friends can’t take the pill, the patch, or Depo or anything else systemic because of the side effects-her hair falls out and she has unexplained panic attacks. But she uses Nuvaring with no problems whatsoever. I can’t take systemic hormones because I’m at increased risk for blood clots in my legs anyway, but I’m on my second Mirena.
But really, if you want something that’s not going to interfere with sex, doesn’t involve hormones, and is effective your best bets are generally going to be getting snipped. If, of course, you can convince someone to do that without having a kid or three first. Some doctors are very reluctant to sterilize non-parents because it’s such a permanent step, as though there’s anything in this world more permanent than parenthood.
It sounds like either she isn’t 100 percent sure about not having kids, or, perhaps more likely, she isn’t sure that you’re 100 percent sure about not wanting kids and feels she may be pressuring you into the decision. If you truly don’t want kids, assure her that you’re making the decision for yourself. Sounds like the best option.
Or a copper IUD.
My husband’s 40 and I’m 42, and any doctor he’s talked to had no problem with the idea of him getting a vasectomy (and we have no kids). I would hope that at 44 and 38 they wouldn’t treat it much differently. It’s not like you’re an 18 year old kid who actually might change their mind.
On a somewhat-related note, he had sedation dentistry last week to get eight fillings done at once (the needle thing again), and he said this weekend that we should have just rolled him on into the urologist to get the snip while he was still sedated - “You want to give me needles WHERE? Okay, whatever you like.”
My experience is a bit out of date. We mostly used IUDs which worked very well. Diaphragms were too much of a bother to try very much. My wife was very irregular, so any timing methods would not have worked well at all. No accidents. After our second daughter was born I had a vasectomy, which I’d highly recommend. We can say it was 100% effective since we are now past the age where we’d have to worry. We actually got motivated to get it because at that time it was almost impossible to get an IUD in the US (1986). We were thinking about going to Denmark to get one but decided that a vasectomy was easier, and used the money we saved for a cruise.
Our kids were on the pill. The younger one just went off our insurance so she got an IUD to save money.
My wife has a Masters and did research in reproductive physiology, so she’d be professionally insulted if one of our kids got pregnant. So far, so good.
I was going to get mad at you for not putting a pdf warning with that link, but then I realized that that was the most amazing thing I have ever read, so now I thank you.