Expert: Pat G - 8/20/2010

Question
I had an abortion on the 23rd of july. I had spotting and bleeding for about two wks and it stopped. However two weeks later i was spotting again. My question concerns when one can get pregnant after an abortion. I had sex the morning of my abortion. He didnt ejaculate inside me. I was wondering if it was still possible for me to get pregnant if i had sex the morning of my abortion. It was approximately 8 hours before. I'm sacred because it is possible to fall pregnant even if he didnt ejaculate inside me. I feel like i shouldnt be worried since there was no egg to fertilize but i know sperm can stay alive in the body for a few days. Im feeling nauseous now so i'm worried.

Answer
Hello, Star,

You didn't say what kind of abortion you had, and that's important. From what you said, I'm guessing you had a surgical abortion.

It is almost impossible that you could get pregnant from having sex on the same day as your abortion. Unless your pregnancy was weak enough that miscarriage was inevitable, you won't have ovulated. It usually takes days to weeks for a woman's hormones to return to a point where ovulation will occur. I won't say it never happens that a woman ovulates while pregnant, because it happened to me. However, in my case, the pregnancy would have ended naturally if I hadn't conceived again from that ovulation. I also knew a woman who was conceived two months after her twin. But these are extremely rare instances, and I wouldn't worry about this if I were you.

Pulling out doesn't work. All it takes is one drop of semen in or near the vagina for pregnancy to occur. So in the future, don't rely on pulling out. Don't rely on "protection", either. And birth control is prone to failure, especially if the two people are not married to each other. Unless you want to have another abortion, don't have sex. If you are married, learn how to tell when you are fertile. Then you can avoid sex when you are fertile if you don't want a child.

Your spotting is most likely a result of the fact they damaged your body doing an abortion. Damage is inevitable. It happens to everyone. Sometimes, it seems like a woman gets away with it, but sooner or later, she will learn how it damaged her body.

Nausea can be caused by flu or food poisoning. And not every woman experiences nausea with pregnancy. See if your symptoms of nausea end within a few days. It could also be caused if you are taking some medication that causes nausea, or if there is some other situation in your life that is upsetting your system. It could be caused by a food allergy. Given how abortion disrupts a woman's natural balance, it could be a factor.

Please let me know how you do. Feel free to ask any other questions that are on your mind. Take care.