Expert: Norman Solberg - 8/14/2009

Question
Recently i messed up on taking my birth control and started my period early then when i finished my period i finished the last week of pills from that pack before starting a new one. The last couple of days i have had a clear mucus like discharge. Then yesterday i had sex and it was fine at first then started it started to hurt so we stopped. I went to the bathroom and the discharge was still mucus like but had a little blood in it. I thought it was because i was in pain but i felt fine today and i went to the bathroom again and had a good amount of new blood come out. Did i mess up my birth control and cause my body to react weird? Am i pregnant?

Answer
You did mess up the pills and caused your body to react weird.  Most likely you're not pregnant, and it will just take a little time for things to get back to normal.  In the future, if you miss pills and a period comes, you can stay off the pills for about 4 days, restart a new pack (or finish the ACTIVE pills and go straight to a new pack).  The important things is if you stop before taking 21 pills, you're at risk for pregnancy, so you need to use a backup method until you're back on active pills for at least a week.  It's OK to use more than 21 active pills, but not less, and it's OK to be off the active pills for less than 7 days, but not more, for the pills to really protect you from pregnancy.  For now, I would just keep taking the pills as prescribed and things will take care of themselves.