Birth Control & Pregnancies

Pregnancy Rates for Birth Control Methods
(For One Year of Use)
The following table provides estimates of the percent of women likely to become pregnant while using a particular contraceptive method for one year. These estimates are based on a variety of studies.
"Typical Use" rates mean that the method either was not always used correctly or was not used with every act of sexual intercourse (e.g., sometimes forgot to take a birth control pill as directed and became pregnant), or was used correctly but failed anyway.
"Lowest Expected" rates mean that the method was always used correctly with every act of sexual intercourse but failed anyway (e.g., always took a birth control pill as directed but still became pregnant).


Birth Control Methods & Pregnancy Rates
Method Typical Pregnancy Rate Lowest Pregnancy Rate
Male Sterilization 0.15% 0.1%
Female Sterilization 0.5% 0.5%
Implant (Norplant) 0.09% 0.09%
Hormone Shot 0.3% 0.3%
Combined Pill 5% 0.1%
Minipill 5% 0.5%
IUD 0.8% 0.6%
Male Latex Condoms 14% 3%
Diaphragm 20% 6%
Sponge (no births) 20% 9%
Sponge (births) 40% 20%
Cervical Cap (no births) 20% 9%
Cervical Cap (births) 40% 26%
Spermicide 26% 6%
Withdrawal 19% 4%
Natural Planning 25% 1-9%
No Method 85% 85%

This isn't the original table I had found but pretty close. The only ones that really shock me are the condom and withdrawl. You are "almost" as likely to get pregnant using a condom properly as you are to pull out. Although with the amount of people who are pregnant that I know, I'm pretty sure that my high school taught the "no method" as offical birth control. Which I guess is really what you are teaching when you don't mention sex education in school. I think if my health teacher had said 85/100 of you will get pregnant if you don't at least pull out, I would have avoided having sex! But than again if my teacher had said 4/100 of you will get pregnant if he pulls out and 3/100 of you will get pregnant if he uses a condom, it would have made it a lot harder to convince a guy to wear a condom, unless those gross STD pictures did it for him...

Savings

I just opened a savings account!! I had one until college and than I closed it because sadly it was empty. I have decided to start saving AT LEAST $50/month and pretend that money doesn't exsist. So not only in addition to just trying to spend less than I am currently making, I will be saving more money. Wish me Luck!

Date Rape

What is considered "date rape?" I have been reading my Xanga a lot lately, just because so many more people post on it and I love getting to read other peoples stories but I only post on my blogger (whatever this is) A girl on Xanga was posting asking if she had been date raped one time because she got really drunk and high with a guy and remembers telling him no to sex but woke up sore. It left me wondering if I'd been date raped? Labor Day weekend of my freshman year of college I went home and went to a neighbors party. The guy I had dated all of my senior year was there and to avoid having to talk to him I got wasted and remember throwing up outside of the house we were at, CLASSY!! My best friend let him take me home. Other bits and pieces were filled in by my best friend the next day, maybe I should not consider her even a friend anymore. My car was parked at the gas station and without drawing a map its rather confusing because the party was about a mile south of my house and the gas station was about a mile north of my house so I had to drive past my house to get my car. I remember waking up, or whatever you call it when you aren't blacked out anymore, to Matt having sex with me in his car behind the gas station, again I state Classy! I remember mumbling that I had thrown up and to stop I wanted to go home because I was obviously drunk. And than I woke up in my bed the next morning with my car in the garage so?? Is it considered just drunken sex or would it be classified as date rape? At this point we had been broken up for 4 months and I was sleeping with someone else in Springfield. He had been doing heavy drugs and cheating on me with another girl which is why we broke up and even though he still called me, I never wanted to talk to him again.

Jon & Kate

I am sitting here watching Jon & Kate plus 8 talk about their divorce and find myself suprisingly attached to this show. Is Kate a major cunt? YOU BET! Is Jon a major douche who needs to grow a pair? YES! I have watched the show all along and actually enjoyed watching them bicker and fight like a real family. It all seemed so real until this season when Kate started dressing up (heels & a skirt to run errands??? she use to wear sweats 24/7) and Jon started wearing Ed Hardy and having pierced ears. They started to do everything seperately and the show started sucking but now they are getting a divorce. I think the divorce effects me because I know what being a divorced child is like. It seems to me like Jon & Kate did nothing to try and work on their marriage and I hope they realize what they are getting into. They will still have to work together and be together a lot so does the divorce really change anything? Jon skipped her birthday and their anniversary... just last year they renewed their vows claiming they would "be together forever??" Was that all just a joke to get viewers? What happens next?

Pet Peeves

My Pet Peeves:

1. sucking snot thru your nose...use a kleenex
2. slow traffic-use the right lane
3. girls who bitch about their weight when they weight 90lbs.
4. being treated like i'm 12 and unable to do anything without it being explained to ridiculous details
5. i will add to this list later

Memories

I spent the day with my mom house shopping. She is currently living in my grandmas house while my grandma is in a nursing home so her "house" is filled with lots of old woman memories. My grandma literally saved EVERYTHING! She has every letter written back and forth from her and my grandpa while he was at war. She has all of my 3 uncles army uniforms and a lot of my moms clothes (including her first communion dress) which is amazing. I even came across old stamp books from the war and her graduation diploma from 1935. It makes me feel bad because I throw away EVERYTHING but than again I don't know if my memories will ever be as awesome as hers. I grabbed some old photos from her enormious collection which I plan to blow up and have framed, I'm also in the process of getting a frame put together to frame some letters from her collection for my wall in my office. I love her old stuff because it has soo much family memories and history. My grandpa wanted a picture of her in a swimsuit when he was away at war so she sent him one, with her head cut off. LOL I found the one w/ her head cut off and also the original. I'm going to frame the original in my bathroom. I told my Grandma and she was so embarressed that I had found the photo.

VENTING on Cheating

I have ALWAYS had a low tolerance for cheating. In HS my boyfriend lost his virginity to a random girl at a Mizzou party, and I still think Mizzou girls are slutty. We broke up and ironically 2 years later I was crying on his shoulder when I found out my dad was cheating on my mom. I think at that moment he probably realized how much he had hurt me and that he was a good friend of mine who I trusted. We still talk occasionally and are pretty good friends for being my "first real boyfriend" 3 years after Adam cheated on me, my boyfriend at that time would cheat on me and be one of 8 possible fathers for a girls baby. Both of those relationships are actually really irrelevant to this blog. When I was 16 years old my father began having an affair with another teacher at his school, she was recently divorced and when married was a friend of my parents who came to a few parties at our house. My dad moved out and served my mother with divorce papers when I turned 18. We are just now 6 years later beginning to have a decent relationship, he has called me on the phone several times in the last month and visited my house twice in a year, the third time to Springfield in my whole college career. So I have had a huge problem with people who cheat, more so women than men. I'm not sure why women bother me more, maybe because I assume this woman came on to my dad, maybe because I think of them abandoning their families.
So tonight when we went to Piano Bar for my "free" party and Blake started inviting his work friends I decided I needed to leave. Blake works with a girl who was cheating with a guy at work. She was married and he had a pregnant wife. Her husband found out and divorced her, he packed up his family and moved to Columbia to get away. Blake is out of town a lot for work at other banks and almost always with 8-10 other co-workers. So it was "easy" for these two to have an affair because no one questioned their being out of town together two weeks a month. I said hello to her and than waited 5 minutes for Blake and another guy he works with to have her chug 3 beers before telling them I had to go home because I have to work tomorrow. Blake is on his home to get home if he does at all... I couldn't even stand to look at her because I had known what she had done, to her husband and her "boyfriends" family.
I also know of another guy Blake works with, I use to work with him at the bank. J's wife was having an affair (or maybe still is) with her boss. Her boss got divorced and left his wife and 2 kids. I am sure that J has to know but than again his wife still works for the same man and is still together with his wife... I give him serious props for being able to stay with her if he knows because I know that I could not do that!! But how easy was it for her to cheat, her husband was out of town 1/2 the time and she just had a small child who didn't know the difference. How sad!! I just don't understand how anyone could do that to someone they "love" and especially to their family. I have seen first hand how someone cheating effects the family. Until the age of 16, and even until my mom told me my dad was cheating, I thought my family was perfect. My parents fought but not a lot and never over anything serious. They were always really affectate and loving towards each other, I never once thought my parents would get a divorce until the day he left. Even to this day I will always question my relationships because if after 18 years of "happiness" a divorce happened....how long do you have to be married before it's "safe?" Is it ever safe?

Puppies

I spent morning at Petsmart checking out all the puppies and almost came home with what can only be described as a "winston/leroy puppy" it was a small black puppy with curly fur (literally a mutt mix of the two) she was a SherPay named Betty and was super sweet. If Blake wouldn't kill me I would have brought her home. We watched Ashley's dog Lexie aka "Devil Dog" Thursday-Saturday so he was on a serious NO DOGS kick. Lexie shit on the floor twice, in her crate twice and threw up. She spent all day Saturday outside!! She wasn't even in her crate that long and was given the chance to go outside every 4 hours, just like the boys... MISERABLE!!

Saturday night we took a friends little girl to Petland to look at the puppies, I would never buy a puppy from them, they are puppy mill puppies and I've heard sooo many people say "I would only buy a puppy from them because I feel bad for the puppies" SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?? They make LOTS of money when you buy their puppies, they make the same amount if you feel bad for the puppies or if you just want one. They had a "mixed breed puppy" at Petland, it didn't have a price but I'm sure it was at least $400. $400 for a MUTT you could get at the Humane Society for $65?? They had kittens for $170, Kittens at the Humane Society are $40. Yes the Petland kittens included a vet visit and all its shots and was fixed. SO is a Human Society kitten AND a tax deduction!! You can also rescue lots of puppies, even purebreds! Almost every breed has a "Rescue" group that will allow you to adopt and they frequently get puppies even brand newborns up for adoption. Purebreds at half price and you are rescuing a helpless life.

Which brings me on to the Springfield Animal Control. I understand that they can't keep all the animals they get, its a fact of life that people who don't spay/neuter their animals have unwanted babies. So they end up with strays or dumped animals that no one wants. Leroy isn't fixed, Blake won't fix him but we don't let him near any female dogs and especially not around unfixed females. However having unwanted puppies and disregarding them as trash is another situation. The Springfield Animal Control accepts dumped animals, which absolutely breaks my heart, there are currently 2 tan labs on their website that will be terminated today, and picks up strays found, some with collars on. They keep the animals for 5 days before they kill them, or CARE animal rescue can come get them but their also a full rescue place. Recently their was a Westie on the Animal Controls website, she was going to be killed today. My mom works with Westie Rescue, thats where she got Sparky, and all our Westies are rescues of some kind. So my mom called me freaking out Monday night because she wanted me to save this westie girl, she was well groomed and so precious. Animal Control won't let Westie Rescue just adopt a dog from them, they also won't let anyone come get the dogs, it has to be CARE or the owner. So I went to CARE Tuesday to get the little girl, I was going to name her Ella (don't know why...) THANKFULLY she was picked up by her owner, less than 24 hours before she would have died... and NOW I can't stop thinking about all those puppies that die at Animal Control or in Puppy Mills!! I even had a nightmare that I was going around killing dogs at puppy mills.

Drugs

I just have to say I am thankful I am not a teen these days, and I'm only 22. My mom is a high school counselor at Osage Beach and said that if there was a city in Missouri that had "a lot to do" that would be it but the kids say there is "nothing to do except do drugs and drink" which is the way my hometown was. Population 485, lots of drinking and drug usage went on but that was all by choice. I did drink in HS, I only got WASTED twice in HS, my first time 3 beers = my throwing up on my bathroom floor. Second time was the only weekend my mom left me home alone and I went out and drank hardcore which resulted in me passing out by 9 on the bathroom floor at a party, being driven home and throwing up on myself than losing my virgnity to the guy who drove me home. I didn't drink heavily for a while after that and still try not to. Almost all of my friends did drugs when I was in HS. My boyfriend would smoke meth with one of my best friends (I didn't know the meth part) and everyone I knew who didn't hang out with their parents on the weekends smoked pot except my best friend and me. It wasn't like I never got asked to smoke pot, I just never wanted to and I still don't. So when Blake's mom tries to give me the reasons they figured out in counseling that Taylor smokes I just wanted to shake her. I am sure that drugs now are worse than they were when I was in HS but even the "pot heads" functioned well and went to school regularly. Taylor said that when his brother and sister went off to college he was really lonely and all his friends did drugs so he joined them. Donna than said that Taylor has a lot of friends from broken homes and when their parents divorced it led them to doing drugs... BULLSHIT!! My parents were divorced and honestly I think that a divorce at 16 is worse than at 6. I saw a "happy family" for a long time before it just split apart and I didn't know why. I didn't do drugs than! Almost all of my friends did drugs and I still told them no. My brother left for college the same summer my dad moved out. It went from a 4 person house to a 2 person house in a matter of weeks and I didn't do drugs. So all of those seem like piss poor excuses for being selfish.

Pregnancy and Abortions

I just found out a good friend of mine is pregnant with her second child. Her oldest baby just turned 1 in March. She was engaged to her "babys daddy" for a few months (the wedding I own a brides maids dress for and never wore) and he became abusive so she left him. Not even a mont later, she literally moved out of her babys daddy house and into her new boyfriends parents house, with her daughter. His parents watched her daughter while they went out and partied, people she didn't even know. Her life was basically a slow motion train wreck. So she is working on getting back together with her babys daddy and finds out she is pregnant from her boyfriend. She was trying to break up with him but he wanted sex so she gave it to him, he didn't want to use protection so she didn't make him. So obviously she got knocked up, its like a girl trying to get pregnant to keep a guy around. He doesn't want her to leave him if she is pregnant with his baby, she doesn't want to be with him because her daughter doesn't have her father around... she is talking about getting an abortion. I totally don't know what I would do in her situation but to have a daughter already and not keep your next baby because you don't like the father anymore. I just hope she makes the right decision. Her younger sister just had a baby 10 months ago and is pregnant with her second baby boy (both different dads, will be 13 months apart in age) and her older brother has two kids by two different women so its not like her family will be disapointed in her. There is an older sister who doesn't have any kids and two younger brothers who aren't old enough to knock up chicks yet. 6 kids, 3 on baby #2, 3 w/o any babies if you're trying to follow.

Update

I finished reading "Secret Life of Bees" and LOVED it! I would have never read it if it wasn't for a lady I work with telling me that if she had written a book about her life it would have been this book. It was a sad book just because I could really imagine her living this life but I enjoyed it and would read it again.
I survived Vegas, down $80 (not bad for a 4 day trip) missed out on a LOT of sleep, 5-6 hours a night and than none stop running around the rest of the time. 4 days was NOT enough!! There was soo much we didn't get to see, Real Life Lions at the MGM, Pirate Show at Treasure Island, we didn't go downtown at all and only made it 2 miles from our hotel in any direction. I am so ready to go back but not for a while. It was not hot there (luckily) it was only in the 80s but the week before it was in the 100s. So we didn't ever go in the pool, no humidity makes 80 actually feel really cool.
I'm currently in summer school, F U MSU!! 2 hours every Monday & Wednesday for 8 weeks, learning about Banking. I've already had my teacher for a class last semester so he loves me and I know it's going to be pretty easy, yesterday was my first class and I already have a test tomorrow... still haven't bought the book. Its actually an interesting class but it really cramps my work style.
Which brings me onto work, I got a "promotion" it hasn't come with a payraise just yet but I am now "head of marketing and sales" in addition to being the "head interior designer" I was already doing some marketing and our sales guy quit today so I got his job also. Even if I just get 1/2 of his paycheck I'll be happy. Plus I'll be extra busy, so busy my head will spin until I can get some design jobs, and all without a college degree :)

Didn't Graduate

So today I got a letter in the mail saying I was removed from the Spring 2009 graduation list at Missouri State because "Lacking 1 of the 125 credit hours required to graduate" I was confused, I had 128 hours of credit. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a very nice lady in the graduation department who explained I only had 39 of 40 hours in upper division... Apparently my advisor forgot to forward an e-mail to me in FEBRUARY that I was lacking 1 hour. The worst part of this is that I've had 3 advisors this semester, 1 quit, 1 was a temporary and than the last and final one is a newbie! So they aren't sure which advisor failed to e-mail me. In addition to this are 2 mistakes from a previous advisor that added to this one. My sophomore spring semester I only took 14 hours, my advisor advised me to not take more than that because "my classes would be difficult" this left me as a "sophomore" over the summer which meant that my financial aid would not increase yet. This meant that my financial aid WOULD have paid for my to go to Italy for 3 weeks in the summer but my advisor had advised me not to take that extra class which meant, NO ITALY. That class would have counted towards my 40 hours...
Than my advisor suggested I only take 4 hours of Internship classes last summer instead of 6. I did all the work for the 6 hours but didn't want to pay the extra fees to take the extra 2 hours so I agreed. This also would have counted towards my 40 hours... My advisor technically screwed me out of 5 hours that would have counted towards my 40 hours and instead left me 1 under and NO ONE CAUGHT IT!! Not until June 1... 15 days after my "Graduation" this means that starting Monday I will be taking a summer school class so I can GRADUATE in August!
My teacher is one I just had last last semester for Business Law and he actually made it interesting so I'm not completely dreading the class. Luckily my work is very flexible and will let me out of work from 1-2:50pm on Mondays & Wednesdays to take my class. It just means it will cost me $270 plus book materials to get my diploma which I was pretty sure May 15th I was going to get!

My mom said that I WOULD NOT be getting another graduation party... :(

Animals

Most people know I am a 'crazy dog lady' I will admit that if I saw a trashy person and their dog on the street, I would try to save their dog and let them lay there. I was even sneaking my neighbors starving dog bologna and bought him a bag of dog food so I could feed him when they obviously weren't until they moved away. I'm a pretty cold person towards other humans, I look at it as humans have made their own choices, the dog next to them can't. I have a strong hatred towards people who mistreat animals. I am a follower of animals being a better judge of character than people. I trust those my dogs love and avoid those my dogs growl at. I am a strong believer in rescuing animals, all 4 of my dogs (2 my mom has and my 2) are all rescues and I just can't imagine paying for a puppy when there are millions of dogs everyday killed because no one wants them. If you ever want to cry, go to http://www.springfieldmo.gov/health/dogDisclaimer.html and view the animals that are currently on death row in Springfield alone! These animals are allowed 5 days, if no one claims them, they are killed!! All for getting lost?? We don't do that to humans!! I look at my dogs especially as my children, I give them the best I can. I feel bad for my dogs when they can't go outside and play or when they don't eat their dinner right away. If I'm away from home for a long day 10+ hours I worry that they will think I abandoned them.
So after all my feelings about how much I care for my animals. I cannot wrap my brain around people who just abandon their animals!! I know a girl who is in tears because she has to give up her pet because her apartment does not allow them. Did she not consider that when she was looking at apartments?? It isn't like she didn't have a choice where she lived, lots of places in town allow pets!! My mom has a dog who after 6 years his family gave him away because "he got dirty too much" AFTER 6 YEARS?? I only had Leroy 6 weeks and even though he had peed on me and kept me awake all night with his whimpering I still couldn't giie him up. And I know that in 5 years there is no way I could give him up! I also see families giving away pets because "we don't have time" than claiming the animal "needs little attention", you just said you didn't have time so how much attention does it really need?? Animals need attention, they take time! Its a commitment you made when you bought the animal. Or the economy doesn't allow me to keep my pet. I call BULLSHIT. My dogs are spoiled rotten and I still don't spend more than $100/month on both of them including vet bills. Bare bones I could feed them Ol'Roy and just get them their yearly shots, estimate they would cost me $250/year. If my job working $7/hour part time allowed me to spoil my dogs they way I do than I'm sure people who are working at least a minimum wage job full time could afford Ol'Roy.

Oprah

I have been reading a blog on blogspot - Living Oprah - this lady lived by Oprahs every word for 1 year -2008. She watched Oprah daily, read her magazine every month, visited her website for any advice she needed. If Oprah said "you must go see Celine Dion in concert" she went and bought tickets to see it. It was a really interesting blog because not only did she tell you everything Oprah wanted "America" to do but also what she thought about her experiences.
I read the blog and anytime she mentioned a book I added it to my Amazon shopping cart. 6 books later I spent almost $40 and $25 of that was on shipping!! You can tell that "The Oprah Effect" has led millions of American women to have books that she swore they had to read. 6 months later, they are all trying to sell their books on amazon for any money they can get to declutter (which is one of the books I bought -ironic YES) So in 6-8 days I will have 6 new books to read, my proudest was a book I bought for $0.77 plus $3.99 in shipping but you can't find books for even $4.78 anywhere, yeah I could have libraried them but I have this addiction to books. My shelves are filled at my parents home with books and here too. I have my favorites -anything by Nicholas Sparks, especially THE WEDDING, its the "sequel" to The Notebook and it makes me bawl my eyes out everytime I read it, I think I just finished my 6th time. And there are books I have never read, lots of them from Blakes mom I just haven't gotten around to. But as part of my new found Adult world, I will be reading more!! Not having to read textbooks always puts me in the mood to read. Currently reading -The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

10 Things I wanna see, do and/or experience in this lifetime!

1. I want to travel Europe, I don't know if I have a specific place I want to go or how I want to travel I just know I want to see Europe in real life.
2. I want to see a lot of the "1,000 places to see before you die"
3. I want to go to every one of the 50 states. I haven't counted lately but I have probably reached the halfway mark on some of the near by states to Missouri.
4. I want to own my own business, be my own boss, run my own show. I minored in General Business with this very plan in mine.
5. I want to witness a miracle.
6. I want one of my Interior Designs to be featured in a magazine.
7. I want to raise a family, healthy children and smart.
8. I want to have more time to read, for enjoyment.
9. I want to be financially secure, enough money to put plenty into savings, pay all of my bills and enjoy some of it for my own desires.
10. I want to be in better shape, physically, exercise & eating.