An Unplanned Pregnancy

The mini-pill Cerazette

A Canadian niece and her pill: A good friend and dancer who works for another casino called the other day to ask my advice. She has a 17 y/o niece, Cecily, visiting from Canada who is on Cerazette, a mini-pill that uses only the progestin, Desogestrel and wants to get her into a dive-sex class. She wanted to know who to talk to, to get her on a list for classes since they aren’t publicly advertised. She really should have asked weeks ago when she asked me to get Cecily into a good pointe class while she is here. I was able to get her into a summer advanced pointe that Taryn is taking so they pal around together and I’m sure Taryn has been telling her how awesome dive-sex is. I guess I should have known, right? I was able to get her an appointment for a pelvic which is a prerequisite for a slot in any DS class. She was also to be fitted for a cervical barrier – usually a strapless FemCap - at the same time which she will need for over-pressure protection.

So, her mom took her to our clinic for her pelvic. And guess what? Cecily was about 6 weeks preggers! I got a panic call about what should they do because her summer was ruined. Well, not really, just complicated a bit. Cecily is smart and has her heart set on being a scientist and being a single mom at 18 isn’t in her plans, which made her choices a lot easier. They were: 1) to take Mifeprex or 2) have a Vacuum Aspiration, and since they were already there I suggested she go ahead and have the VA. She did and had a local anesthetic because they had to dilate her cervix and use a larger cannula, because of the additional tissue, than the 4mm that is routinely used on me. She will return in two weeks for a follow up ultrasound and to be fitted with a diaphragm for dive-sex. So that just set her back two weeks as far as DS lessons are concerned, but it meant I was able to get her into one of the classes the casino offers which worked out well at least in that regard. Meanwhile she is on an antibiotic and ibuprofen for discomfort. She seems her normal bubbly self and shows no psychological scars from her decision and never missed a pointe class with Taryn. With a pill like Cerazette that just has progestin in it there are no hormone free days or regular pill-periods an active pill is taken every day 365 days a year and sometimes the woman stops bleeding entirely as did Cecily so there was no way for her to know, that early that she was a bit preggers.

Cerazette is a great birth control pill and a case can be made that it is better than combined estrogen/progestin pills because it suppresses ovulation 99% of the time and thickened cervical mucus is its secondary contraceptive mechanism. And, with Cerazette a woman can miss her pill time by as much as 12 hours w/o decreasing her protection. But 99% isn’t perfect and she got caught. Fortunately she is fine and should be back having sex again in about two weeks. In the meantime she is still taking her pills on schedule to reestablish her hormonal protection.