Maximize your pill’s effectiveness. Despite claims that the pill can be 99% effective, each year 2-8% of women using the pill end up pregnant. If starting or adding to your family isn’t currently in your plans, please consider these following tips:

Timing. Over the years for health reasons, the levels of Estrogen in the pill have been reduced. Ensure you take the pill at the same day every day.

Don’t skip. If you miss a day, double the does the enxt day. Watch out for breakthrough bleeding and consider using secondary birth control that cycle.

Watch your alcohol consumption. Alcohol is metabolized by the liver and that may also affect the way the pill is absorbed by the body.

Antiboitics. The jury is currently out on this, some say it impacts the pills effectiveness, others say the blood levels are not impacted. If in doubt, break out the secondary birth control.

Generic drugs. FDA allows for generic drugs to contain up to 15% variation. So if you are a fertile myrtle, you might want to consider speading the extra bit of money for the assurance.

Am I taking away her childhood? My almost 3 year old loves everything that her 9 year old big sister loves, but she especially loves High School Musical. I have always thought it cute that she dances to the songs mimicing the gestures. (gratuitous picture to the right) But I never actually thought that exposing her to this could cause her to grow up too fast, that it would expose her to things that are too big for her to understand.

Did I do a big no-no? I don’t think so. Firstly, I think it would be hard for her to to not be exposed to some degree to the things her big sis loves. We don’t own a lot of paraphenalia, but my youngest does have her sisters HSM dolls in her Barbie box. I don’t see a big difference there. and I honestly don’t think she understand the whole storyline/theme of the movies - she appears to only like the songs and dances. So, if I am burying my head in the sand here, so be it. I will save my abundance of “mommy guilt” for things a little bit more significant, thank you very much!