Missed Birth Control Pills: What To Do & Stay Protected

Question
I accidentally missed two days of birth control pills...Thursday and Friday night. Today is Saturday and I was gonna take the two missed pills together right now and then take Saturday's pill at the normal time (9 pm)...so I'd be taking 3 pills in one day...is that ok? Will it help me get back on track and be protected? I'm on Ortho Cept. But then I just dropped one pill down the drain so I don't know what to do now! Do I take the next pill in the pack, will it mess up my whole schedule?

Also, this morning I had a tiny bit of blood when I went pee. Is this my period starting early, or is it just spotting because I missed a couple active pills? And will it go away once I take the pills I missed, or will I still get this bleeding early? (I'd rather not be on my period right now). Also, I had unprotected sex on one of the nights I missed a pill, but since I'm getting some bleeding, does this mean I am not pregnant?

Answer
If you miss one pill then you can simply take it on the next day. Like if you missed the pill on Friday, then you must take two pills on Saturday and continue with you schedule on Sunday. Even if you missed two pills take only two pills. Like in your case you missed a pill on Thursday and Friday. So you will again take two pills on Saturday, one for Saturday and one for Friday. The pill you missed on Thursday is taken as missed. But do not miss your pills two or three days in a row as this will affect the contraceptive benefit of the pills.

As far as the problem of missing pills go, I generally advice my patients to keep two strips of the pill with them. One strip is for regular use, while the other is exclusively for use when you drop your pill in drain or something like that. This way you will generally not mess with your schedule as dictated by the strip.

It could be periods depending on which part of your cycle you were in. The pills taken today are biphasic. If you were in the later half of the cycle then it is possible that because of the missed pills you are probably having periods which we call as breakthrough bleeding. So periods is entirely possible, and once it has started there is nothing you can do to stop it. Similarly if you have your periods, then you can't be pregnant.