It's one week before my period is supposed to start and a couple days ago, the day after I put on my last birth control patch, I had brown spotting with a couple of pink spots mixed in as well. At first I thought it might just be a spontaneous ovulation but the spotting hasn't stopped so yesterday I decided to use a trick that I learned when I was TTC my son a year ago. I took a q tip a swabbed the inside of my vagina, when you're TTC it's supposed to be a way to tell if your period is about to start. Well, there was bright red blood on the q tip but it's not coming out. All I get is a few brown or pink spots when I look at my pad. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to ask is why is this happening a week before my period is supposed to start and why is the blood not coming out?