Posted: 8/18/2008 5:50:27 PM EDT
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Did any of you get false negatives on home pregnancy test when you were actually pregnant? We have been trying for 6 months and I am almost 2 weeks late with a few other symptoms of pregnancy. I'm in no rush but this waiting around for something to happen is killing me. I have taken a total of three home pregnancy test and all have come up negative. I know it does happen but how often? I have been on a ton of antibiotics for bladder infections but couldnt find in any way that they would affect the test results. How long would be a good time to wait until a doctors appointment is made just to make sure its a negative? Thanks! |
Some of those tests can tell up to a week before your period is due. Ask me how I know... never mind... I'll tell you... "my name is Persephone and I was a pee-stick addict when I was trying to conceive." Are there counseling groups for that???  If you're past the date of your cycle by two weeks and they still aren't showing a positive, I'd bet stress and the antibiotics are what's throwing you off.  You'd have to have ovulated REALLY late for you to be preggers and not testing positive at this point. Possible I suppose, but not very likely. Still, check with your doctor.www.babyhopes.com/pages.php?pageid=12 
Most of the tests in the chart pick up hCG at 25mIU. HUGE +1 on the probiotics (yogurt) you wanna get that gut flora back up to standard. You can also find probiotics in the vitamins section. The good ones are refrigerated. |
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Sometimes it takes forever. My coworker and his wife took 10 months to get pregnant. My best friend has been trying 6 months now and still nothing. Sometimes it can take time. My former roomie thought she was pregnant... she was 11 days late and was having funny cramps and nausea, but no go. Don't lose hope. When it happens it happens. Although pushing 2 weeks late sounds hopeful 
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Its a big no for this time. But we will just keep trying. Going to try the ovulation kits again and hopefully they will work a little better this time. thanks for all the advice and I will update if anything changes. I am so ready for it to be possitive because i have a room in my house that desperatly needs painting. The former owners had a John Deere themed room. That doesnt really bother me but having green and yellow alternating walls is a bit much. I am holding off on the paint till we get pregnant. What made it really odd was that the former owners dont have kids so the room decked out in toys and stuff was a little wierd. |
At least have fun while you're trying! Also, about the room...we don't have kids, but we do have two nieces and a nephew that are over at our house on a regular basis, so we have a kids' room. |
I dont mind having a room with some toys in it but to have it all themed out. Including the walls, the twin size bed, comforter, dresser, and anything else that was in there even the inside of closet is painted green. I'm sure they are collecting the john deere stuff but it just kinda seems wierd just sitting there not being used. |
The nausea can last all day. I am not sure about how to help nausea. My mom always suggested saltines and sips of water until it passed. The fatigue can can be pretty bad in the 1st trimester, slack off for second, and come back for the 3rd. It is kind of like the nausea. It depends. I will say thta I could tell a difference in the days I took my prenatal vitamin, vs the days I did not. I had worse trouble with heart burn. I thought I was dying of a heart attack. I was told by my midwife to try papaya juice, tea? It has been 9 years, so I can't remember exactly what. I just remember papaya.  Sorry.
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I like Dr. Sears' books. Read up!  The Pregnancy Book The Birth Book The Breastfeeding Book |
The worst part, I will never be pregnant again, but I still suffer from it every now and then. It will wake me up and I have to sleep upright for it to go away. I hate sleeping upright! Silly me! I thought once I was done having kids, heartburn was done with me!  
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Yes, it can last all day long and it can last the entire 9 months. And it can be different with each pregnancy. I couldn't even look at a glass of water without getting heartburn. I was eating Tums like it was cool. The doc gave me the okay to take Gaviscon and that helped. I would check with your doc to see if there is something more than Tums that might help. One doc also recommended eating an apple before bed...that did seem to help some. The worst nights I would just stand against the bedroom wall for hours. For me, the fatigue was always the worst in the 1st trimester and at the very end of the 3rd. There was a burst of energy when nesting kicked in. -Mrs.Monk |
Ah, nesting. A really wonderful indicator that the time is coming very soon. I remember my family trying to send me to bed because I was cleaning and driving them crazy  With my second, I started to nest and wondered because I was too far out. Sure enough, I had that one two weeks early. It is a real indicator of impending birth (within 3 day, I think for me). I'd be curious if any others here marked the time frame between nesting and giving birth. |
Three words: Natural Family Planning It works very well for those having difficulty conceiving, since that is what it was designed for. For those who don't have difficulty conceiving (i.e. my wife), it helps space children where you want them. We started NFP after our second one was born. Her peak day was very obvious, and we have 18mo to 3yrs between our other children. Switching from avoiding pregnancy to trying to conceive doesn't involve waiting for months after quitting oral contraceptives, having to go to the doc to get an iud removed, etc. All you do is change what days y'all do the baby dance. The other benefits of NFP are a huge advantage, too. It increases communication and respect between spouses. It teaches self control, and how to expand the variety of expressions of intimacy other than sex (lots of guys need to learn this). |
Hear, hear! Stress will delay ovulation, even causing what is called a "double peak." The body reacts to stress by suppressing ovulation as a self-preservation method, allowing ovulation to occur later. The physical signs of ovulation are there, but the egg isn't. The second round of peak-type signs is usually accompanied by ovulation. This happened this past month for my wife. She was ovulating about the time that she normally starts her next cycle. |
NFP seems to be the domain of Catholics. However, while my wife and I aren't Catholic we used NFP, although not in the strictest sense since we used barrier methods during the "hot" times when we didn't want to conceive. I have to say it was quite neat to dial into the day when we were almost certain we were going to conceive. Now for a most amazing false negative story: My sis-in-law "didn't know" until she went into labor. Now you say, "how can that be?". "Is she dense?" No, quite the opposite. She's a nurse, so she has a clue about how the body functions. In her case she was trying to gain weight as she was thin as a rail. She gained 10lbs and while doing so her period ceased. So she took the test, negative. She went to the doc a few times, all negative from the doc. My wife and I ate dinner with her just a few days before we got the call "Come to the hospital, I'm in labor." I wouldn't have guessed she was prenant though my wife, who is very in tune with such things, thought she might be a month or two along but didn't say anything for fear of a faux pas. End result: health 6lb baby. BTW her second baby didn't give her any signs either, though she knew what to look for and got an ultra sound right away to confirm. (She did gain more weight with #2.) |
Total truth here for my second. Dear God, I'd never had heartburn before and had NO IDEA what it was...Doc gave me a Rx it was so bad. I ate nothing the last 6 weeks or so (some vanilla icecream and milk because the Doc threatened me...but honestly, eating made me feel like I was birthing the kid thru my throat.  All in all, it was fine. My Jamie was nearly9 pounds. Doc remarked that had I eaten more, kid woulda been born a teenager. My first? No heartburn, slight nausea, never threw up but could NOT eat chicken or eggs from month 2 until well after his birth. Just the thought made me sick. Every pregnancy's different, even for the same mom. My first indication I was pregnant was sore boobs. I mean...really really sore. But, you get like that when you ovulate so...it's tricky... I liked being pregnant...cept the end with #2. It's really cool all the stuff your body can do. And...what it can't. 
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Aw heck I would have it at night. |
With all due respect, the most "dense" people I've ever known were nurses. My mother is one. She is so used to being 'right' that other alternative explanations are out from the word go. Once they find out for sure they were wrong, they "learn" what it was that they should have looked for. The good news is when they are right, they can keep you motivated to keep doing whatever it is that you need to keep doing!  and, FWIW - "Natural Family Planning" is a great way for many couples to conceive. I recommend it to all my friends who are having difficulty getting pregnant. Usually works in 90 days!
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I've found the same thing... The medical profession either takes a big ego or instills one. In my sis-in-law's case I don't think it was the ego issue but rather she thought she might be pregnant but more senior medical professionals told her she wasn't. This was her first prenancy and she was on the pill when she became pregnant. This also happened in a very small town with limited medical services with a very long drive to "good" medical services. I think in the urban area I live in now most docs would have just ordered an ultrasound as a diagnostic tool to rule out cancer, cysts, etc. rather then being stumped by something somewhat out of the norm. When she did go into labor they stopped the labor with drugs and gave her a 1.5 hour ambulance ride to the nearest "good" hospital to determine the condition/age of the baby before she was allowed to continue labor and give birth.
Worked in 90 days for my wife and I. She wanted to be off the pill for at least a year before getting pregnant. We successfully avoided prenancy for 14 months using NFP before we started trying to get pregnant. Took us three months including one where I was too sick to preform my duty at the allotted time . My wife and I both liked our less strict version of NFP. As a warning though another sis-in-law, who is Catholic and was the one who introduced us to NFP, just had a "Bonus Baby" at 46.
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| We are going to try the Clear Blue Ovulation Monitor next month. Ever since I have been off the pill my cycle has been all over the place. So that makes mapping out my ovulation days hard. So hopefully the monitor will help us find our dates. Most reviews claimed it worked within two months. I just wish it wasnt so damn expensive. |
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I don't want to discourage you from using the Clear Blue Monitor but NFP costs next to nothing and might be about as accurate. From the NFP Wiki: [edit] Symptoms-based Cervical mucusSome methods of NFP track biological signs of fertility. When used outside of the Catholic concept of NFP, these methods are often referred to simply as fertility awareness methods rather than NFP.[11] The three primary signs of a woman's fertility are her basal body temperature, her cervical mucus, and her cervical position.[12] Computerized fertility monitors may track basal body temperatures, hormonal levels in urine, or changes in electrical resistance of a woman's saliva.[13] From these symptoms, a woman can learn to assess her fertility without use of a computerized device. Some systems use only cervical mucus to determine fertility. Two well-known mucus-only methods are the Billings ovulation method and the Creighton Model FertilityCare System. If two or more signs are tracked, the method is referred to as a symptothermal method. Two popular symptothermal systems are that taught by the Couple to Couple League and the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) taught by Toni Weschler.[14] We used the symptothermal method as advocated by the Couple to Couple League (Catholics) with good enough results I'm still preaching it years later. We got our NFP manual "The Art of Natural Family Planning" from my Catholic Sis-in-law, but I bet your local Catholic church could hook you up or you could order one online though the Couple to Couple League. The book is $25 and a Thermometer is $10-$12 (available on the same site or your local pharmacy).Or you could just make love every day. 
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I think it's harder for younger women with all that. In my 20's I had no clue. Now? I know my body. I can almost FEEL the egg drop ...but in my 20's all that stuff was harder (and my cycle so screwy) that it was hard to tell. Monitor may help with that.
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I taught myself the sympto-thermal method of NFP based on a free book you can download at Natural Family Planning International. You can also download charts to chart your mucus, cervical position, etc. on the site and get lots of other info about NFP. IMHO, NFP is the way to go, and not just for Catholics! It works to either to avoid or to achieve pregnancy. And is much safer than any hormonal forms of birth control - no side effects. And when done right, NFP is just as effective, if not more than hormonal and barrier methods of birth control. Another benefit is that I have heard of women finding gynecological problems that would have gone undiagnosed because of the info they found when charting their cycles. |