Could I Be Pregnant??

[WannaBMommytoBe]

My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for about 10 months now.

Last month I took a dollar store tests and at first nothing showing up...I noticed however, a while later, that there was a very faint brownish color second line,it faided out while I was looking at it for about 10 minutes of trying to figure it out. Turned out I wasn't pregnant.

This morning, the day I am to start my cycle, I took another dollar tree test and a very light, pinksecond line showed up right away and it still there!! I hope that this means that all of my hopeing and praying has come true!

Could anyone tell me what they think this all means though? I mean, last time I did not go by thedirections, I read the test like two hours after I had taken it, when it at first showed I was not pregnant and then that very faint brown second line faided.

I've never had a pink second line, show up ever before in my life right away......Could I be???? I just am cautios to get excited because the line is so faint!! But I can't help but smile! :D

[konayossie]

I say congrats! Lines that show up after the time limit are called "evaporation" lines and don't mean anything, but a solid pink line that shows up immediately means you're pregnant. :-)

[AfricanQueen99]

Don't worry about the lightness of the line...they get darker as the days go by. Take another test tomorrow and you can tell a color difference.

Congrats!

[Abraisme]

Sounds like a positive test to me.  Congrats!

[proud2bemommy]

your pregnant congrats!!!!

[Jaimee]

Welcome to MDC!!    Congratulations on your pregnancy!!

Pregnancy tests do not show up positive for no reason... hCG must be present.  So if you see a pink line within the time limit then you are pregnant!  It should get darker as the days go by.  You could also purchase a different test.  I recommend a First Response Early Response.  Blue dye tests don't have the issue with evap lines the way the pink dye tests do and it's possible that the dollar store test you have requires more hCG.  FRER only requires a level of 25. If the pregnancy is viable your hCG levels should be doubling every 24-48 hours so within a day or two you should easily test positive on less sensitive tests as well.

[PreggoMamma]

Congrats. You can't go by the darkness of the line as some tests never get darker. This is where the term "A line is a line" comes in. Also, I would stick with the pink dye tests. From what I know the blue dye tests are the ones that are not really accurate (I was ttc for 9 1/2 years and on a forum with tons of other women like me. Everyone agrees to use pink dye). Also FRER (First Response) tests have gotten awful reviews lately as a lot of evap lines and false positives have been showing up. Not sure if they changed their tests or what. 

The dollar store has great pregnancy tests for $1 which is great if you want to use a bunch. :D

[Jaimee]

PreggoMama...  False positives?  Really?  That's very surprising to hear!  Can you link me to a source talking about that?   Does it seem to be evap lines more than actual false positives?  As for pink vs. blue dye... I keep hearing conflicting info, but I keep running across pink dyes giving evap lines more often early on.  In regards to darkening, I know that most tests have a disclaimer about that and HPT's should not be used as an indicator of viability, BUT anecdotally those that get faint lines in the beginning more often than not get dark lines just a few days later on the same tests.  Maybe the moral is that you just need to be on the look out for evaps, make sure you're seeing a line within the time limit, and retest with a different test a few days later to confirm.

[MarineWife]

I agree with everyone else that that sounds like a BFP to me. Congratulations!

I don't believe in false positives. I think they are either evap lines that women don't know how to read or they are pgs that ended in very early miscarriage, also called chemical pgs. They are pgs in that a fertilized embryo did implant and starts to produce hCG. However, the embryo stops developing after a few days to a couple of weeks and a miscarriage occurs. The reason it's called a chemical pg is because the chemical hCG shows up on pg tests but the embryo is too small to see on u/s before it dies.

[PreggoMamma]

Jaimee- I'm not sure if there are any websites as it is mostly women like us talking about it. Honestly, just that was enough to make me not use them. 

I have learned that a lot of tests don't indicate viability because some tests don't get darker. Mine stayed almost the same for the first week. Drove me crazy....LOL. From what I've learned it's because they only have a certain amount of dye in them.

Marinewife- Actually, I agree with you. I'm not sure exactly why frer has gotten a reputation for false positives. I do know that anyone using pregnancy tests should research the difference between a positive and an evap as they are different looking. 

[akind1]

When in doubt, wait a couple days and use a digital test!  sounds to me like a definite BFP, so congrats! even when I got a second pink line this pregnancy, I went out and bought a digital, because I just love seeing Pregnant spelled out! - granted I only use these when I am pretty darn sure, as they aren't the cheapest.

I've heard the same re: blue dye tests - they seem to have a high rate of false (+) - most of what I can google is people talking on message boards.

[MarineWife]

Originally Posted by PreggoMamma 

I'm not sure exactly why frer has gotten a reputation for false positives.

I think the issue with FRER is that they are so sensitive that they can pick up a lot more unviable pgs than ever before. It used to be that women would have to wait until it was more likely that the pg was viable before they could even use a hpt. Now, you can use one almost right after implantation. There are really cheap hpts you can order online that are just as sensitive as FRER. I get BFPs on those as early as 7dpo. I even get BFPs that early with the $ Tree tests. Chemical pgs that disappear before AF is even due are not uncommon but no one ever talked about them before because we didn't know about them. KWIM? I think some women feel better thinking they got a false BFP rather than having a miscarriage.

[Jaimee]

Interesting points!  Maybe I'll post a poll about the evap lines b/c I'm curious now what people are seeing and thinking.  I know that happened to me on a CVS test the cycle before conceiving my first.  It was a squinter on 12 DPO (my LP is generally 10 days) and AF showed 2 days later.  If I hadn't been charting I probably never would have known.

[MarineWife]

The general rule is that anything that shows up after the time limit for the test is invalid, most likely an evap. Also, any grayish or shadow of a line that shows up within the time limit, especially if it seems to fade, is an evap. If the line has color and shows up within the time limit, it's a BFP even if it's a squinter.

Blue dye tests are tricky, though. They have a bad rep for having blue colored evap lines because of some characteristic of the dye. I've never used a blue dye test myself but I've seen lots of wacky pics of them.

[Jaimee]

Okay, so maybe I heard some stories from women about their pink dye test evap lines that aren't common.  I just seems that so many more women use pink dye tests to test early on (probably b/c they've read about blue dye tests having issues) and end up with ambiguous results.  But one is probably a factor of the other... hence the conflicting info I've been reading.  Anyway, I'll amend my advice accordingly.  Thanks!

[MarineWife]

They most likely get ambiguous results because the lines are either very, very faint if they test early or are evap lines and they don't know how to recognize either. That's the problem with testing early. You have to know what to expect or you can get very confused and it can be very upsetting. With my very early BFPs, I wasn't sure they were real until I took a few more tests for a few more days and the lines were still there.

I've been a poasaholic for about 7 years now so I've got a lot of experience with hpts. I've used many different hpts and start testing very early.

[birdhappy85]

Last year my husband and I weren't trying to start a family yet and were using protection every time (although admittedly we'd have some unprotected fun for a few minutes) but one month I had this sense that I might be pregnant. Having never experienced it before, I wasn't sure, but something was going on and it was still too early to test. I am so in tune with my body that I experience and feel everything that ever goes on. I can tell you when I'm ovulating because I feel mittelschmerz for about 3 days every month right on schedule and have 25 day cycles like clockwork. Well, that month about halfway between my ovulation and expected period date, I started having this pain and uterine feeling that I had never experienced before. It was actually kind of painful and throbbing for a good day, almost like it was contracting. It hurt to walk. But there was no blood, so it's not like people would believe me that I was feeling implantation. My boobs were hurting, I was really emotional, things were just different. So I POAS a few days before my period was due and used an EPT blue dye test with the +/- signs. Nothing showed up right away, but after the recommended time frame there was a faint plus sign. I was in shock. I took some dollar store tests as well, and those were totally negative. So I was confused and just figured it was an evap line on the one test and I wasn't pregnant. Well, my period started a few days late and was really heavy. In the midst of trying to search online for reasons why I had that odd "uterus experience" and possible positive HPT, I stumbled across a discussion on Rh- and freaked out at the thought that I might've had a really early miscarriage and I might need a shot. (I had never heard of Rh- before but knew my blood type was negative, so needless to say, it scared the hell out of me...) I called my OB/GYN's office and got in for bloodwork. They told me that my hCG levels were consistent with never having been pregnant, so they couldn't explain anything to me besides I might've had a chemical pregnancy or evap lines on the test.

Well, come February this year and we started trying to start a family for real... got pregnant on the first try and I had THE SAME throbbing uterus pain when the egg was implanting. I am pretty sure I had a chemical pregnancy last year after all, but I didn't bother telling anyone because my friends didn't even understand in the first place how I could've experienced implantation so strongly. I still wonder if that blue dye test was still an evap line, though. No way of knowing since I believe I had been briefly pregnant, the red dye and digital HPTs were negative, and my hCG levels had been too low to determine either way. I wish I had taken a picture of that EPT. Oy!

I know that from now on I'm only using red line and digital tests. The dollar store tests did the trick, too. I was skeptical going into using them, but they were all true positives. Only problem is that the lines didn't show up immediately and I apparently was too impatient and disappointed thinking I must not be pregnant, so I was taking one test a day and tossed each in the trash..... One last day of impatience and I was going to swear off taking anymore tests. The last test turned faintly positive, though, and I was like.... wait a minute..... had I not been waiting long enough the previous days?!?! I looked back in the trash and no joke, the tests from the previous days all showed positive....... Boy was I kicking myself. I don't care what those instructions say now. Early on, the lines didn't show up within 3 minutes. But they sure did eventually show up and here I am almost 6 months pregnant. lol. A positive digital test took all confusion out of the equation.

The moral of my story is that nothing is as cut and dry as we grow up thinking it will be when we POAS! You have no idea how PO'd I was when I learned that evap lines actually existed and a positive test might not ACTUALLY be a positive!

Oh, and I think this Rh- thing is something that women should be taught more about early in their childbearing years. I've been a regular blood donor, so that's the only reason I would've known my blood type and cared when I came across that discussion online and found out about RhoGAM. But most women I talked to had no idea about it! And a lot of them were even mothers! I would just hate to think that women might be having actual miscarriages out there and aren't getting medical attention for whatever reason. I was told there's only a 72-hour window to get the shot as a precaution to prevent antibodies from forming and causing future problems carrying/birthing babies. That is scary to me! But maybe I'm in the minority?

[Jaimee]

Originally Posted by birdhappy85 

Oh, and I think this Rh- thing is something that women should be taught more about early in their childbearing years. I've been a regular blood donor, so that's the only reason I would've known my blood type and cared when I came across that discussion online and found out about RhoGAM. But most women I talked to had no idea about it! And a lot of them were even mothers! I would just hate to think that women might be having actual miscarriages out there and aren't getting medical attention for whatever reason. I was told there's only a 72-hour window to get the shot as a precaution to prevent antibodies from forming and causing future problems carrying/birthing babies. That is scary to me! But maybe I'm in the minority?

Very early m/c is very unlikely to cause any sort of issues regarding Rh sensitivity.  Even a major event where blood is definitely exposed to the antibodies has only a 17% chance of creating sensitivity.  There are numerous threads on Rh- issues around these boards and there is much derision in the MDC community about Rhogam. I agree that women should be more educated about it so that at the very least they know to ask questions of their care provider and do some of their own research before being faced with the decision to get the shot or not.  Not to hijack this thread, but I personally plan on declining the 28 week shot and only getting the postpartum shot if the baby is positive (which it is likely to be as I don't think my dh even carries the negative allele).

But I wanted to say that it is interesting that you experienced implantation cramping so intensely!  And at the same time didn't get spotting.  Just based on all the stories I keep reading here I'm getting the impression more and more that implantation bleeding is quite rare, not just "uncommon," and what most women are experiencing is typical spotting with pregnancy- especially around the time of expected AF.

[MarineWife]

Originally Posted by Jaimee 

But I wanted to say that it is interesting that you experienced implantation cramping so intensely!  And at the same time didn't get spotting.  Just based on all the stories I keep reading here I'm getting the impression more and more that implantation bleeding is quite rare, not just "uncommon," and what most women are experiencing is typical spotting with pregnancy- especially around the time of expected AF.

I don't understand what you mean by "typical spotting with pregnancy". What would that be if not implantation if it occurs before AF is due?

I have had implantation 3 or 4 times, I think. I'd have to go back through my charts to know for sure. It always happened from 9-11dpo. I never get spotting for a day or two before AF so that was something completely new and different for me and a very good indicator that I was pg. Every time that I had spotting at any time from 9-11dpo I was pg but I didn't have implantation every time I got pg. With this pg, I didn't have implantation spotting but I think I did feel implantation. I sort of got it confirmed by an early u/s that showed the baby on the same side as where I felt the sharp pains.

[Jaimee]

Oh I just mean that a lot of pregnant women experience spotting around the time AF is due and it seems to me that it is more likely that this is caused by hormonal fluctuations than by implantation.  Those women that chart and know their LP to typically be 12 days or less might be experiencing this as opposed to implantation spotting even though it is within the 6-12 DPO implantation window.  I fell into this category with my first pregnancy.  Many experience light spotting slightly after AF is due as well and this is considered "normal pregnancy spotting."  And since a lot of women don't chart to know exactly when they ovulated it is difficult for them to say how many DPO they actually were.   Other things can cause spotting as well like bumping the cervix, which when pregnant is more sensitive and engorged with blood.  I'm not trying to make a grand declaration about what is implantation spotting and what is not... no, nothing like that, I'm certainly not an expert nor am I intimately involved with every woman's situation, but it just seems like a lot of women say they had implantation spotting outside the implantation window and to me this seems much more likely to have different causes than implantation.  Of course spotting smack in the implantation window followed later by a HPT+ certainly could have been caused by implantation.  And I'm certainly not going to negate a women that says she experienced implantation spotting if that's what she has deemed most likely for her.  I know there are some woman on these boards that feel positive they had implantation spotting at 4 DPO.  But I would offer the information above to someone asking what her chances are that she's pregnant based on spotting she's having. That's all.