chances of pregnancy 8 weeks PP? UPDATE!

[lovebeingamomma]

Baby is EBF.  She sleeps for 4-5 hours during the night some nights.

Timeline:

Baby born May 24th

PP bleeding on and off until 6w

8 weeks- spotting for 3 days now, and cramping

Edited by lovebeingamomma - 7/22/11 at 4:38pm

[Jaimee]

Statistically speaking it is very unlikely that the bleeding is post ovulation prior to 8 weeks postpartum.  It is not uncommon to have periods of spotting after your pp bleeding has ended.  This is almost always caused by hormonal fluctuations.  That being said, it is possible, just really rare.  I would absolutely be keeping an eye on things from now on.  When you see fertile CF consider yourself potentially fertile and use protection.  I would also recommend temping when you have CF to see if you can spot an O spike.  If the CF dries up and there is no bleeding, stop and wait again for fertile CF.  It may not happen again for months. 

[dejagerw]

The first 8 weeks postpartum for the exclusively breastfeeding mother are so infertile that any vaginal bleeding during the first 56 days can be ignored for determining amenorrhea or fertility. Also, there's very little chance in ovulating before your first period within the first 6 months pp for the exclusively breastfeeding mother. Also, even if you did ovulate prior to your first period, the chances of having a long enough luteal phase to sustain the pregnancy would be very low.

If I were you, I wouldn't worry about pregnancy this early in the game since it sounds like your spotting fell within the first 56 days postpartum.

Exclusive breastfeeding (by itself) is 98-99.5% effective in preventing pregnancy as long as all of the following conditions are met:

1. Your baby is less than six months old
2. Your menstrual periods have not yet returned
3. Baby is breastfeeding on cue (both day & night), and gets nothing but breastmilk or only token amounts of other foods.

[lovebeingamomma]

I was asking because this is past 56 days, this has been on day 57, 58, and 59.  Plus it's a different kind of discharge than when my PP bleeding stopped at 6 weeks.  And I've followed the same bleeding pattern my two previous births and this is different, so it just made me wonder. 

I was going to start charting again this morning...and my thermo's batteries died!  great. 

[Jaimee]

Here's a helpful quote from a knowledgeable MDC member:

Posted by JMJ

 

About 2/3 of women will ovulate before the return of their first AF, and about 1/2 of those (so 1/3 of all women) will have fertile cycles.  The remainder will have inadequate luteal phases that will not sustain a pregnancy.  Statistically, about 6% of women get pregnant before their first PP AF if they do nothing to prevent it.  This is regardless of when AF comes.

A group of people at Georgetown University found that they could cut that probability down to 3% if you never DTD less than 10 days apart.  The 3% is actually statistically calculated for if you DTD exactly every 10 days.  Since most couples may not DTD on the first "safe" day every time, the actual efficacy is much higher...

You may also be able to establish a basic infertile pattern.  The main body of research has been on external CM only.  Note the color, consistency, texture, amount, etc, anything you notice.  If it is the same for 14 days, consider that to be you BIP [basic infertile pattern], and consider yourself to be infertile until something changes.  My BIP postpartum has been a yellow tinted clear EWCM that is stretchy and clear.  This changed a few weeks before I Oed for the first time.

[lovebeingamomma]

Ok so I guess my chance it about 6%..which is higher than I thought, but of course that means it's more probable that I'm NOT preggo, phew!  I'm still getting very light red spotting, so perhaps this is my BIP.  Interesting stuff, thanks for the info. 

[Jaimee]

Originally Posted by lovebeingamomma 

Ok so I guess my chance it about 6%..which is higher than I thought...

No, this is if you do absolutely nothing.  You are doing something, you are eco breastfeeding, which means you fall into the LAM statistics until you or your baby no longer follow one of the rules.  Here's more information on LAM: http://www.kellymom.com/bf/normal/fertility.html.
 

[seawitch]

Eh. My kids are 10 months apart. Anything is possible.

ETA: We co-slept, though I was probably hormonally, uh, challenged with that pregnancy. My milk never came in. Yes, I swear, it didn't. No matter how we tried to kick start it - and believe me we tried everything. With DD I nursed her exclusively, so I do know the difference. With her I didn't get periods back until 10 months pp.

[JMJ]

seawitch, it is not being postpartum that spaces babies.  It is exclusive breastfeeding.  If you were unable to breastfeed, you would expect your fertility to return pretty much immediately, just as you experienced.

OP, with ecological breastfeeding, the chances of pregnancy before 3 months (before any post-day 56 bleeding) is pretty close to 0, and the chance of pregnancy between 3 and 6 months (again, before any bleeding after 56 days postpartum) is about 1%.  This bleeding that you are experiencing is likely some sort of hormonal bleed, but it is very unlikely that you have already ovulated and are pregnant.  It is possible, but not certain, that it is related to your fertility trying to return.  However, because you have experienced bleeding after 56 days, you no longer qualify for LAM and need to choose another way of postponing pregnancy (or not if you want to get pregnant again soon!) from here on out.

If you experience 6 weeks with no bleeding and no fertility signs, Sheila Kippley (ecological breastfeeding) says that you can consider yourself to be in amenorrhea for ecological breastfeeding purposes (I had a day of spotting about 4 months and then nothing until another day of spotting around 20 months and my first period at 21 months with ecological breastfeeding), but the effectiveness of relying on breastfeeding alone after post-day 56 bleeding is significantly reduced, so I would be much more careful about not ignoring fertility signs.  I would definitely keep track of CM, and I would temp for at least 6 weeks after any bleeding or any patch of more-fertile mucus that lasts more than a day or 2.

[seawitch]

Well, yes. That's why I said that hormonally I was messed up - BUT we were still doing lots of skin to skin and co-sleeping and other things which I've read/heard are also supposed to delay fertility - maybe not to the extent that EBF is, but I digress.

DD was still being exclusively breastfed when my fertility returned, though...

Anyway, this thread isn't about me. Sorry to hijack!

[JMJ]

Skin-to-skin, cosleeping, etc only delay the return of fertility in as much as they allow for frequent and unrestricted breastfeeding.  If breastfeeding isn't happening along with those behaviors, there are certainly many positive effects that it will have for both mother and child, but I wouldn't expect the delayed return of fertility to be one of them.  With ecological breastfeeding, most women will experience a return to menses between 9 and 18 months, so while 10 months is towards the beginning of that curve, it's definitely normal.  Exclusive breastfeeding, if it is not also ecological breastfeeding, does not normally delay the return of fertility by much more than 6 months, and many women experience a return to fertility before 6 months.  They are not LAM failures because they do not get pregnant before their first postpartum period, but they do experience an early return to fertility.

[lovebeingamomma]

I just took a clearblue test, and I got a positive line, but it was thin like a strand of hair, not thick like the other line.  and it was very faint.  But still, it formed a plus.  Should I freak out or could this be a false positive?  Also I took this 45 min's after I took the first one in the package, which I screwed up and didn't follow the directions, so my urine was rather diluted.  It's the anniversary of my 3rd m/c today so I'm all over the place emotionally and now this uncertainty...seriously. 

[JMJ]

Pregnancy tests don't have false positives.  If it is light, it means that you caught it early or your urine was diluted.  Congratulations!  Hugs and best wishes on your emotional roller coaster of a day.

[Adaline'sMama]

Congrats!!! False positives are SO rare, you are almost 100% likely to be pregnant!

[lovebeingamomma]

I just bought a pink dye test and it was negative.  I looked up the clearblue tests and I guess they're very unreliable.  So, not pregnant.  PHEW. 

[Jaimee]

Originally Posted by JMJ 

... because you have experienced bleeding after 56 days, you no longer qualify for LAM and need to choose another way of postponing pregnancy (or not if you want to get pregnant again soon!) from here on out.

Ah, yes I see your bleeding was at 8 weeks, for some reason I read that as just before 8 weeks... anyway no more LAM.  Great advice from JMJ as always. 
 

Originally Posted by lovebeingamomma 

I just bought a pink dye test and it was negative.  I looked up the clearblue tests and I guess they're very unreliable.  So, not pregnant.  PHEW. 

Interesting... have you taken another test to confirm the negative?  It's SO rare to get a false positive on an HPT unless it was an evap that was mistaken for a positive?
 

[lovebeingamomma]

Yup I took two pink dye tests that were negative.  Stupid clearblue test!

[JMJ]

Ah yes, some of the blue dye tests have some pretty convincing evap lines.  However, I would test with FMU in a few days just to be sure.  What a crazy day you must have had yesterday!

[geek_the_girl]

Yeah. Those blue dye tests are bad news. I've gotten an evap/questionable line on one before too. Good luck to you.