How pregnant am I?

[Boobs]

Help! I can't figure this out. How do you figure out how many weeks along you are? My due date is Feb. 3. My last period started on April 27. Looking at my calendar, counting from April 27, is nine weeks. How can that be, though??? CAN that be?? 6-7 weeks sounds more accurate to me.

[mehndi mama]

I went to www.lilypie.com to get a pregnancy counter for my sig at another board I go to - it counts you down by weeks and days, based on your LMP, average cycle length, and average luteal phase length.

[*Amy*]

I know, it is really confusing. One thing I figured it out is that "pregnancy" is counted from the first day of your last period, instead of the day you conceived, so the estimate of you being 9 weeks "pregnant" coincides with the fetal age of 7 weeks.

One thing that still trips me up is that, for example, I conceived four weeks ago today (so fetal age = 28 days), but tomorrow will be the start of my 7th week of pregnancy. It just seems counterintuitive. When I'm reading books or websites about what may be happening at a given time, I'm never sure whether they are going by the pregnancy timetable or the fetal age timetable.

Who started the whole "pregnancy begins on the first day of the LMP" thing anyway?

[Boobs]

It doesn't make sense, does it?

epregnancy.com says 8 weeks when I type in my info. So I still really have no idea.





Tracie

[rose angel]

On the day your period is due, you are about 4 weeks preg. (this takes out the variation of people who have really long cycles anyway. So if your period was due on thursday, the following thursday you are 5 weeks, and so on.

[Periwinkle]

Oh, this is so infuriating, this whole due date thing. Part of me thinks who cares, but then I realize, whether or not you want to tell people or use this as a guide with your OB or midwife, you yourself at least do NEED to know how far along you are in case you run into trouble down the road. I counted every single day when I was in preterm labor on bedrest with twins -- big difference between 31.5 weeks and 32 weeks (when mine were delivered) from a statistics perspective. So I can see both sides of the due date obsession too.

So.... my due date is a mathmatical feat worthy of an SAT test. Here goes.

LMP = May 1st
O date (100% positive) = May 25th
Average cycle length = 36 days
Average luteal phase length = 13 days

Sooo... what's the due date?

If you guessed Feb 14th, you're right. Basically, you subtract 14 CALENDAR days from May 25th (actual O date) to come up with a "fake" LMP of May 12th. Yes I know, 25-14 does not equal 12. But check it out on a calendar as though May 12th were my CD1 (it makes May 25th CD14 or the fake O date, using that ridiculous 28-day cycle many of us have learned to despise).

What a giant PIA!

[beachrock]

OK, this won't apply to everyone (like Periwinkle, who delivered early or Amy, who is pg for the first time), but the midwife I interviewed the other day said that with your 2nd, you can often go by how long your last one took to "cook", so to speak (assuming you know/remember your dates). My 1st took 256 days from ovulation to birth. So I just counted 256 days from ovulation (May 20) to wind up with Feb 1 as an edd. But since I don't really put much faith in edds I'm just saying "around the 1st week of Feb". Of course it's nice for us as the expectant mamas to have a date to dream about, but when certain medical professionals get a hold of a "due date", it can sometimes wreak havoc. I know a woman who ovulates on day 28 of a 32 day cycle. If her OB uses the typical calculation from the LMP, her edd could be off by two weeks or more, which could lead to an induction...

Warning: : ahead!

I also don't think it's reasonable to think that women with different cycle lengths, metabolic rates, diets, exercise regimens, ages, temperaments, levels of stress etc are all going to produce a baby in the same number of weeks. But *in my limited experience*, OBs, nurses, even some CNMs don't believe you when you tell them what day you ovulated; they prefer to rely on their ridiculous little charts that only use the LMP to come up with your edd, by which your pregnancy may be tyrannically governed (when I think about it, I'm amazed they even trust us to get that much right ). Basically, they don't really think that you know more about your body than they do. As my one pregnant friend was told when she called her clinic to make her first prenatal appoint ment, "Honey, you're not pregnant until we say you are."