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?
