Mrs. Rastahomie is LATE :eek:. She swears up & down that she’s been regular since she was 13, so something must be amiss.
She’s taken, and come up negative on, two pregnancy tests. One cheapo test and one top-of-the-line ($18.99 :eek: ).
Now she’s getting morning sickness :eek: !
Mrs. Rastahomie floated a theory: it might be an eptopic (tubal) pregnancy. I disagree. I say an eptopic (I don’t get to use that word very often, so I’m going to make the most of it here) pregnancy would incapacitate her with excruciating pain.
So here are the General Questions:
Would an eptopic pregnancy queer the results of an OTC pregnancy test?
Wouldn’t an eptopic pregnancy hurt like hell about the time the fetus got to be the size of a grain of salt?
From everything I’ve read an ectopic pregnancy would test just the same as a normal pregnancy.
Depends on where implantation took place. Ectopic just means in the wrong place. That “wrong place” could be far up the fallopian tub or merely above the uterus. In the latter case physical pain might not be the first symptom.
If more than one cycle has been missed she would be showing other symptoms by now. As with all odd bodily malfunctions take this one immediately to her doctor. A simple blood test can answer for good whether any type of pregnancy is in progress.
One of my girl-friends tested negative on about 10 home pregnancy tests, of every price range, before her Dr. confirmed that she WAS pregnant. She now has a lovely 3 year old daughter, so Mrs. Rastahomie should hightail it to the Dr. pronto! My friends pregnancy was NOT ectopic
An ectopic pregnancy will show on a home pregnancy test with as much consistancy as a regular pregnancy.
no. the home pregnancy tests look for specific hormone levels in the urine. Whiz don’t know where the zygote is located.
if this is truly an ectopic pregnancy, it will hurt like hell soon enough. If you and the Mrs. truly think that pregnancy is possible, it sure wouldn’t heart go make a visit to the gynocologist.
However, she could be late due to many other factors including (but not limited to) diet, exercise, illness, stress, yadda, yadda, yadda. Further, if she is worried about being preggers, the morning sickness could be stress related. Pregnancy related morning sickness usually doesn’t hit until long after she’d test positive. IIRC, morning sickness starts around 12 weeks and she can test positive at 4 weeks.
If you are pregnant, let me be the first to give you a pat on the back and a hearty “congratulations”. (perhaps an “attaboy” in a fatherly tone.
DeGrance has it right. Ectopics have positive pregnancy tests, and only hurt when the structures around the embryo start stretching and getting deformed. The home pregnancy tests are usually pretty reliable, but you may want to go to your own doctor with a first void morning urine sample in hand (in an appropriate container). If this is negative, then probably she’s just late.
The home pregnancy tests are excellent, and most can detect as little as 50 units of BhcG in the urine, about the same as the urine tests used by hospitals (although blood tests can detect 25 units). The BhCG in a normal pregnancy doubles roughly every 48 hours for the first 11 weeks or so. Thus, if someone has ten negative tests, the chances are they were not likely pregnant when the first few were done.
Ectopic pregnancies are more common in women with a history of IUD use, pelvic inflammation, pelvic surgery and family history. They can actually grow quite large before they cause symptoms, and often are associated with vaginal spotting rather than pain.
A transvaginal ultrasound can detect ectopics when the BhcG is around 1500 or so. Ectopics do not queer the resuilts, but if the ectopic dies the BhCG will steady and not double in 48 hours. Henece, emergency departments will often use a BhCG test that gives an actual number (not positive/negative) and see that it doubles to monitor the health of a pregnancy without the cost of an ultrasound. (In the States, I’d imagine they ul;trasound more often than in Canada even in cases that aren’t particularly suspicious for medicolegal reasons). So if the baby dies or becomes a hideous mole, the BhCG will be different, as it would after 11 weeks or so. But you would be wrong to assume ectopcs can’t be huge before detection.
Most home pregnancy tests are effective beginning only a couple of days after the beginning of the missed period. Of course, a negative pregnancy test doesn’t mean she’s definitely not pregnant: she should see her doctor. Even if she isn’t pregnant, if she’s normally very regular, the cause of the disruption to her cycle should be investigated.
As for morning sickness, it usually ends at 12 weeks. Unless you’re me, in which case it begins at implantation (heralded by a pseudo-period lasting one day) and continues, 24 hours per day, until the day after the baby is born. As you can imagine, I have very little enamel left on my teeth after puking an average of four times per day for nine months times three pregnancies, plus three weeks because each baby was one week late. I swear, if I ever get pregnant again (unlikely, because I’ve been spayed) I will kill myself. I am not exaggerating.
A hint for morning-sickness sufferers: they tell you to eat crackers before you get out of bed. This didn’t work for me; I just threw up the crackers. I would much rather have dry heaves than vomit chunks, personally. I found that drinking cinnamon apple tea was a big help. It didn’t make me stop barfing, but when I did (inevitably) barf, at least it tasted less unpleasant on the way back up.
Save your breath. Mrs. Rastahomie and I DO NOT need a baby right now. I don’t have a very good job, we are utterly broke, her company is changing insurance plans, and my agent said he doesn’t even plan to look at my book proposal until early July.
Here’s hoping those negative tests mean she really isn’t pregnant.
As someone at high risk of ectopic pregnancy, I’ve been down this road a couple of times.
The simplest way to resolve the “is she or isn’t she” pregnant question is to have a blood test done. By and large urine tests are accurate, but I’ve even had urine tests done by doctors show negative well after they should have shown positive.
If the symptoms aren’t being caused by pregnancy, Mrs rasta should probably be consulting her physician anyway - so take her along to the doc, tell him/her the symptoms, get the blood test done, and take it from there.
