What's The Soonest A Woman Could Tell She Was Pregnant?

Let’s say in a clinically controlled setting a woman is inseminated at 9am on Sept 6, 2010.

Now with all the medical tests and such we have available today what would be the soonest the doctors could tell if she was or wasn’t pregnant?

For this example let’s say you could use any modern medical technique and cost was no option.

I was just wondering how soon medicine could tell?

According to thisIVF due date calculator, if a woman’s eggs were retrieved and fertilized today, they would do the “official” pregnancy test (called a beta test) on September 21st, so 15 days. Home pregnancy tests can catch a pregnancy earlier (depending on how much of the HCG hormone is being produced–for example, twins produce more), but that’s the earliest date that the doctors are confident that a negative means you aren’t pregnant.

Now then, conception can occur as much as 72 hours after insemination*, so you might add 72 hours to that if you are talking about being sure you aren’t pregnant after a one night stand.

*Sperm live for 72 hours, eggs for about 24. In the case of artificial insemination, you are timing insemination with ovulation (confirmed via ultrasound), so it’s more like a 24 hour window. But just having sex has a longer window because the woman may not have ovulated yet).

This isn’t quite what you’re looking for, but I “knew” within about 4 to 5 days of doin’ the deed.

After a long battle with depression I felt so at peace with the world, almost euphoric. Add to that breasts that hurt like hell, and an odd gut feeling, I just knew.

It helped that my friend had just revealed her pregnancy as well so I had pregnancy already on my mind so to speak.

The first faint positive at-home test results came just shy of one week post-coitus. 6 days was too soon but 7 was enough. Each day after the tests became darker and more certain.

Yes I was one of those women who took 6 home pregnancy tests, why do you ask? :slight_smile:

I’m gay so I have no experience in this, but I was just wondering.

I was thinking with all the advances of medical technology, if you pulled all the stops out when could you tell a woman was pregnant.

September

This is really anecdotal, by my wife started getting morning sickness two days (i.e., about 34 hours) after the act we’re pretty sure got her pregnant. Now it’s quite possible this was a bit of stomach flu that just continued as morning sickness, but she had morning sickness virtually every day from then on for however long it lasted – which I forget.

Well, sometimes it works that way.

Well, how invasive a test would you permit? I bet that a very thorough biopsy or autopsy could reveal a pregnancy almost immediately after conception, though this would involve the termination of the pregnancy or mother, respectively.

The most sensitive home urine pregnancy test turns positive with an hCG level of 20 mIU/mL. A quantitative serum hCG test can detect levels as low as 5mIU/mL, but aren’t considered true positive until 25 mIU/mL. In most normal pregnancies, the urine and serum hCG will be positive at about 5-7 days after conception (which usually correlates to 3 weeks gestational age from the first day of the last menstrual period)

I have witnesses that I was making breakfast from 8:20 until well after 9 am on Sept 6, 2010.

I took my positive test about 2.5 weeks after the deed, but in retrospect, I was exhibiting symptoms for about a week, week and a half before that. So it was pretty quick FOR ME, completely opposite of “didn’t know I was pregnant until it came out” stories.

Dam you Al, you beat me to it. :smiley:

I was going to say; two days before she "forgets " her contraception and puts pin holes in yours.

nitpicky nitpicky nitpick.

A pregnancy doesn’t start at conception (spem meets egg) a pregnancy starts at implantation (embryo embeds itself into uterine lining- or wherever it ends up).

Implantation occurs 5-9 days after conception.

Knowing that conception has occurred is not the same as diagnosing a pregnancy.

nitpick over

I knew the next morning, but that’s just my say so. I took a pregnancy test a week later first thing in the morning and it was very, very faint positive. The doctor re-tested and it was negative.