Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Negative Pregnancy Test

Question:
My husband & I have been trying to get pregnant for the last 6 months. I got off the birth control pill in Jan'03 and we started trying since then. Since then, my periods have been quite regular with either a 27 or 28 day cycle, the 28 day one being more common. From all my charting experiences to predict ovulation, my best guess showed that I usually ovulated around day 14/15 Although on my last cycle, it seemed like I did not ovulate until day 18. Is it possible that the day you ovulate varies that much from cycle to cycle? Also, is it possible to ovulate on day 18 & still be on a 28 day cycle? With the 28-cycle calculation, I was supposed to get my period on Sat, Jul 19 but still haven't gotten one. I have taken 2 pregnancy tests so far with both being negative. Is it highly possible that my period cycle is suddenly messed up & I am not pregnant?

Answer:
Happened to me as I was 15 days late and then it finally came. When I went to the doctor he told me that changes in your lifestyle affect periods. I am training for a chartiy walk of 60KM so it may have affected the date my period was to come. Plus I am under a lot more stress at work these days. I have been regular ever since though. You have two possibilities. First, you may be pregnant, but since you ovulate late in your cycle, the egg may not yet have implanted in the uterus. In that case, you are not producing any hcg, the hormone that is detected by the pregnancy test. Or, if the egg has implanted late, your hormone levels may still be too low for a test to detect. The second option is that you are not pregnant, but your period is late since the egg implanted but stopped growing for some reason. Actually, chances are very big that something goes wrong at such an early stage, and usually you will never notice. In this case, your period may start in a couple of days (which is what happend in my case). Either way, the best thing to do is to wait another week before doing another pregnancy test. If you are pregnant, by that time you will have enough hcg in your urine to have a positive test. If not, most likely your period will have started by then. If you still get a negative, and didn't get your period, you should contact a doctor. It's not likely. Generally, the time between when you ovulate and when your period arrives (your luteal phase) is a fixed length (maybe a different length for each woman, but yours sounds like a 13/14 day LP, which is pretty typical), while the time before ovulation (the follicular phase) is far more likely to vary with things like stress etc. So if you ovulated 3 days later than usual, you should also expect your cycle to be 3 days longer than usual. I'd say that if you normally O on cd 14/15 and this time Od on cd 18, your period is due today or tomorrow. So hold off on testing for a bit if you can...