Pregnancy Tests

 

You are standing in front of the shelf at the local drug store, just starring at all the different kinds of pregnancy tests; wondering if you should buy digital or analog kind.  Buy them both!  It doesn't matter what brand you get (generic or name brand), but if you are only a few days past your missed period you should get an early response pregnancy test.  The early response tests say that they can detect the pregnancy hormone up to 6 days before your missed period.  If you are charting your cycle, you can pretty much tell when the fertilized egg implanted itself by the spike in your basal body temperature.  It's best to wait at least 12 or 13 days past ovulation (DPO) to take a pregnancy test.  Why?  Because you will drive yourself nuts taking a test everyday past ovulation.  You will keep getting no line, no line, no line, not pregnant, not pregnant and then get depressed.  This next phase is a waiting game for sure.  Patience is much needed starting here.  Ok, so back to the pregnancy tests.  Here is my theory on them:

Digital Tests: You pee on the stick and one minute later it says Pregnant or Not Pregnant.  But what if it's wrong?  It's not wrong.  If you are pregnant, your body is now producing a chemical (hormone) called hCG.  The pregnancy test picks up this hormone and therefore creates a positive pregnancy test, as shown below:

 

Non-Digital Tests: You pee on the stick and one minute later you get a line or no line.  This test is the same as the digital test, except you don't get a fancy window with the word pregnant.  You get a line.  If you break open a digital test, that is essentially what you will see.  Not that I've done it before (#noshame). 

 

The below pictures show an example of the different kinds and brands of tests I took on different days.  After the first digital test I took, I wanted to actually see the line over and over again, instead of the word pregnant.  Part of the reason was because I wanted to be pregnant so bad and that I needed more concrete proof of it!  You will get the best results of a pregnancy test when you first go to the bathroom in the morning (First Morning Urine or FMU).  As each day progresses, the line becomes darker, because the hCG hormone becomes much more stronger as the fertilized egg starts growing into an embryo. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had each test on my bathroom counter at the end of the 20th day past ovulation.  It was a wonderful site to see.  Positive tests everywhere!  However, I knew that they wouldn't last forever:
DH: "So, are you going to throw those away, or what?"