Hi, Anon, and welcome to Empowher. So glad you found us, and thank you for your question!
First, let's do a little work with the calendar. If your last period began Feb. 9, I count 37 days since that happened. Even with an irregular cycle, 37 days is a fairly lengthy time between cycles.
In a regular, 28-day cycle, you would have been most fertile from about the 22nd to the 28th, but sperm can live for between 3 to 5 days inside a woman's body. If you had sex on the 19th and/or the 20th, and ovulated around the 22nd, 23rd or 24th, it would have been possible for the sperm to fertilize the egg and for you to be pregnant.
And because you asked, no, urinating can not push sperm out; the openings to the urethra (where you urinate) and your vagina are different. If sperm enters the vagina, urinating will not affect it.
Here's how home pregnancy tests work: They detect the presence in your urine of something called HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), a hormone produced by the placenta shortly after fertilization of an egg. If the hormone is there, the pregnancy test turns positive. If the hormone is not there, the test is negative. You can't simply produce this hormone with stress.
While it is possible for a pregnancy test to have false results, it would be more common for a negative test to be false by not sensing the HCG hormone yet (when a woman takes the test too early, for example). False-positive tests happen more when a woman is taking fertility medicine, and I am assuming you aren't. Since you have had three tests turn positive, I would say that odds are very good that you are pregnant.
Here are more details about how home pregnancy tests work:
The only way to know for sure is to make an appointment with a doctor and have them do a pregnancy test in the office. Can you do this? Do you have a doctor you can visit?
Comment Reply
Hi, Anon, and welcome to Empowher. So glad you found us, and thank you for your question!
First, let's do a little work with the calendar. If your last period began Feb. 9, I count 37 days since that happened. Even with an irregular cycle, 37 days is a fairly lengthy time between cycles.
In a regular, 28-day cycle, you would have been most fertile from about the 22nd to the 28th, but sperm can live for between 3 to 5 days inside a woman's body. If you had sex on the 19th and/or the 20th, and ovulated around the 22nd, 23rd or 24th, it would have been possible for the sperm to fertilize the egg and for you to be pregnant.
And because you asked, no, urinating can not push sperm out; the openings to the urethra (where you urinate) and your vagina are different. If sperm enters the vagina, urinating will not affect it.
Here's how home pregnancy tests work: They detect the presence in your urine of something called HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), a hormone produced by the placenta shortly after fertilization of an egg. If the hormone is there, the pregnancy test turns positive. If the hormone is not there, the test is negative. You can't simply produce this hormone with stress.
While it is possible for a pregnancy test to have false results, it would be more common for a negative test to be false by not sensing the HCG hormone yet (when a woman takes the test too early, for example). False-positive tests happen more when a woman is taking fertility medicine, and I am assuming you aren't. Since you have had three tests turn positive, I would say that odds are very good that you are pregnant.
Here are more details about how home pregnancy tests work:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/how-pregnancy-tests-work.htm
The only way to know for sure is to make an appointment with a doctor and have them do a pregnancy test in the office. Can you do this? Do you have a doctor you can visit?
March 18, 2009 - 10:21amThis Comment
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