A positive pregnancy test is one of those moments in life when you just have to stop for a moment and stare at what’s right in front of you. You might not believe it because you’ve been longing for it. Finally, the wait is over. You’ve reached the end of this particular milestone; you are pregnant. Now you have to go through the next nine months, reaching small milestones as you go until you finally meet the baby you want so much.
Positive Pregnancy Test After Period
For the most part, most women don’t receive a positive pregnancy test result until after their period is late. There is a very good reason for this. Home pregnancy tests work by detecting the pregnancy hormone in your urine. The pregnancy hormone is called human chorionic gonodotropin, though it is more commonly referred to as hCG. Your level of hCG has to be high enough for a home pregnancy test to detect. Typically, that level has to be at least 25 mIU or higher.
Since every woman is different, there is no way to guarantee that your body will produce enough hCG to alert you to the fact that you are pregnant until you miss your period. For this reason, many women wait until the day they expect their period to arrive before they even bother to take an at-home pregnancy test. This eliminates many instances of sadness and unhappiness due to a negative pregnancy test result. Since they is no way to tell if a test result is a false negative until your period arrives and you take a positive test, many women choose to avoid this precarious situation all together.
Furthermore, at-home pregnancy tests are as much as 99 percent accurate when used on the day of your missed period. When used prior to this date, your test could be less accurate, providing you with a false negative. If you take a test early and you receive a positive result, you can rest assured that you are very likely pregnant. A false positive result is very, very rare.
Positive Pregnancy Test After 3 Weeks
For some women, the ability to find out you are pregnant at three weeks is entirely possible. You are three weeks pregnant three weeks from the date of the first day of your last period. Most women ovulate and become pregnant around 14 days after the first day of their last period.
Typically it takes a week or so before your fertilized egg makes its way through your fallopian tubes and into your uterus, but that’s not a guarantee for all women. Some women find that their eggs travel much faster and begin producing hCG much faster and at much higher levels. For this reason, there are a few women who are able to take an early response pregnancy test and receive a positive result as few as three weeks after the first day of her last period. For most women, it takes four weeks to receive a positive test result.
Early detection tests are designed to detect lesser amounts of hCG in your urine stream. If you have enough, you can tell if you are pregnant as little as three weeks after the beginning of your last period. It is imperative that you remember, however, that this is not something that occurs for all women. A negative pregnancy test result at three weeks is not a big deal. It doesn’t mean anything until your period arrives or does not arrive.
Positive Pregnancy Test Results
Now that you have a positive pregnancy test result, you need to know what happens next. Your job is only beginning when you reach this milestone. Whether you receive a positive pregnancy result after your missed period or a week before your missed period, you need to immediately call your obstetrician. Your doctor will want to schedule an appointment to see you. However, do not be alarmed if your doctor isn’t interested in seeing you for several months. It is standard practice not to see a pregnant patient until she is closer to her second trimester.
The reason for this is to guarantee that your pregnancy is on track. It’s easier for doctors to tell precisely how far along you are when they are able to feel your uterus, hear the baby’s heartbeat and see the development of the baby on an ultrasound machine.
At your first appointment, your doctor might ask you to take a pregnancy blood test. This is another way to help determine how far along you are and how healthy your pregnancy really is. Your doctor will also help provide you with good information as to what you should and should not eat, how much weight you should ideally gain and how to maintain the best possible health throughout your pregnancy.
Keep in mind that when you see a positive result on a pregnancy test, you are more than likely pregnant. False positives are exceptionally rare. Unless you are taking medication to help with your fertility, you are likely pregnant when you see a positive test result. Some fertility drugs contain levels of hCG that can show up in your urine and cause you to see a positive result on a test. This is why it’s important to know what you’re taking and to take your doctor’s advice when he or she tells you not to take an at-home pregnancy test.
A positive pregnancy test result is an exciting moment in a woman’s life. The few weeks it takes before you are able to test at home between conception and your missed period can be very long, especially if you are trying to have a child and want desperately to know if you’ve managed to conceive. The best advice for you to is to be patient, which is much easier said than done. Your body will let you know when it’s pregnant by either presenting you with the early symptoms of pregnancy or by causing you to miss your period.
