Are we just old school

[Highlandgal]

I was out with a group of friends and we got talking about pregnancy as one of her daughters is trying. Her daughter had what she said was a chemical pregnancy and her daughter got upset when she said in her day it would have been classed as a late period. It got us thinking that these days with all the various home tests that are available we feel for the younger generation that there’s pressure to have sex at certain times rather than just relax and have fun. Is this really the case or are we just old and not moved with the times. I’m not judging just curious.

My periods are like clockwork. So a "late period" would already be a potential pregnancy in my mind.

I prefer to know what's going on. But it's important not to get too emotionally invested, unfortunately many people do.

I had a chemical pregnancy and was testing morning and night for several days. I was in shock at the initial positive test, but the pale lines not getting darker meant I knew it wasn't going to stick. Just waiting for my period without a clue (but hoping) would have been worse.

I am a midwife
I have worked in midwifery for 20 years.
Then for further 21
years as a midwife in an early pregnancy clinic .
at five weeks you can see a gestation sac in a scan
this is the amnion and chorion looking like a grey ring in the enlarged uterus .
no evidence of a baby - but is only there due to being pregnant .
women didn’t know and waited to confirm a pregnancy by hospital test at twelve weeks .
Historically women knew they were pregnant at eighteen weeks called quickening .
a chemical pregnancy is a very crude phrase of being pregnant - no evidence of pregnancy seen when miscarries .
implying not there.
it was there / too tiny to be seen .
pregnancy tests can be so early these days
women could wait …
most don’t and will do a test .
please please treat these tests carefully .
they can’t tell you how pregnant you are .
their accuracy is showing how much BHCG your body is producing .
A scan confirms the pregnancy .
the cheapest pregnancy test is all you need .
save your money to celebrate or commiserate the outcome .
they are preying on vulnerabilities to make money .
Finally it is ok to grieve the loss of a pregnancy of a few weeks .
it is the loss of hopes / dreams and future .
a lonely time .
medicine has changed so much over the years
with advances we have the downside
of finding out about the loss considerably earlier than twelve weeks

I think testing so early makes it a seem a very long pregnancy.

I had a very early miscarriage between my youngest two children. It wasn’t as sad as the missed miscarriages I had which were discovered at 11 and 12 weeks. I think because I’d had a couple of months to be pregnant and think about the child I was having and also had no bleeding or cramps at all so it wasn’t as though my brain registered anything was amiss. The miscarriage at 5 weeks was shit and definitely more painful than a regular period with clots too… But it wasn’t as tough mentally.

Your friends daughter was hopeful and excited and then suffered a loss that’s tough and difficult and your friend said the wrong thing in that moment. Regardless of that being ‘true’ in your day, that moment was really should be about your friend offering comfort and reassurance to her daughter in a difficult moment.

All the debate about ‘early’ testing is moot, the comment was hurtful in the moment, albeit unintentionally.

My understanding was that the tests detect HCG and the body doesn’t start producing this until implantation begins. The sensitive ‘early’ tests just pick up on smaller amounts of HCG. So we know a little earlier, yes. But there was an embryo- and knowing that means there was a loss suffered. As noted by others this is important to know when considering what fertility issues might be present.

The ‘just relax and have fun’ is also a challenging rhetoric that doesn’t fly when you have fertility issues, those same fertility issues means you do need to track fertile windows and test early. Because your body might not be predictable in that way.

As someone who has gone through fertility issues, I sympathise with your friend’s daughter. Her mum needed to offer support in that moment, not social commentary.

I am also assuming that ‘back in your day’ there wasn’t the internet to talk and rant about such things in an anonymous forum, but regardless we are where we are.

The modern day has ‘early testing’ and the consequences of that are people are informed earlier about what is happening and important information about whether they are fertilising embryos that later fail. It has pros and cons but we are where we are.

Your friend should apologies for being tone deaf and insensitive in that moment.

The egg was fertilised and implanted into the endometrium womb to the point where the HCG hormone was being released and detected via a pregnancy test, and so of course she was pregnant.

The failure of the pregnancy to develop is not a “late period”, it is a loss of pregnancy/early miscarriage.

To call it either a late period (which is incorrect), or a chemical pregnancy (when is it no longer ‘chemical’?), is really unpleasant and insensitive!

We don’t consider ourselves to have any role. It was just a general conversation like we talk about a lot of things.

Those who are saying my friend’s comments were insensitive, I can see how that would come across, however it was not meant like that in any way and her daughter understood that after my friend explained. It was more of a statement of things at the time and not said to dismiss her daughter’s feelings. She’s very supportive of her daughter.

I think it was the daughter herself who called it a chemical pregnancy so I don’t think you need to get annoyed on her behalf about that.

The term chemical pregnancy is just used to refer to a very early loss - usually before 5 weeks - whether you agree with the term or not. Because at that point, other than the detection of the chemical HCG, there is often no evidence of pregnancy on a scan etc. So it can only be detected “chemically.”

I agree that very early testing can be a curse (though I appreciate that in some cases it can be helpful).

A couple of months after we started trying, my period was a week late. I wondered at the time whether it was a miscarriage, but never knew because I hadn’t tested (in those days it was best to wait for a week). I was obviously disappointed, but think I’d have felt worse if I had known for sure that I’d been pregnant.

Its not stupid if its the only reminder of a pregnancy - for some its all they got

And helpful if someone is considering an abortion or changing their lifestyle to give the pregnancy the best chance of succeeding

Just looked up a chemical preganancy and its a miscarriage at 5 weeks, period 1 week late.
If you had been trying for a baby , especially for a long time, of course it would be upsetting. But youre right before early pregnancy testing it would be a late period. Which if heavy may have made you wonder if it was a very early pregnancy/failed conception.
Very different to having a late miscarriage.
I think very early testing for pregnancy can be a bit of a curse. I remember a programme years ago by prof Robert Winston which gave the odds of a pregnancy for each cycle and the odds of a fertilised egg developing in the early stages and becoming a baby- the odds were surprisingly low .
Your friend should have been more sensitive with her daughter. But fine to say it to your friends! And yes we are becoming dinosaurs!!

I agree with a PP who compared it to going to funeral and saying to a grieving family that thousands of other people also died on the same day. Yes its factually correct but still very insensitive.

It really isn't. That person lived and died, and is being grieved by the people who loved him or her. To compare that in any way to a pregnancy that ends within five weeks of conception, before any evidence of the embryo can be seen on an ultrasound, is completely ridiculous. I get that people can be desperate to conceive, and terribly disappointed at getting a line on a pregnancy test that then doesn't progress, but it is in no way comparable to actually grieving a beloved person.

I had a miscarriage in between two live births. OK it was an “early” miscarriage but I knew I was pregnant and a test confirmed it. I wasn’t rushing around taking tests as this was unplanned but wanted pregnancy.

I had just come home from hospital having suffered agonising pain and obviously lots of bleeding, in a room full of very pregnant women but that’s another story. My mother’s reaction on the phone was “Oh, you’ve had a miss…” no, actually I’ve just lost a a baby, your grandchild 🙄

Reading comprehension on this site is fucked.

No one was comparing a miscarriage to losing a loved one.

What does you’ve had a miss mean?