To be worried about paternity!?

[NewlyConfused]

I've name changed for this as I know my DSIL uses the site and it's likely to be outing. I have a two year old. He was conceived, I had assumed, the first time I had sex with my husband after we got back together after a breakup. I was on the pill and we used a condom. I had regular bleeding during the pregnancy which meant I didn't find out until the second trimester and also made dating via periods impossible. The dating scan put the conception as with my husband. However, I had been dating a man for a couple of months and the last time I had sexual contact with him was during the previous cycle. I wasn't on the pill and we stupidly had PIV before putting the condom on. I realise this was idiotic. I bumped into him last week and I think he looks far more like my child than my husband does. This made me think about the fact that the baby was very large for his gestation (literally off the charts), to the point that I had to have extra growth scans. He's also measured at least 90th percentile at every health visitor appointment. I was relying on the dating scan but I'm now concerned that this might not be as secure an assumption as I'd hoped.

AIBU to assume that my husband is definitely the father based on the dating scan?

You assuming things is kinda what got you into this mess tho and your cycle sounds very irregular and unpredictable.

Either baby’s from the boyfriend in which case it was born at 43 weeks This fits with unprotected sex and ‘off the charts’ size you mentioned.

or baby is your husbands in which case it was born at 37 weeks which doesn’t really fit with double contraception and off the charts size.

do you want this potential lie (or at best an omission of truth) hanging over your head for the rest of your life and the knock on effect it will have on your partner, child and the ex? And possibly future children

Not necessarily. My DD was born at 41+2 by EMCS because nothing would start my labour, all 4 methods of induction didn't work. Many women now are given until 42 weeks max to naturally go in to labour before interventions are given, so a mistaken extra week isn't actually a huge difference.

I very much believe my DD would have stayed in me for much longer if we were waiting for natural labour or if my due date had been miscalculated.

Also remember that sperm survives up to 5 days meaning conception can happen 5 days after the event.

children have evolved to look like their fathers as babies toddlers so they don’t reject them so this is a huge sign that you saw a resemblance. You can count the numbers as much as you like but only a dna test will give you the right answer and sounds like you do need one to be sure. And it will come out.. whether due to a medical condition or ancestry.com in many years to come…

I know I wouldn't be able to live with the uncertainty. Like pp can you get private DNA test if you don't want to poke the bear just yet and see what it says? I don't think you can just lie to your DH if it does come back as the boyfriend is the father though - that would be unreasonable.

How many weeks pregnant were you at your dating scan?

Are you still in touch with your ex-boyfriend? Or at least enough to ask him to do a paternity test?

I feel this would be the best way forward, phrase it to him that you have concerns and want to conclusively rule it out.

Obviously if it comes back positive then you need to discuss with DH immediately. But if it comes back negative you never need to mention it to DH and cause the potential damage it could.

If your cycles are longer, then LMP can’t be used, as you’d ovulate later, so you’d not conceive until week 3 or 4 of your cycle, compared to someone with a 4 week cycle who would conceive week 2.

for example, LMP of 15th September 2024 would have a due date of June 22nd if they had a 4 week cycle. For someone with a 5 week cycle it’s June 29th and for 6 weeks it’d be July 6th.

With your longer cycles your son wouldn’t have been born at 43 weeks form LMP, it’d be nearer 41

And how is OP going to get sample for the paternity test? Swab his cheek whilst DH is asleep?

If you are comfortable with deceitful beahviour like this the marriage will never last.

Are you seriously suggesting keeping quiet? Theres three other people out there that deserve the truth!

5 weeks out on a dating scan is too much. Surely that's not possible. Otherwise there would be loads of people having babies going a month over term.

Are you sure about your cycle length OP?

Obviously not, I just wasn’t sure if there was a less invasive way to get a sample 🤷‍♀️

If the baby is 90 percentile with HV after a very definite date (ie. Being born). Then I assume the baby was just a big baby. So the worry about growth scans being incorrect date due to size is in all likelihood incorrect.

Ie you just had a big baby and date was correct.

I was measured as 14 weeks when I had my dating scan and yes, adamant about the cycle length. Tracked it religiously with an app because (ironically) I was obsessed with falling pregnant and not noticing a missed period. It was a genuinely uncharacteristic moment of madness not putting a condom on straight away

Leave it alone?? Are you mad?

DC joins ancestry.com at 18 and realises dad is not his dad?

with a two year old this could be managed in a much better way

Measured at 14 weeks,
On that day, how many days since you had had sec with each of the two people?

Regardless of how long your cycle is, ovulation most often occurs about 14 days before next period begins.

If it’s possible, you could get a DNA test done without husband needing to know. He will be upset at the possibility that DC isn’t his, so don’t put him through that unless you have to (I.e. results show he is not biological father) and then start from there. Sounds like you will be honest either way.

Do you know his blood type? That could help maybe rule something out (Based on my medical degree from Seattle Grace Hospital!)

Basically, ignore the bleeds and lmp, you won’t figure anything out by that if you continued to bleed in pregnancy.

If there’s 273 days between sex with your boyfriend and baby being born, then baby was born at 41 weeks gestation (39 weeks after conception)

If you first had sex with your DH 5 weeks after that then baby was born at 36 weeks gestation ( 34 weeks after conception).

Were any comments made about baby looking premature? Fine hair on body, covered in lots of vernix? Small at birth? If not then I’d safely say baby was ‘term’

You need to do a dna test, hate to say it, but on the sly.

All this to-ing and fro-ing over period maths is just not going to answer your question.

if you know your child’s and husbands blood type that might help- it wouldn’t confirm he is the father but might prove he can’t be

Ahh my medical degree comes from Grey Sloan Memorial

worth knowing - male sperm only last a few days while female sperm can last for weeks. if your son was your boy friends he would have been born at 32 weeks - his placenta would have started to break down - did the midwife comment on his placenta after birth?

Did your boyfriend actually “finish” PIV before you put a condom on?

The baby was born 39 weeks after conception if it was her boyfriends, so at 41 weeks pregnant, no reason placenta would’ve been breaking down at what is still classed as normal gestation for a pregnancy.
and female sperm can live for 5 days, not weeks

RIP Lexi and Mark!