Chemical Pregnancy

[Writerwannabe83]

Can someone please explain to me what this is and how it occurs?

I keep seeing it mentioned and I feel a bit dumb for not knowing what people are talking about

Thanks.

It's where the egg starts to fertilise-enough to release some hcg but is unable to carry on. Normally this is because there was something genetically wrong and it's not strong enough to carry on.
Sadly have some experience

I'm sorry to hear that x

I've experienced this too (last year). I had light bleeding on the day my period was due so got all upset that I couldn't have 'caught' pregnant that month, then the bleeding stopped after about 2 days (NOT normal for me at all!) so I took a pg test and got a feint positive line. Then next morning I took another test and got a slightly darker feint positive line. The morning after that I dropped a urine sample into the doctors to be pg tested on my way to work. I started bleeding normal period-style (heavy) at about 5pm just before I was about to leave work and come home that day. The doctors notified me that their test from that morning had come back negative and so I was told I had experienced a 'chemical pregnancy'.

In summary, I only tested positive for 2 consecutive days on home pg tests before my period arrived just 4 days later than I would've normally expected it. I was told by the doctor that many women experience chemical pregnancies but just remain unaware as if I hadn't of tested I would never have known and would've just thought period was a little bit late that month.

I had a suspected CP in February. My period was a day late so I took a test which showed a faint line. The next day the line had gone and the day after that my period started.

A high % of fertilised eggs don't make it as far as implantation, we only know about them because we have access to such sensitive pregnancy tests these days.

That's interesting to read Frankly, is that why it is recommended we wait until AF is a few weeks late before testing?

I don't know about a few weeks, but if you think about it, until home pregnancy tests came along, our mothers/grandmothers etc had to wait several weeks before getting a blood/urine test from the Dr.

This chemical pregnancy stuff makes my blood boil because doctors end up confusing patients with it so much - I wish they'd just do away with the term altogether. A chemical pregnancy just means a pregnancy before the stage of being able to detect heartbeat on a scan (6/7 weeks). But it is still a proper pregnancy and people should not be misled into thinking they were not properly pregnant. No we might not have known about it 20 years ago but for people who have been having difficulty TTC and not knowing what's the reason it can be important to know that fertilisation and implantation at least have been occurring even if the pregnancies have not been continuing.

Very best of luck all.

I totally agree fertilityfairy, i had 3 chemical pregnancies during ivf and although they didn't last long for that short time I was pregnant.
In a way having those gave us some hope, didn't seem like it at the time though