Dont know when I conceived, and had chicken pox late March 2011 - HELP!

[Strotters]

Hi everyone

This is a bit of a tricksy one!

Age 43, you'd have thought I'd know better, but no, have found myself pregnant and I have no idea when my last period was. Could've been February: could've been March! Both myself and Daddy are very happy, though totally leftfield as we weren't trying and worried about age etc .... but I am driving myself INSANE trying to work out when my last period was. At age 43, I'm subject to a number of tests and scans and the timing of the dates are crucial.

For added information (so you don't all think I'm always this flaky) .... I was made redundant in March, but the bozos at my previous place didn't tell us until mid March that the office was closing and we'd all be out of a job. We'd been hanging on since November waiting week by week to find out our fate - stressful!

Add to that, my 5 year old, had chicken pox early March, to which I succumbed around 24 March. I've heard CP can cause birth defects. If I conceived in February, I'll definitely have had CP then; if I conceived March I should be ok.... BUT....

I have no idea when my last period was as the past few months have been more stressful than I care to think about. My "young man" is currently setting up his own business, so we thought no money coming in for us (Happily I have been fortunate to land another job), hence noting period dates wasn't really on my radar.

Does anyone know how I can try to remember when my last period was? I have even phoned my bank as I worked out that last load of tampons I bought were from the Coop, and thought I might be able to work it out from that. But not, as went to the Coop in both February AND March, so that doesn't help.

Any ideas? How accurate are the scans? I didn't have much faith in them last time around as the midwife kept telling me it was only a indicator. Have the accuracy of scans progressed in teh past 5 years so's they can tell me when my baby will be due, and more importantly, when I conceived????

S x

Get yourself to the GP/Early Pregnancy Unit asap and get a scan, its the only way you're going to know for sure (it should be accurate to within a week or two) and then you can set your mind at rest. I had a chickenpox scare in January, when I wasn't actually pg, but the research I did iirc seemed to suggest it was more dangerous after 20 weeks.

I agree. Get a scan asap, your gp should be pretty good about that. Early scans can be wrong but normally by a week or so, absolute maximum. So you should have a definite Feb or March conception confirmation.

Do it now!

Hi strotters - could you not take one of the digital pregancy tests which will give you an idea of how many weeks pg you are? May be worth trying.

For what it's worth, I googled chicken pox and pregnancy over the weekend as I've never had chicken pox and am 5 week pg, and a friend's child has just come out in spots. The incidence of complications from chickenpox is very low in the first trimester and raises to about 1% for a few weeks in the second trimester, if I remember correctly (you could google it). Put into perspective, that's not a very large risk, but of course it can be checked out at a scan. I think the risks are highest much further into the pregnancy.

Also the GP should be able to tell from an examination roughly how far along you are and it's my understanding that the scans are accurate to within a few days for the vast majority of people.

oh, and of course, congratulations! hope that everything turns out ok for you.

Oh yeah - a digital test would be a great idea, followed up by a scan to confirm.

If you tell your gp that you've had chickenpox they'll probably do something pretty fast to stop you worrying.

I had no idea when my last period was, never even really thought of myself as particularly regular, so the last I could remember when I thought I was pg was about 3 months before so gave that date and whilst everyone was incredulous, I almost bullied local midwife practice into coming out to see me! So whilst I felt a bit flaky for a few weeks (and people treated me as such), it meant I got booked in for an early scan and got some dates which have remained intact since that initial scan. Turned out to be 9wks at that point, which means I was about 6wks gone at the point at which I noticed.

I did a digital test which could only tell me I was more than 3wks pg, I didn't think that terribly helpful as I had guessed that much.