How can I tell how pregnant I am?

[renniem]

I've always had irregular periods and since having my first baby last year I never got back into the habit of tracking them again....

Well today I going out I'm pregnant (I couldn't remember when I got my last period 🙄) I tested positive four times.

Is there any way I can tell how pregnant I am besides having an ultrasound? I think I must be around 8 weeks but I am just so confused as this is very unexpected for me (prior to having my baby we were trying for 8 years and went through two rounds of IVF) and I wonder if there is any other way (bloods maybe?) that I can tell more accurately? Can my GP offer me that if I ask or do I need to go privately?

Any help would be appreciated.

Sorry- scan is the only way to tell accurately

In my experience GPs don't routinely do bloods for pregnancy and I wouldn't waste an appt. If you're ready to consider going private anyway can you book a private scan? There's plenty of clinics up and down the country with availability within days and cost around £60.

They will get you to roughly estimate when you think your last period was and just wait until your 12 week scan to give you a date.

GPS don't routinely do blood tests and you won't be able to tell a date from it as the hcg varies so much

Hormone levels can vary too much by person so they are not an indicator of how far along you are. You will have to go for a scan to be dated. You could go private or wait for the standard dating scan. Only problem with waiting is that you could miss the window for the NT test if you could possibly be further along.

Only a scan will tell you.

There are tests at the '12 week scan' that can only be done up to a certain time or you've missed it (measuring something? Can't quite remember).

GP's tend to err on the side of caution ime.

I would go to the GP and be vague, say you're pregnant but not sure if you're 8 or 12 weeks, you think it might be 12. They'll then get you in ASAP and if it turns out at the scan that you are only 6/8 weeks, they'll send you another appointment for when you're 12 weeks.

Hard to say.

If your POAS tests gave a result you must be at least 2 - 3 weeks past conception because you have enough hormones to activate the test.

When I was expecting my first child, I knew the week (the day even!) when I had conceived because DH was traveling around then. There was only one time it could have been. But after the scan, the medics told me a number of weeks that was different. When I tried to explain, they were not interested in listening and used the information from the scan. So in terms of medical care, that's all that matters to them.

If you want to know for yourself, once they've scanned you and told you how many weeks they think you are, you could count backwards and try to remember when you DTD.

Also, medics calculate start of pregnancy as mid-cycle of a roughly 4 week cycle so two weeks before your period. But that's just an average - not every woman ovulates on day 14.

Congratulations and good luck!

Thanks everybody.

I called the midwife booking line and despite saying that I'm 10 weeks pregnant my booking (phone) appointment won't be until two weeks from now and the dating scan in mid May (which I'm pretty sure it's too late for NT testing etc)

I'm going to have a private scan tonight so hopefully that will shed some light!

@renniem

Thanks everybody.

I called the midwife booking line and despite saying that I'm 10 weeks pregnant my booking (phone) appointment won't be until two weeks from now and the dating scan in mid May (which I'm pretty sure it's too late for NT testing etc)

I'm going to have a private scan tonight so hopefully that will shed some light!

That's not acceptable, there are certain blood tests that need doing before 10 or 11 weeks and screenings that need to be done before 13+6 I believe.

Once you have your private scan and know your dates definitely ring back if your appointments mean you'll miss the cut offs.

Congratulations OP and best of luck for your scan!

Just a small update.

I am 10w1d pregnant today (as I found out on my dating scan, so weird to see a moving baby a day after finding out I'm pregnant!)

I also called the maternity hospital and demanded an earlier scan so they booked me for the 29th (which is ok as it's before 13w6d).

However i wasn't able to do much about the bloods as they said that they now do that along with the NT scan.

I do however plan to double check as in my first pregnancy they missed half of them and I ended up not being diagnosed with gestational diabetes until week 30 which added a lot of stress to my pregnancy, and I'm definitely not letting this happen again.