Am I the father?

[Stevensaw]

Hi. I see a lot of people helping on this and wanted to reach out to see if anyone could help me.
so basically a woman I have been seeing has let me know she is pregnant and it is my child. She went for an ultrasound today and was dated 6 weeks 3 days but the first time I slept with her 5 weeks and 3 days ago. Also to add I only ejaculated in her on the 7th of November, I remember as we was away for the night and it just happened? I questioned her on this and she has said that that’s how pregnancy is dated. I know she slept with someone else about 7 and half weeks ago as she let me know but said she had a period in between and hasn’t slept with someone else since. Wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be the other man’s child as she is 6 weeks 3 days today?

Date sounds correct, but I would still suggest paternity testing too. ( give you that extra reassurance).

good luck

@Stevensaw What odd reactions to a genuine question. Saying someone can Google it would reduce the posting on here by 75%, we all repeatedly answer questions from other posters that they could Google (or speak to their GP about!)

OP as others have said, dates sound right. The way we date pregnancy is weird and you're not the only person (man or woman) confused by them adding the two weeks before conception!

You can get a paternity test - I think they're safest after the baby is born but I'd also consider really carefully how to approach this with the mother.

Best of luck, if she's had a number of previous MC this will be a really anxious time and she's at about the time where the rough sickness can kick in for many.

Hope all goes well!

There are so many variables. We tried to get pregnant for years so I know a bit about timing.

pregnancy dates run from the first day of a woman’s last period.

So for example if her first day of her last period was the 24th October and she usually has an average 28 day cycle (not all women do) then she would have ovulated on the 7th of November. Sex with her on the 7th of November would make her about 7 weeks pregnant.

HOWEVER ovulation would have been brief BUT your sperm would have lived in her up to 6 or so days. So potentially she could have ovulated sometime in the week after sex and still got pregnant. This means sex with her on the 7th November would make her between 6 and 7 weeks pregnant.

If she has longer or shorter cycles then the average woman with a 28 day cycle, these dates will be slightly different.

Just to confuse things, some women get full periods throughout a pregnancy but this is quite rare.

women still get pregnant using condoms or withdrawal method. So if you had sex before or after the 7th you need to apply the same maths to work out dates.

To shorten all my waffle, yes the dates stack up to be yours

Why so rude and mean?

Good luck OP, hope it all works out for you both.

Many grown women I know struggle to understand how a pregnancy is dated, there are many posts on this forum that illustrate that. Stop judging this poor guy for asking a reasonable question.

Thank you for being kind. Many have made me feel wrong for asking the question but I just needed someone to ask.

You just need a paternity test as soon as the baby is born. My mother had two boyfriends and picked the wrong one as my father because he and I looked uncannily alike with the same white blond hair. A DNA test in my 60s showed it was actually the other dark haired bloke who was my father. It was a right mess. DNA test every time. Nothing else is reliable.

Don't need to wait, you can get non-invasive prenatal paternity tests now!

Congratulations on becoming a dad @Stevensaw .

I can see that others have already answered your original question so won't repeat.

The reason for pregnancies being dated this way is historical - before ultrasoundsthe date of last period (about 2 weeks before actual conception) was the only knowable date so all medical, practical and midwifery procedures used a gestation calculated from that date. Although eventually we learned how to calculate the actual date of conception all medical practice continues to use date of last period as the official "start date" of the pregnancy because if we ever tried of make a swap over to dating from conception there would definitely be mistakes where someone gets muddled and gives a treatment as if the developing baby was 2 weeks more or less developed than it actually was, and the potential consequences of that would definitely lead to babies being harmed or even killed by such mistakes.

The upshot is that one is 2 weeks pregnant the moment that sperm meets egg and it's impossible to be less than 2 weeks pregnant, as you now know!

Good luck with parenthood!

makes a lot of sense thank you. Just crazy they date it this way c