I should not be pregnant, but I am. How?
August 10, 2020 2:03 PM   Subscribe

This morning, I took a home pregnancy test and it came up positive. I'm in disbelief and freaking out because I'm in a complicated situation where I want to have a baby, and so this would be good news, but my husband is still on the fence and we were very much NOT trying yet. Help me regain a sense of control by helping me understand what went wrong.

I was on a copper IUD for a few years after the birth of our first and thus far only kid. In January I had it taken out because it was causing me a lot of discomfort. I switched to a combination pill. Last month I confessed to my husband that I wanted another baby and that I was anxious to find out if I could even still have kids, as I am 36 and early menopause runs in my family. While on the IUD, my cycles had been short, irregular, with only a two-day period and not much flow. I thought I might already be in peri-menopause and headed fast for menopause. I spoke to my GP about it and she agreed that time was of the essence. My husband was feeling very ambivalent about it, but understood that it was a time-sensitive matter and we agreed that I would go off the pill and we would use condoms so that I could start tracking my cycles to see if I was still ovulating at all.

We had unprotected sex until and on the last day that I took the pill (July 28), then switched to condoms. To the best of my knowledge, they stayed intact and we did not engage in any unprotected acts that could have introduced sperm in some other way. I quit the pill mid pack, I believe the last pill I took was the eighth of the pack. I had been waiting for a break-through bleeding so that I could start tracking my bbt and use ovulation tests. It never came. A few days ago, I began to feel queasy. Yesterday I threw up in the morning after drinking a glass of water. I am almost never nauseous, let alone to the point of having to throw up. Thinking I might have a stomach bug, I took my temperature and it was a little high, about 100. I even went in for a Covid test yesterday, just to be sure. But as the day progressed, my breasts became tender (unusual for me) and that finally tipped me off that I might be pregnant. Peed on a stick and it came up very faintly positive. I looked at photos of my first positive test from my first kid. I don't remember the exact dpo but I do remember that one came up positive a few days before I missed my period. That test looks similar in darkness to the one I'm holding now.

So, this sucks. Instead of enjoying my positive test, I now have to worry about how to tell my husband and brace for him to freak out. I'm sure his first words will be, how could that happen. And I'm wondering about that myself - I feel blindsided and shaky that this just... happened. I'm scared that this is going to turn what should be a joyful experience into a relationship crisis. I've sprained my fingers googling it and found one source that suggested it might be possible to get pregnant off sperm that was introduced before going off the pill, but one would have to ovulate literally days after going off the pill. Most sources suggest you wouldn't ovulate until, at the earliest, a week or two after going off the pill. The sperm would def be dead by then. Alternatively, could a condom have failed without us noticing an obvious break? Just... what the f?
posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (22 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
So, this is good news! It turns out you're still ovulating and likely not in early menopause! When you're both ready, getting pregnant again shouldn't prove challenging. It's so early that you're also likely a very good candidate for medical termination if you're both not on the same page for a baby right now.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:18 PM on August 10, 2020 [18 favorites]


Most sources suggest you wouldn't ovulate until, at the earliest, a week or two after going off the pill.

Most sources would be wrong in this case, wouldn't they? "Sources" talk about average scenarios. (My situation was different from yours, but also impossible per the "sources", as it turned out I was ovulating on like Day 21. I'd still be waiting for my second kid if I'd gone by the "sources.)

Plus the pill isn't 100% in any case. Close, but not 100. And condoms definitely aren't. If a little sperm is present in the fluid that touches the outside while he puts it on...

I hope your husband sees this as the joyful and welcome news that it is. Hopefully he did his processing on it back when you had decided to go off the pill. Congratulations, wishing you an easy and happy pregnancy.
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:20 PM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Hi! Wow, lots of different feelings and information for you here. I encourage you to go see your doctor immediately and find out about emotional supports and supports for processing all this information and sharing it with your husband. It sounds like you're worried about how your husband will react and that it might cause a relationship crisis. I would really encourage you to reach out to a trusted doctor or counsellor, maybe from a women's centre, where they can provide some crisis counselling (I mean feminist counselling, not pro-birth counselling) to you and help you make safe, informed decisions about both this unexpected pregnancy and impacts to your life and relationship. I hope that your husband sees that this a joyful and that birth control is never infallible and that you can connect and support one another, no matter where this leads you. You deserve love and safety.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 2:38 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


Statistically, it's probably a coin toss between condom failure or you ovulated pretty much straight away after stopping the pill.

Anecdata: hormonal contraception is a bad one-size-fits-all paradigm that assumes "normal" is a 28-day cycle, and the more you tend to deviate from that naturally the less well it works, and the older you get the more freaky deviations you get, which is why I have a number of GenX peers with two kids grown and one in elementary school.

Additional anecdata: you may have been ovulating on the pill but not implanting thanks to an unprepared uterine lining. That's the whole one-two-three mechanism of the "combination" pill - it might stop you ovulating, or you'll ovulate but the fallopian tubes or uterus won't be at ideal readiness conditions. You might've stopped the pill just in time to make it past the speedbumps.

Unfortunately, that means your risk of ectopic pregnancy is increased, and I think you should call your OBGYN today, tomorrow at the latest if it's too late today, and talk about this timeline, because it is cause for concern. Hopefully it's NBD and all is smooth sailing, but it's something to not blow off.

Ultimately the answer for your husband is that the science on all this stuff is absolute garbage because nobody gives a shit about how the reproductive/endocrine system actually works. Knowing entirely how the pill or IUDs work (or don't work), how and why ovulation works, and exactly how babby is formed doesn't really make anybody a lot of money, so we don't have that information, and if we had it we might be dangerous.

I hope everything turns out okay for you, and that he's already aware enough of the science/capitalism problem to know this is a random act of nature and not something nefarious.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:47 PM on August 10, 2020 [36 favorites]


Hi there, just another person who became pregnant in circumstances that didn't make any sense. We could never figure out how it happened. It was such an impossibility that the father of the baby thought I had been unfaithful for a while. I don't know how my own pregnancy happened, and I don't know how yours happened either, but I want to let you know I'm here if you want to MeMail as a person who was in a similar situation and will not judge whatever varying feelings you may have.

At the end of the day, you probably can't answer the question how definitively, but you can cite at least one other person who still doesn't know exactly how she became pregnant as there was no pregnancy inducing activity happening during that time that either person could remember.
posted by crunchy potato at 2:50 PM on August 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


Instead of enjoying my positive test, I now have to worry about how to tell my husband and brace for him to freak out. I'm sure his first words will be, how could that happen.

Are you worried that he will think you tricked him in some way? Because if that's the dynamic you're dealing with, the pregnancy isn't as big of an issue as the trust issues. Otherwise, the answer is "I don't know!" Sometimes bc fails. Sometimes women ovulate off-schedule. For the religious people in my life, the answer would that someone upstairs took matters into their own hands. You guys were careful, you were on the same team, you did everything right (as far as you knew) and for reasons beyond your control, the decision got made for you. The only way to deal with this, is to deal with it as a team.
posted by Mchelly at 2:53 PM on August 10, 2020 [20 favorites]


Crazy. There's a few minor differences but I basically was your husband exactly 2 years ago. Never wanted kids, partner always did, she was feeling the clock ticking as we entered our later 30s, we were seeing a counselor about it. Then it happened. She came home from work with a little card to break the news. I didn't get angry. Shocked, speechless, took about half an hour to process, but once it did it was like, ok, if we're gonna do this let's do it. Give him some credit, break it to him in a positive & supportive way, it'll be fine.

(I know you were asking more about the science side of things but I don't think I got around to wondering about that until days later. Still don't know. Life uh uh uh found a way.)

ps He started walking last month. Today I did laundry, wondered why it was so loud, oh there's a hammer in there. Honestly it's been nice being distracted while the world had a meltdown.
posted by mannequito at 3:20 PM on August 10, 2020 [29 favorites]


Not to be alarmist, but seconding Lyn Never on the need to check ASAP to rule out ectopic pregnancy. Also on the not-100% efficacy of the pill: I personally am an absolute A+ taker of my (progestin-only) pill at the same time on the dot every day but managed to get pregnant this spring anyway. It was an ectopic pregnancy and I mistook the bleeding for my period and the other symptoms for my chronic illness, and as a result the situation went undetected until it was too late for any non-surgical solution. As Lyn Never already pointed out, the odds of ectopic pregnancy are higher when a person conceives despite being on hormonal BC. I’m so sorry you’re already experiencing so much stress about what should be a joyful occurrence and I’m really sorry to be adding to it, but please take action now to minimize your risks if the pregnancy turns out to be ectopic.
posted by cabbage raccoon at 3:30 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


anonymous posted">> I now have to worry about how to tell my husband and brace for him to freak out.

That's his problem to deal with. The two of you were equally responsible for this situation; there's no reason for you to worry about his freaking out while you're also freaking out.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:39 PM on August 10, 2020 [10 favorites]


That's his problem to deal with.

That’s not how healthy relationships work. “How can I help my partner navigate this difficult thing” is not an unreasonable question, even if it emerges from a mutual responsibility.
posted by mhoye at 3:55 PM on August 10, 2020 [24 favorites]


The way that you stopped the pill pack and switched to condoms was a bit of a risky transition. Having unprotected sex up to and until you stopped the pill close to mid-pack left you with a risk based on how long sperm can live in your reproductive tract. It's possible for sperm to remain viable inside your body for several days. If you were having sex in the days before and on the day that you stopped the pill, you likely had sperm that were viable and were already hanging out in the Fallopian tubes (where most fertilization takes place) and then you ovulated very soon after you stopped the pill. Ovulating very soon after you stopped the pill on day 8 of the pack not impossible by any stretch, especially given the timing of which day you stopped the pill pack. When you take hormonal birth control, your own cycle's hormones are cycling in the background and their effect is overridden by the hormones you take in the pill. You ended up stopping the pill pack very close to your natural ovulation date assuming a standard cycle. Your body, in the absence of the extra hormones in the pill, ovulated on time right next to waiting sperm. Even though you were likely using condoms already when your egg was fertilized, the sperm already in the system were enough to create a pregnancy. It doesn't really matter now, but if you knew you were stopping the pill mid-pack, the time to start using condoms was at the start of your new pill pack, not on the day that you stopped taking the pill, though this isn't intuitive for most people who don't have a fairly advanced knowledge of the factors in-play. I don't think you need to question the condoms or other factors. I also don't think you have reason to think you have an unusual risk of ectopic pregnancy based on what you wrote in the question, but seeing your doctor isn't a bad idea.

I hope that your husband doesn't have a panic response to the news. It's not what either of you intended and you took precautions that you thought would cover you, but there was a small window of risk in the way things were transitioned and factors aligned to make an unlikely risk window into an achieved pregnancy window.
posted by quince at 3:57 PM on August 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


" I've sprained my fingers googling it and found one source that suggested it might be possible to get pregnant off sperm that was introduced before going off the pill, but one would have to ovulate literally days after going off the pill."

I basically got pregnant at 38 this way. I suspect the things were getting wobbly because I was of "advanced maternal age," but I was absolutely 100% positive I was not ovulating and based on the timing of all the things, man that was some long-lived sperm. I definitely did some major, major freaking out. I also went to therapy to deal with MY feelings of being completely blindsided by my body. (I'm a person who has to work up to things, even things I'm excited about, and boy did I not have a chance to work up to that!) Feel free to memail me if you want to talk about intense pregnancy ambivalence and surprise later-life pregnancies.

Anyway now I have a third child!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:00 PM on August 10, 2020 [6 favorites]


A faint positive test means that you probably ovulated somewhere from 8 to 12 days ago, so yes, you must have ovulated within a few days of stopping the pill (and sperm can live up to 5 days.)
posted by songs about trains at 4:36 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


Nthing sperm living for several days inside of you (I thought this was common knowledge?), and you ovulating shortly after you stopped taking the pill. Seems pretty straightforward to me, actually.

I’m happy for you that you are still fertile, and hope you and your husband work things out with your counselor about this pregnancy (or a future one if this isn’t the right time!).
posted by amaire at 5:16 PM on August 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


I was on the pill when my daughter was conceived, FWIW.
posted by Ruki at 6:19 PM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Human bodies are weird. Last night I fell down a rabbit hole of journal articles about pregnancies post-hysterectomy. I'm now convinced one needs to be dead to be 100% certain pregnancy won't occur.

My guess would be that you got pregnant because you ovulated right after you stopped the pill, the sperm were already there and it was all underway when you started using the condoms.

I hope your husband takes the news ok. He hopefully understands that if you are of childbearing age and having sex it's always a possibility, all the methods have at best a tiny percentage of failure. All the best.
posted by kitten magic at 6:45 PM on August 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


You and your husband hadn't relied on condoms for contraception in several years; certain common user errors have shown condoms don't necessarily break when failing to prevent pregnancy. That said, stuff like antihistamines, or anti-anxiety meds, can cause a false positive pregnancy test. Please, contact your doctor.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:10 PM on August 10, 2020


Agreeing that a faint positive test might mean something different as well. When I had a "chemical pregnancy" it meant that I had conceived, but the embryo was not viable (a very early miscarriage). I had a faint positive, and when I called my doctor and told her so, she warned me that it may not be a viable pregnancy, and blood tests confirmed this.

I would go to the doctor ASAP, whether you tell your husband or not.
posted by caoimhe at 1:43 AM on August 11, 2020


Doesnt seem like a mystery. Sperm lives for days, and you must have ovulated within that time. I hope you don't feel pressured to terminate just because your husband wasnt sufficiently convinced on the subject before this happened. You both did the best you could to be responsible, and you dont have to end it just because you feel like youre supposed to because somehow you personally 'messed up.' Also, there is some evidence that fertility surges before menopause, so this doesnt prove that you have years of fertility ahead of you. Sorry for the gloom, but as someone who missed the fertility window, I wanted to chime in.
posted by thegreatfleecircus at 6:28 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


I was working at Planned Parenthood as a Family Planning Specialist and was faithfully using condoms when I unexpectedly got pregnant with my first child. So, yeah. Failure rates are a thing, even "experts" can get pregnant without intending to, and the only 100% failure-proof method of birth control is abstinence. Please don't beat yourself up about this, and feel free to use my previous sentence with your husband if he asks "HOW" and/or freaks out.

I'm more than happy to share how my husband and I dealt with the fallout of an unexpected pregnancy, if you'd like to MeMail me. Tl,dr: lots of talking, lots of processing, lots of grace and understanding on both sides.
posted by cooker girl at 7:40 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Seconding that going off the Pill was a mutual decision and having unprotected sex is always risky and that you can still get pregnant on the Pill because humans vary. There is no way to have PIV intercourse (yet) with a rock solid guarantee of no pregnancy. This is something I hope your husband understands, and if not, it is still something you can expect him reasonably to understand. This isn't something you did to him or something you did wrong. Be comfortable in that knowledge.

The timing isn't what you wanted but you are right to be thinking about your timetable. I agree your first step should be a medical visit to verify your result and explore possible risks/complications. And also, I would not be terribly blithe about the idea that there are "plenty more chances to get pregnant" - you are entering the zone where it's honestly not always as easy, so if you have a low-risk pregnancy you may really want to discuss keeping it. There are not unlimited future chances, though you are on the young end and of course obviously fertile as of recently. But that can change, and your doctor can help you do a workup to understand what your personal picture is.

Good luck - I'm going to be hopeful that all goes well for you.
posted by Miko at 9:09 AM on August 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended. "For every 100 women who rely on the pill for one year, nine will get pregnant; for every 100 women who rely on condoms for one year, nearly 20 will get pregnant."

Wishing you the best during this difficulty.
posted by acridrabbit at 9:41 AM on August 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


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