Late Period, Negative Tests

[sp2016]

I am 4 days past my expected period but I have taken two pregnancy tests (one during the day and one first thing in the morning) and they have both come back negative. I had intercourse a few times this month and each time a condom was used and did not seem to fail. I have recently stopped the pill in June and I'm wondering if my late period may be due to irregular ovulation? However, my menstrual cycles since stopping have been around 29-30 days. I do not wish to be pregnant at this time, but is there a chance I've received false negatives on my tests?

[Heather]

So, the first thing to know, just so you know the facts about your own menstrual cycle, is that a "late" period isn't even considered late until it's at least five days after the last date someone with regular cycles would expect it to show up by. That's because the standard deviation of everyone's cycles, on average, is 2-3 days (in other words, it's normal and common for someone to have a 29 day cycle one month and a 32 day cycle the next, and that's still considered a regular cycle.

When you take pregnancy tests, they give you directions for that test. If you followed those directions, then you can know you can trust the results of your test. If you didn't, then you want to take a test following all the directions. What's generally advised per testing again after negative results from a test taken properly is that someone only do that if after a negative test, they still go a couple more weeks, or even a whole cycle, without a period.