could i be pregnant?

[gs]

My boyfriend also fingered me when i was supposedly ovulating but i don’t remember when or which time it was that i’m scared his precum could have been on my or his fingers and went inside me. I believe this is such a low chance and almost close to impossible for a pregnancy to happen if it did get inside me, however i have recently been panicking for the last few days because i realized i had spotting around two weeks ago which is super super not normal, and now my period is 3 days late and i have had cramps, bloating, sore tender breasts and other “pregnancy symptoms” for the past whole week. I am so scared and worried and have almost lost all hope my period is going to come.

[Heather]

Hey there, gs. I'm sorry you're feeling so scared.

So, you're right, this isn't how pregnancy happens in reality. That's because direct contact is needed between someone's vagina and semen -- not a stop in between like fingers. To see more of what's needed for pregnancy to happen, you can read this piece: Human Reproduction: A Seafarer's Guide.

Periods also aren't considered late until they are at least four or five days later than expected. That's because the standard deviation for menstrual cycles is 2-3 days. Your periods have likely had that deviation before, you probably just didn't notice then because you weren't also freaking out about pregnancy. For more on that, here's a different article: My period is late (or is it?).

It sounds like you'd benefit from doing two things: taking a pregnancy test, so you can put these fears to bed, and talking to your boyfriend about doing basic hygiene and washing his hands before he puts them on your vulva so that isn't something you have to worry about at all (it also will help prevent things like UTIs).

How does that sound?

[gs]

well i kind of know for a fact that his hands didn’t have any on it i just don’t know if i touched his precum and then accidentally wasn’t thinking at all and accidentally touched inside me because i kind of remember but don’t really that possible
happening, if it did it was the smallest ever amount of precum mixed with saliva. i’m only worrying so much because of my symptoms i’ve been having for awhile and because i don’t know if my period is actually only 3 days late, or a whole week. my period prediction was exactly a week ago today but my app only says 3 days late. i don’t know if it’s too early to take a test because if so it could come out false negative. also what could the sporting have been if it wasn’t implantation bleeding?

[Heather]

It sounds like you didn't get the chance to read that first link that I gave you. Can you take about ten or fifteen minutes and read it? I shared it because I think you having the accurate information about reproduction will help you with this.

I wouldn't have advised you take a test if you couldn't get an accurate result with the timing you shared. Once a period is late then it's an okay time to take a test.

Implantation bleeding is actually very rare: if and when people have it, they often won't even notice. Even if you did have a real pregnancy risk, spotting likely wouldn't be implantation bleeding. What's more likely is that that spotting was because of abrasion for the manual sex you did have, or was spotting with ovulation, something that happens more often than spotting from implantation.

[gs]

can you tell me more about what spotting actually is like? since i had never had it i thought i was getting my period, typical light brown blood and then it became red but it was very very light so i did wear pads for it but then nothing else would come out and it would switch back to discharge. that happened off and on for about 3-4 days. what i’ve read spotting is only drops of blood. Or just bleeding in between periods in General. and no it wasn’t my actual period because that would have been 2 weeks early and i’ve been having cramping and pms symptoms all week so that would be concerning if i did already have my period

[Heather]

Sure. Spotting, like you said, is usually only very, very light, sparse drops of blood. Someone might choose to wear a pad with it, but people won't usually need one.

If something looked at first like your period, then what it sounds like might have happened is just that you had a very light period, which can happen, especially if and when they happen kind of wildly off-schedule, which can happen now and then, especially when you're young and still settling into your cycles. And when that happens, it can also happen that you still get a period around the time you were expecting one in the first place. Mid-cycle spotting or light off-cycle periods aren't usually anything to be worried about, especially during puberty.