Scarleteen

Hello!
I want to start this off, but acknowledging I know I sound crazy but this irrational fear has been eating me alive, and I want to get one last reassurance before I let this go and enjoy my life. But here are the facts:

In December I had sex. Since then I have gotten regular periods, but then in May I started getting really light periods, two of them in that month. But both super light. June was also super light. So I unfortunately started looking things up on google and tik tok and ofc assumed I am having a cryptic pregnancy. I then took three urine tests in the evening over three days, but I am scared of the hook effect that applies when tests are taken too late in a pregnancy. So I decided to go to the gynecologist. She performed an annual exam on me and concluded I was not pregnant by a pelvic exam (according to my calculations I would have to be 31-33 weeks at this point). I then decided just to be safe I will get a blood test, also negative, but I started to get anxious maybe it was wrong or messed up. Then I started birth control in the month of July, so I have had some weird symptoms like nausea, sore breasts. Recently the biggest trigger I am having though is the fact that I am supposed to get my period as I am on the third day of sugar pills but instead it is just brown discharge. Should I be worried?

Thank you!

Hi Happygirl! Welcome to the boards.

You don't sound crazy, but you do sound stressed! I'm sorry to hear that this fear has been causing you so much worry and anxiety.

As it sounds like you know, you don't need to worry that you are pregnant here. As soon as you got your normal period after the sex you had in December, we could be well assured that you weren't pregnant. The negative pregnancy tests and the doctor's examination confirmed it — no pregnancy, guaranteed.

So let's talk about why you're so worried! It sounds like you've had some period variability. I totally understand that having your period change unexpectedly for a few months can be disconcerting, but it's very common for some cycles to be lighter or more frequent. A very light period could be a sign that someone is pregnant, but not after having had several regular periods first.

The symptoms that you're experiencing now (nausea, sore breasts, and the brown discharge) are common symptoms related to starting hormonal birth control. This is our article about the combination pill and you'll see that it mentions your symptoms in its list of "typical effects" of the pill. You'll see that it also mentions that people who are on the pill don't technically have periods, they have "withdrawal bleeds" — so it's common for the bleeding you get while on the sugar week of your pill to not be the same as your normal period.

You call your fear "irrational," which makes me think that you know that there's no real chance of you being pregnant, but you can't help but feel anxious anyway. Is anxiety something you struggle with in general, with other issues in your life as well? Or is this something new?

I'd like to give you a few resources related to pregnancy anxiety (we have a lot of them, because we get questions like this a lot!):

Start by walking through The Pregnancy Panic Companion. You'll see that there are several sections that apply to you — you can follow the next steps for having had a menstrual period since the risk you are concerned about and/or having had a pregnancy test with a negative (not pregnant) result. Those links will take you to articles that will help you think about what might be at the root of your anxiety and how you can avoid it in the future. You can also use the Pregnancy Panic Companion in the future if you get anxious again.

I'd also like to give you this article, You're Not Pregnant. Why Do You Think You Are?, which goes into even more detail about what kinds of things might be causing your pregnancy anxiety.

If you'd like to talk through any of this, we are always here! Let us know if any of the ideas mentioned in those articles resonate with you — we would be happy to help you unpack what might be causing your anxiety and help you come up with a plan for how to manage it in the future.

Thank you! This helped a lot So just to re-cap, (even in the unlikely chance that this happened), if all urine, blood tests had the hook effect and were false negatives, a gynecologist could have seen the baby that far along in a pelvic exam?

I feel like I have had stomach/gas and back pains - do you think I could just be extremely hyperaware and they are probably not indicating pregnancy? I keep hearing about cryptic pregnancy and how people went full term with negative blood and urine tests and it is freaking me out!

Anxiety is definitely something I struggle with, I do have a therapist which helps a lot!

Also for birth control, the articles you provided were super helpful! Just a few more specific questions on that, if all I have this withdraw cycle is light brown discharge spotting, is that okay? Will my cycles tend to get my frequent and normal over the next few months.

I'm so glad it was helpful!

I hear you about this cryptic pregnancy thing — it can really get in your head! I want to gently suggest that the stories that you hear about this kind of thing online or on social media or on reality tv shows are very sensationalized and tend to involve people who are experiencing other contributing factors that make their pregnancy experience extremely unusual (like struggling with drug addiction or having a medical issue that has a lot of physical symptoms). Since you struggle with anxiety, it makes sense that this is your brain latching on to the idea of being pregnant, not your body hiding a pregnancy from you. How about you read through the pregnancy articles that I linked again and then take a 24 hour break from looking up any information about pregnancy online? Can you think of some soothing, distracting things you could do to help take care of yourself instead?

As for your cycle, it's perfectly okay if you only experience the brown discharge, or even if you don't experience any bleeding on your sugar pill week at all — the pill is still working! It's hard to say for sure what will happen in the future, but often people do find that it takes a few cycles of the pill to settle into a regular rhythm. But even so, it's likely that your bleeding won't be the same on the pill as it was when you weren't taking hormonal birth control.

Got it, thanks! I will try that break - I need it lol!