Scarleteen

Scared, nervous, anxious, excited...so many different feelings come along with taking a pregnancy test. At Scarleteen we usually suggest taking a test to confirm or rule out pregnancy but for many reasons, it is not folks favorite thing to do. Maybe access is limited by transportation or money, maybe it's embarrassment, maybe it is fear of the results. Whatever the barriers may be, taking a pregnancy test is the best way to face the reality of your situation, regardless of the results.

This is a space to share your experiences with taking a pregnancy test. It might be helpful to hear what others have gone through and how they were feeling at the time.

This is NOT the space for current pregnancy scares. Please refer to this link for an active pregnancy scare: http://www.scarleteen.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=198

Some things to consider:
-What where the circumstances that led you to get the test?
-Where/how did you get your test? What did that feel like?
-How did the results make you feel?


Here's my story:

SPOILER ALERT: I was pregnant.

At the time I was on the pill, which I missed periodically. My partner and I were also using condoms a majority of the time. I FELT that we were protected enough and pregnancy wasn't a real risk for us. I didn't even start to think about it until a friend of mine told me she had missed her period and thought she was pregnant. I hadn't noticed and wasn't looking for any pregnancy symptoms, but for some reason I told her I thought I was pregnant too. I left it at that, pushed the thought out my mind, and didn't do anything else about it. But somewhere deep down, I knew.

A couple weeks later, one of my dorm mates had a scare and purchased a bunch of pregnancy test. Turned out she wasn't pregnant. The test were laying around in our living room and I suggested that the rest of us take them for fun. Now this is most definitely a weird thing to do for fun, especially in college, but I truly believe I knew that I was pregnant subconsciously and I was forcing myself to face the reality of my situation. When I saw the results I was shocked but my mind immediately switched gears to "what now?" and I started to plan.

Ever since I started taking the pill, the only real side effect I've had from it was that it makes my period a lot lighter and causes me to miss it altogether from time to time. So even though I take the pill as directed and have never missed a pill, I will take pregnancy tests on occassion when I feel like it's been a while since my last period. I'm not really worried about pregnancy because I know my risk is low, so taking the tests isn't super stressful. It's just something that I do for peace of mind.

My first pregnancy test was done by blood test along with a CBC and other blood tests because it was for a pre-surgery workup. I spent a few days panicking because even on two birth control methods I was just worried because it was the first pregnancy test, and if I was somehow pregnant they couldn't do the surgery. I was able to access the results online through the patient portal my doctor has and it was negative. The second one was the day of the surgery, a urine test required for all people who possess a uterus - even if they've had their tubes tied or are functionally infertile - between the ages of 6 and 60. It was a pain because I had been on a nothing-by-mouth restriction since midnight, already had my morning pee before going (no way was I going to hold it for three hours after waking up!), and the bathroom was in an EXTREMELY public spot (had to lock both doors because people went in from both sides, could hear every bit of conversation from either side of the bathroom area, etc.) and there was added pressure to go as soon as possible because they wouldn't even start an IV without a negative test. Luckily I was able to squeeze out a few drops, which sufficed for the test, and it was negative (as I knew it would be, being on my period and all at the time). Now that I'm on both a combination pill and the depo shot, I know there's pretty much no risk whatsoever of pregnancy, but if I have to take a test at some point it'll be much less anxiety-inducing than both of those were!