Pregnant... Now What?

[aunteater]

15dpo, 2 positive pee tests... and a heckuva lot of questions, most of which are probably not relevant to this forum, or have probably been addressed already, so here's the short list, and apologies for questions that have been covered before here

Comments

[chezalee]

Congrats! :)

1. Some people continue to chart. I stopped because every morning I took my temperature I'd panic that it was going to drop (which could be a sign of a miscarriage). I didn't want to deal with that stress when I woke up.

2. Yes, the beginning of pregnancy is measured from the start of your last period. It seems odd because there's no baby in there yet, but that's what they do. If you have irregular periods then the doctor may just go by your ovulation date and add two weeks.

3. Check out the the pregnant community. There is A LOT of useful stuff there.

[kaitl]

I'm no expert or historian... but I was just thinking that maybe the reason that gestational age is counted from the date of the last period is because that's basically all the info clinicians had to go on years ago when they were determining the average length of pregnancy, etc.

It seems reasonable to me to go by ovulation date + 2 weeks (since all the counters assume 14 days between period and ovulation.

[chezalee]

Oh yes, you're probably right. That makes total sense. :)

[kimie_catclaw]

Even now, I'd bet most people don't know exactly when they ovulated, unless actively charting. LMP is a nice concrete date.

[richghettogyrl]

You know the date of ovulation. All pregnancy calculators put you at 2 weeks pregnant on that day. So you're 4 weeks pregnant two weeks after ovulation when most women would notice their missed periods.

So when you're due at 40 weeks, the fetus is 38 weeks old. There are reasons for why the medical comumunity did that, but there's the jist.

I like the natural birth community here. (You can find it in my profile.) Though it's geared towards childbirth, you could ask questions there about pregnancy and will answers closer to what it sounds like you're looking for.

[aunteater]

Wow, that was quick! Thanks, all, for clearing up the date calculating issue. I have never once ovulated on day 14, so I was miffed by it. From here on out I'll count it as DPO plus two weeks.

I admit that with all the crazy hormones I've dealt with in the past, I'm a little paranoid about miscarrying, so thanks for the heads-up about continuing to chart. I'll put away my thermometer for a while.

And thanks for the forum and book suggestions as well! I'll check those out.

[juleakab]

1. Don't keep charting. It will just stress you out.

2. When you know your ovulation date, just add 2 weeks and pretend that's your LMP for the sake of calculating dates.

3. I hated What to Expect, too. I liked Week by Week a bit better.

[kimie_catclaw]

I quit charting after I got my positive, although I sort of considered temping for a while. I didn't though- I was up a couple times a night and SO EXHAUSTED that I just didn't bother setting my alarm for a couple of weeks. I also had whacky discharge pretty much immediately after testing positive which didn't fit any of the FAM descriptions, so yeah. I don't think there's a real point. Plus, like bluepolarbear said, the possibility of panicking if your temp drops

[kimie_catclaw]

One more thing!
http ://www. babycenter.com/pregnancy-due-date-calculator
That calculator actually gives you a "calculate by date of conception" option. I plugged in your numbers and got January 4th, 2012. I'm not sure if there's a January2012 due date comm yet, but you could probably join december2011 in the meantime.

[aunteater]

Thanks everyone!