Getting Your Character Pregnant - A Wattpad Guide to Early Pregnancy

Part 2 - How Soon Will She Feel Pregnant?

A/N: PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS INFORMATION TO AVOID PREGNANCY IN REAL LIFE.

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET PREGNANT, USE GOOD BIRTH CONTROL ALL THE TIME, EVERY TIME.

Counting days, also called "The Rhythm Method" is the form of birth control most likely to fail (just ask my friend, the mother of four). Cycles don't stay the same month-to-month, and there are many, many people who are exeptions to these rules. Another friend of mine was certain she knew when she was ovulating, but ended up pregnant at eighteen because she got it wrong by a couple of days .

Getting Pregnant

In order to get pregnant, the sperm and egg must unite at the top of the fallopian tube (see the picture above) just after the egg is released. Because the little swimmers are so tiny, it can take up to THREE DAYS after unprotected sex for the sperm to reach the top of the fallopian tubes. Sperm live for five days or more in a woman's body. This means that if you are trying to get pregnant, the best time to try is a couple of days before you ovulate. That said, a woman is potentially fertile for about six days of each cycle, though it may not be the same six days month-to-month.

After the egg is fertilized by the sperm, the egg then travels down the fallopian tube and into the uterus. The egg must then attach itself to the lining of the uterus. This also takes a couple of days. The woman will have NO SYMPTOMS of pregnancy until the egg attaches to the uterus about a week after having sex. If a woman takes the Morning After Pill, also called Plan B, or emergency contraception, within one or two days of having unprotected sex, it can prevent her from becoming pregnant. This is because she isn't actually pregnant yet a few days after having sex.

Finding Out You're Pregnant

Most women wait until their period is due, or late, before taking a home pregnancy test. Good home pregnancy tests can detect a pregnancy up to five days before a woman's period is due. For a 28 day cycle, this means that it might be able to tell if a woman is pregnant as early as Day 23 of her cycle, though this is quite early. If she takes a test this early, it might give her a false negative, meaning that she is pregnant, but the test can't tell yet.

False positives, meaning the test says she is pregnant when she isn't, are very rare, even with home pregnancy tests. However, as many as one in four pregnancies will end in miscarriage. It is possible for a test to be positive and for a woman to get what she thinks is a late period, but is actually a very early miscarriage.

When I got pregnant with my first child, I took a home pregnancy test and then went to the doctor for confirmation. The doctor did not want to do her own pregnancy test because she trusted the home pregnancy test. She told me that home pregnancy tests are as accurate as anything that they do. You can get a pregnancy test done by having a blood test done, but it isn't necessary and it takes longer to get the results back,.

Pregnancy Symptoms

It is biologically impossible to have any pregnancy symptoms the day you have unprotected sex. It just doesn't happen that way. Some women will have mild symptoms starting a few days before her period is due, and some won't notice anything for a while longer yet. Some women seem to breeze through their entire pregnancies without any unpleasant symptoms. And, of course, there are stories of women who don't know they are pregnant until they give birth. Personally, I think there's a whole lot of denial and wishful thinking going on with these women.

Common EARLY symptoms might include some or all of: nausea (the classic), as well as fatigue, heartburn, constipation, skin tenderness, aversion to certain foods, food cravings, acne, headaches, enlarged breasts, bloating, frequent urination, and dizziness. These can get better, worse, or be joined by brand new symptoms as pregnancy progresses.

A note about nausea: some women feel really sick, some mildly sick, and some don't feel sick at all. Some women feel sick first thing in the morning, some all day long, and some at other times of day. Some women actually throw up when they feel sick and some don't, even though they feel dreadful. I've heard a few women say that they feel awful until they throw up, and then they feel better. Some women are so sick (like Kate Middleton was) that they are at risk of dehydration and weight loss, and must get medical attention.