Late Period: Birth Control Delay or Pregnancy?

Question
Ok...so I had my period 7/5/08 which I then started b/c pills. When my pack was finished I never had the time 2 go refill my b/c pills 2 start the new month.  Since then I had a lil nausea a couple wks ago... very tired...wierd appetite n little cramping. I never started back on the birth control because I missed  many pills. Since then I never got my period. It is now 8/12/08. Might I be pregnant? Or is  do you feel it may be the birth control delaying my period? I'm anxious and worried. I took 2 pregnancy tests and both were negative...I'm afraid I took them too early or I'm experiencing false negatives. Please tell me what you think.

Answer
Dear Celena,

False negative pregnancy tests are usually the result of testing too early. However, if you took the BCPs as directed from 7/5 to 7/26 (or 8/2 depending upon whether you had a 21-pack or 28-pack), you should have been protected during that time. The BCP essentially works by fooling the body into thinking it is already pregnant, thereby suppressing ovulation. If you don't ovulate, there is no egg available to be fertilized.

Now, if you had unprotected sex during the time that you were not taking the pills, you left yourself vulnerable to conceiving a pregnancy. If you did conceive in the last two weeks, then yes - it would be too early to test and get accurate results. However, please note that your symptoms (very hormonal in nature) may very well also be related to the alteration in your cycles related to starting and stopping the BCP.

I would suggest waiting another 7-14 days and testing again. Although some tests claim accuracy on the first day of a missed period, I usually suggest that women wait until the week after a missed or spotty period before testing for pregnancy, which is typically at least 3 weeks after a potential conception date. This tends to minimize the incidence of false negative results and also avoids wasting money on a test for a simple delay of a period by a few days. When/if you test make sure to use 1st morning urine to get a concentrated sample for the most accurate results. If those results are negative, you can either wait for the next cycle to see if your periods resume or have your doctor's office do a quantitative blood pregnancy test (serum beta hCG). That test will give an actual amount of hCG in your bloodstream rather than just a positive/negative result. Any amount of 25 mIU/ml or more would be considered positive for pregnancy.

I hope this has helped you and answered your question. I wish you well.

Brenda