Am I? Early Signs of Pregnancy
When you are trying to get pregnant, the “am I, am I not” game you play with yourself every month can be confusing and frustrating. Every twinge in your uterus or soreness in your breast sends your mind into overdrive, and on top of all that, early pregnancy symptoms are very similar to pre-menstrual symptoms. If you’re tracking your cycle, you might suspect that you’re pregnant before you even miss a period.
For some women, early symptoms of pregnancy begin in the first few weeks after conception. Other women might be pregnant, and don’t have any symptoms at all, just to make it that much harder to decipher. Here are a few signs that you need to take a trip to the drugstore to buy a pregnancy test:
Missed Period
This is the most obvious early symptom, and one that often makes women start to wonder if they are pregnant. Some women might experience spotting or light bleeding, different from a normal period.
Fatigue
This symptom can be hard to distinguish from a rough week at work, or a hard workout session, but fatigue and tiredness ranks high among early symptoms of pregnancy. When you get pregnant, your progesterone levels increase and can make you feel tired. Lower blood sugar and blood pressure and increased blood production is also an energy killer that can slow you down in the early days of pregnancy.
Sensitive and Enlarged Breasts
With pregnancy, comes hormonal changes that can make your breasts tender, tingly or sore. They could also potentially feel fuller and heavier. This feeling could come as early as two weeks after conception.
Elevated Basal Body Temperature
The basal body temperature is your oral temperature when you first wake up in the morning. If charting your basal body temperature has been part of your monitoring process, then you should notice a persist elevation for more than two weeks after you ovulate, which means you might be pregnant.
Nausea, With or Without Vomiting
Morning sickness, which is confusing in itself because it can happen at any time of the day or night, and in some unlucky cases, all day and all night. This is a very common and classic symptom of pregnancy. It seems to stem from rapidly rising levels of hCG, pregnancy hormone. A heightened sense of smell, common in pregnancy, can also be the vomit-inducing culprit. For some women, the queasiness begins as early as two weeks after conception.
If you have any of these early signs of pregnancy, or if your intuition is telling you that something is off and you feel like you might be pregnant, go ahead and take an at home pregnancy test. It will put your racing mind at ease and give you a clear answer to all of your questions. Pregnancy tests work best if you wait to take them until at least a day or two after you miss your period. The pregnancy test is less accurate if taken before a missed menstrual period. If it’s positive, make an appointment with your doctor to confirm. The sooner your pregnancy is confirmed, the sooner you can begin prenatal care.
