QUESTION

Dear Midwife,
My husband and I have a son who is three years old now and we have been trying for a second for a year. I have always had the most predictable period; it was always for seven days and always on the 15 of the month. But for the last 4 cycles they have been random and shorter. One month it will be the 14 the next it will be the 21 and only last about 3 days.

QUESTION

Dear Midwife,
My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant now for the past 6 months. My last period was on May 15th 2004. I have had loads of pregnancy symptoms so I took a test which showed a weak positive. So I decided to wait a few days take another and that came up negative. On June 26th I started spotting and this was only light but last for about 30 minutes a day for 5 to 7 days.

QUESTION

Dear Midwife,
Hi I Have just started using opk test strips and heard that these could also be used as an early indication of pregnancy - eg if you got a positive opk test result say 10days after ovulation this could indicate early pregnancy? is this correct? I have three children already but this is the first time I have used the test strips for ovulation prediction,
thank you,
Elle.

Should he be there when you test? It all depends on your expectations. He is not apt to be as elated if it's positive or as sad if it is negative. On the other hand, if he's been excited about the whole babymaking thing...

I'm ready to test today. Would it be better to do the pregnancy test with my husband present or to do it in private and share the news later. Any advice you can give me on this topic would be fantastic.

All pregnancy tests look for a special hormone in the urine or blood that is only present when a woman is pregnant. This hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), is also called the pregnancy hormone. Read to learn more.

When a women becomes pregnant her body starts to produce a hormone called hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) This hormone give the positive result on both urine and blood based tests. hCG is produced by the embryo at implantation. Read "Home Pregnancy Tests and HcG" to learn more.