Hi, Even if you can work out your conception date, your conception date is no more accurate than your due date: there is no guarantee you'll go into labour on your due date, and there is no guarantee that you conceived on your conception date. But even if you could guarantee your conception date is correct, all that tells you is that the sperm met the egg on that day, which means the sperm came from sex in the preceding 5 days. As you had sex with both men within 5 days of each other, that means you had sperm from both men inside you at the same time. therefore there is no way to know which sperm it was that fertilised the egg. A DNA test is the only solution
To figure out when you got pregnant the length of your cycle gives you some idea. If you have a 28 day cycle ovulation takes place around day 14 but if your cycle is shorter you probably ovulate earlier. If your cycle is irregular it is more difficult to know when exactly conception took place. The tricky part for you is that you were probably ovulating when you slept with both partners so it would be too difficult to guess. I can tell you that at my 12 week scan they measured the length of the baby and gave a more accurate due date so this might inform you to some degree. Also on a personal note I know you think you need a man to get through this time but it sounds like you need some time alone to reflect and to be sure what you want. In a way if you feel you don't love your partner and you will never really be happy with him it would be fairer to separate now than when the child is old enough to be a part of it. You need to provide a secure environment for your child but this does not necessarily mean that you must be with a partner. It means you need to be secure in yourself and make peace with your decision before you have the added complication of a baby in the mix. You might find that once you have separated from your fiancé you may really miss him and want him back or you might find that you lover is more of a novelty than a long term partner but the only way to find out is to first get some space. You are too close to the situation to decide. I raised my first child alone because I knew I didn't love the Dad. At times it was hard but we learned to become friends and he has a good relationship with our child. I didn't want to just settle like so many women do and it was the right decision. I'd suggest you tell your fiancé you have been sleeping with another person and you don't know who the dad is and just be straight up with him. Take some alone time and if your lover is serious about you he will want to be with you regardless who the father of the baby is.
Responses to your questions follow.
One other thing -- you say you are scared to tell your fiance he might not be the father. Unless you plan to try to test with a sample of his DNA that you obtain secretly, you are going to need to admit to him the need to do a test. If you wait until the baby is born to tell your fiance that there is a need to test, he will know you hid the truth from him for 9 months and will be 9 months more angry than if you tell him now. Also, you are removing from him the chance for him to be the better man, and to step up and say he will be the father no matter what. If he does that, there is even the possibility you two will rekindle your love. Don't shut the door by being passive and secretive.
Your questions:
1. I take it that by DNA test, you mean the partenity test, Please clarify?
-- I meant a DNA test done for the purposes of determining paternity (not "partenity"). When the discussion revolves around someone does not know who the father is, a DNA test means a paternity test.
2. Is there any chance that the DNA paternity test can be wrong?
-- If you go to a reputable lab and as long as the man does not fake it by sending in his best friend to take the test in his place, the test will be correct. However, if you are doing a test after the baby is born, be sure you go to a lab approved by the courts to test for paternity. And test with both men, or you will ask this question over and over and over. Not because reputable labs are wrong, but because women get paranoid if they test with only one man. (A reputable lab will photograph the man and his ID, to prevent trickery. Expect this.)
3. I once heared claims that if you continue to sleep with both men without protection when you already conceived within 20 weeks, the DNA paternity test, will show both men as a father.
-- That is ridiculous.
4. How true is this?
-- Medically impossible.
5. Given this uncofirmed claim, after discovering I was pregnant, I slept with my fiance repeatedly without protection so that if this claim is true more of his sperms will be in the child, which will gives a picture that its more of his child than my secret lover- Does this make any sense at all?
-- Once a sperm meets an egg, the die is cast. No other sperm makes any difference.
As much as I dont love my fiance that much I know he will be the great father, and my secret lover doesnt care about the child as much as my fiance does..I also have some insecurities with him (my secret lover), I think if I tell him I am pregnant he might not want to be responsible for this child.
-- Your post says you live in the United States. If you live in the US, your lover cannot walk away from the obligation to pay child support; he doesn't get to shrug off responsibility for a child just because he feels like it.
-- Coming up with worries about who will be the better father at this point is not going to remove the need to find out who the father is. I assume you do not intend to fob one man's child off onto the other without him knowing. (And if you do, shame on you. Besides, it won't work. Your child will find out someday even if your fiance does not, and you will have to explain to your beloved child why you lied to him his whole life.) You are clearly trying to decide what to do based on not wanting to have a full and frank talk with either man. It might be time to face that issue like an adult. Think about it -- what if you are just transparent with both men? Tell them the situation. They might even both be willing to pay for the Ravgen test now, and everyone will know what is going on.
I also once gave birth (two years back) to the child with his heart outside, on the chest. My child died within three days of (after) giving birth. My fiance insists that I need to tell the [current] doctor about this, so that I can receive proper diagnosis and medical help/attention in advance. I'm not comfortable doing that because I do not want to re leave the pain I suffered when I lost my first child.
-- I am very sorry for your loss. If you have had a child and your blood is Rh negative, you must get an injection to keep your baby safe before the baby is born. I assume from your questions that you do not know if your blood is Rh negative. Ask your doctor if this has already been tested. If he says it has and you are Rh positive, you do not have to say anything about the earlier birth, (although if you have been examined by the doctor he can probably tell you have had a child before).
6. In your expert opinion do you think my fiance is correct by insisting that I should disclose this to the doctor that we are consulting?
Please advise if I need any further medical attention or examination in order to prevent giving birth to the child that has a heart outside his chest, once again.
-- If you are seeing a good doctor, he will do an ultrasound and know any complications much sooner than when you give birth. Do you know why it happened? (At the time, was a reason given?) It might have just been a one in a million chance, but there is no way for your doctor to tell you this if you do not give an accurate medical history. I don't know why you are being secretive, the loss was tragic but not shaming. A doctor can answer your questions.
Day before yesterday, I did an online calculation of the expected due date of giving birth to my child, which was determined as 14 March 2017.
7. Kindly confirm if this is the most probable expected due date?
-- There is no way to tell, until you do an early ultrasound. All you are doing right now (even with an online calculator) is counting forward from your last period. But not every woman ovulates 14 days after her previous period. So it is all just a guess until the doctor sees the embryo and measures it, using an ultrasound scan. Get this right away.
8. Please explain to me what is the difference between the Prenatal Screening Test (CVS and Amnio) and the Prenatal DNA test, this is too technical for me?
-- A prenatal DNA test for paternity is done by some very advanced labs (don't do this by trying to find the lowest price advertised on the Internet, or you will waste your money). The prenatal test is done by a blood draw from the woman (her arm) and either a blood draw or a cheek swab from the men. Ravgen and the DDC have relationships with labs all over the world so the samples can be taken by a local lab and immediately shipped to them. If you were to need to have either CVS or an Amnio, you can also do a prenatal DNA test at that time, but these tests are done later in the pregnancy, after you have felt the baby move. And both carry risks of miscarriage, which the Ravgen and DDC prenatal tests do not. Your doctor would not order a CVS or Amnio if you have a healthy pregnancy, no doctor would order one just for purposes of determining paternity because of the slight risk of causing a miscarriage.
I think you need to be much more upfront with both men, this problem is not going to solve itself if you stick your head in the sand.
Hi, Nandy, you can try to determine when you were ovulating (and conceived), but to do that, you need to get an ultrasound right away. Go to the doctor, say you were breaking up with one guy and getting together with another at around the time you might have conceived, and ask for an ultrasound and an estimated due date based on the ultrasound. (Sometimes insurance doesn't cover early ultrasounds, doctors don't order them early unless there is a reason. If he won't do one this early, offer to pay out of pocket. You might also be sure to let the doc know you don't intend to get an abortion, you just want to be prepared. If he still won't order an ultrasound, find a new doctor. Only early ultrasounds are useful for this kind of analysis.) When you get there for your ultrasound, tell them you would like to know the estimated due date based only on the baby's measurements and developmental markers, not based on your first day of your last period.
When they give you an estimated due date, go home and put it into an online conception calculator (or count back 266 days on a calendar) and it will give you an estimated conception date.
Unfortunately in your case, if this method happens to suggest you conceived on the 19th, 20th or 21st of June, it won't rule out either guy. Sperm can live in your system 5-6 days; after having sex on the 17th and the 18th, both guys would have had living sperm in your body around that time. But if the ultrasound were to show (for an exaggerated example) that you conceived around July 1, that would tend to rule out the sex on June 17. Also, trying to figure out the conception date from the ultrasound doesn't work well if you wait. Embryos all begin as one cell, and then divide to two, then four, then eight and then 16, at a known pace. But after a while some grow faster than average and some grow slower than average. By the 12th week, a doctor will say that the margin for error (if you are trying to use an ultrasound to determine a conception date) is +/- 7 days, and by your 40th week, it is +/- 3 weeks. But in your 6th or 7th week it is only a day or two. So move fast if you are going to have a prayer of an ultrasound helping to clarify things.
The other option is to do a DNA test. They can be done before or after the baby is born, with the significant difference that pre-natal tests are about ten times as costly. If you do a prenatal test, use Ravgen or the DDC, and TEST WITH BOTH GUYS. The women who write in here all freaked out after testing are always ones who only tested with one guy. (If you're going to spend the big bucks for the test, get a "yes" for one guy and "no" for the other, not a "no" only and then worry that the test was somehow wrong.)
Given that your relationship with your fiance is (let's face it) over, it does not matter how much it is hurting his business or what your mother says, it would not be moral for you to continue to let him think you want to marry him when you totally don't. This will mean you being gracious with him about visitation and sharing of parental rights if he should prove to be the dad -- again it would not be moral for you to withhold those (and you probably couldn't if you wanted to). But even if the child is from him, it does not mean you have to be his wife if you can't even stand to talk to him now. If the two of you can come to an agreement that he will still be able to be a father (should the DNA test prove that he is), he might be able to accept that there is no future for you and he to be in a relationship. Perhaps if the tension caused by his fearing you would never let him see the child were to be removed, you might even get to a point where you could at least be on speaking terms again. After all, you once liked him enough to become engaged to him, perhaps you can work out a civil relationship as parents.
The only signal that I can think of in your story that your secret lover has a chance to be the father would be if you have had a great deal of unprotected sex over a long stretch of time with your fiance and never got pregnant, there is a (slim) chance that you getting pregnant now indicates your lover is the dad. This is not a very big indicator, though, since lots of couples try a long time before they get pregnant.
If your cycles are super-regular and you can be certain that every 28 days your new period will come, the indications would be that you ovulated and conceived around the 20th or 21st. This is why I think you aren't going to be able to clear this up without a DNA test. Both guys' sperm was alive in your system at that time.
I hope you can get an ultrasound, and it would be super for you if you were to be able to do a prenatal DNA test. But if you can't, all you can do is accept that this is something where you will get a firm answer once the baby is born.
Hi, in what way did you confirm that you are 5 weeks pregnant? And, what do you intend to do about your engagement? Is it on the outs even if the baby is from your fiance?
Absolutely no way to know when the dates are so close together. Sperm lives for up to 5 days so could be either man. Only a dna test will tell you.
Well, be ready for him to be hurt, and perhaps to say some hurtful things. But you can counter that a bit by telling him that the truth is, you don't want to marry him. (Regardless of whether you had a fling or not.) That will sit him up on his hind legs a little and allow him to see there is more to the situation than his hurt feelings, and that you are not sitting on pins and needles praying he will forgive you in such a way that he can hold this over your head. If he realizes he has no power over you, it will keep the conversations more levelheaded.
Again, the chances are that he's the dad, it's just that you can't rule out the other guy until it is time to test. So be sure you don't let things devolve into name-calling or anything that is so hurtful that the two of you will be unable to be co-parents of the child later. There are times to talk and times to walk, and if things get heated, take a break. It will help preserve civility in the long run.
Hi, Nandy, you say "I have been made aware of the high risk of miscarriage when one goes for prenatal paternity test," if someone really told you that, they are uninformed about modern DNA tests. Earlier you wrote and asked me very specifically about amniocintesis and CVI sampling, and I told you no doctor would do them to try to determine paternity because they carry a slight risk of miscarriage, but that you could do a Ravgen or DDC test instead. Both Ravgen and the DDC offer prenatal paternity testing done with a simple blood draw from the mother's arm (and the dad's DNA from either a blood sample or a swab). I have been on vacation and just got back and have not re-read all posts and private mails, but I am we went over this. The Ravgen and DDC tests are not invasive like the amnio and CVI. They pose no risk to the baby.
Here is the section where you asked me about tests and I answered, copied again from above.
You -- "8. Please explain to me what is the difference between the Prenatal Screening Test (CVS and Amnio) and the Prenatal DNA test, this is too technical for me?"
My answer -- "A prenatal DNA test for paternity is done by some very advanced labs (don't do this by trying to find the lowest price advertised on the Internet, or you will waste your money). The prenatal test is done by a blood draw from the woman (her arm) and either a blood draw or a cheek swab from the men. Ravgen and the DDC have relationships with labs all over the world so the samples can be taken by a local lab and immediately shipped to them. If you were to need to have either CVS or an Amnio, you can also do a prenatal DNA test at that time, but these tests are done later in the pregnancy, after you have felt the baby move. And both carry risks of miscarriage, which the Ravgen and DDC prenatal tests do not. Your doctor would not order a CVS or Amnio if you have a healthy pregnancy, no doctor would order one just for purposes of determining paternity because of the slight risk of causing a miscarriage."
Get a non-invasive prenatal paternity test done. I had to do so and it was accurate. Its expensive but they had VERY quick turn around time (1 week I think??) and they offer payment plans. Totally worth it to ease your fears
So why don't you end things with your fiance if you're not happy? What you're doing to both of those men is very unfair and they both deserve to know what's going on.
Please know they say the non invasive prenatal paternity is just that non invasive. It is blood work and they told me specially it does not harm to the baby... I am living proof of this my baby is just fine