Is my friend the father?

[luckiec7]

My friend recently confided in me he is expecting a baby with his ex. But when he told me the dates it made me concerned that she may be lying to him. I don't want to bring it up until I have done some additional research myself. He had sex with her Sept 27 and Oct 15. Based on her ultrasounds her baby is measuring two weeks later with a due date of July 4. Is it possible it's just small or is it a good possibility the baby isn't his? If she had a regular cycle (which I'm not sure she did because he said she had PCOS) she would have ovulated around Sept 25, but she also said she was on birth control.

[AnnieBrooke]

If the lady was his wife and he was merely being paranoid, that would be one thing.  But if the lady is a casual girlfriend, or an ex, he is not going to surprise her or wound her feelings by going on the assumption that a DNA test is in his and her future when the baby is born.  In this day and age, when people regularly have sex without being in a committed marriage, no guy should simply accept someone's word that he is a father.

One thing that is very common is that the woman herself is not entirely sure, or is confused from what the doctor said, and like the kid's game where one person whispers in another's ear and then another and another, by the time the word gets back to the guy about whatever the doctor said, it can be garbled or misunderstood.  I would not imply she is lying even if she is mistaken, and if he learns later that he is not the father I would even then take the charitable road and assure him that she was probably just confused in the things she was passing on to him.  This is not only because it is more gracious, and it does not stir things up, but also because a whole heck of a lot of time it is true.  All you have to do is read the postings on this community board to see how often women simply don't understand what the doctor is saying, and the doctor doesn't understand that she didn't get it.

Good luck to your friend, all will be clear in the end, and I hope you get what you hope for too by being a good friend.

[luckiec7]

I'm not romantically involved, he's a friend I've had for years and has come to me with questions and concerns. I was simply trying to find as much information as possible as I have never been pregnant and don't have all the answers for him. As he discusses things with me I'm looking for answers. His concern about her not telling him the truth was confirmed by your response to the hormone levels and brings into question why she has not been honest about medical facts involving her pregnancy. As I stated in my prior post, I will not be discussing paternity with him because there is a very good chance that he is the father and I do not want to cause undue harm to our friendship or his relationship with her as she is almost definitely carrying his child. And I was confirming my suspicions about the hormone levels after pregnancy, but had not and probably will not mention anything of the sort to him. I'm not on a witch hunt to hurt anyone, I want to protect my friend of several years when someone seems to be dishonest. But as I said, I will not be adding additional doubt to his mind as the child in the end will be the one who is hurt.

[AnnieBrooke]

Luckie, what is your dog in this hunt?  Are you a girl and this is your boyfriend?  Or are you a guy and are concerned about protecting a bro?  You know a lot about the details of his business with someone else, and are seeing if you can catch her lying, a tone often seen with someone who is interested romantically in a guy who is being told there's a possible baby mama out there and he might be the dad.  If this is the case, this problem will soon enough have a clear answer -- either he is the dad or he is not the dad, a DNA test will ultimately tell.  It does you (and your relationship with the guy) no good to brood and ponder her supposed perfidy.  If you're trying to decide whether to get serious about the guy, and want to try to tell today if he is someone with (present and future) baggage, that's a legit reason to try to figure out how serious the issue is, but still it doesn't justify you judging the other person's motivations and lining up evidence of whether "she appears to be lying."  Even if she were, time will tell and he will know if he is the dad when the DNA test results come in.  Don't destroy your friendship with the guy by giving him a plate of hostility and suspicion about the situation, just be supportive and calm.

[luckiec7]

That's what I thought. I assumed as soon as you became pregnant your hormone levels spiked. Not that it matters at this point because she is pregnant, but it was something she said the doctor told her when she found out. Just causes questions when she appears to be lying about other things.

[AnnieBrooke]

No.  Pregnant women stop taking the pill, and once a person stops, all evidence of taking it is out of their system very quickly (this is why she has to take a pill every single day for it to be effective).  Besides, one's estrogen and progesterone levels shoot up when pregnant.  Even if hormone levels from the pill had been present at the very beginning, they would have been swept aside from the hormone action of pregnancy. The fact that she is pregnant means something didn't work about the pill, but that can happen for other reasons besides deliberately not taking it. .  

[luckiec7]

I have one other question that I'm not sure anyone could answer. Once you're pregnant can your doctor test your hormone levels to determine if you've been taking your birth control?

[AnnieBrooke]

I assume she understands how gestational age is described by doctors if she is an ob-gyn nurse.  If she is not, it is possible she is not any clearer on this than most people.  It's a confusing way to describe the starting point of pregnancy.

[luckiec7]

Thank you for your advice. I won't mention anything about paternity because I definitely don't want to make a challenging situation even more stressful on either of them. He already has some doubts because her due dates have changed within 24 hours with no appointment or ultrasound completed, she simply told two people two different due dates, and is adamant that she conceived the last weekend in September (which is not likely given her early ultrasound results and due date). He had initially assumed she was correct with her dates because she is a nurse and would probably have a better idea of pregnancy than any research he could do on his own. I'm sure a DNA test is planned after the baby is born to be sure.

[AnnieBrooke]

Well, it sounds like the very common problem people have, of hearing the doctor say "x weeks x days pregnant" and thinking that means "x weeks x days since conception" might have bitten her in the behind, like it does SO many people including anxious husbands, worried new moms, and everyone.  But the thing is, with that many ultrasounds and all of them lining up to the October 11 date, he can't just shrug this off, if that is what he is wishing to do.  And if you have a dog in the hunt, you should not advise him that she might be lying, because if she is not and the DNA test proves he is the dad (especially if she never had any other boyfriend but him during those times) your comments could come and backfire on you.  Don't say anything rude or suspicious, nothing about the dates looks implausible.

Good luck to him and to her.

[luckiec7]

Sorry I meant 14 weeks 5 days on the last one. Thank you for the explanation. It sounds like a good chance he's the father based on the date of Oct 15. I was focusing on Sept 26-28 and was confused how that could have worked based on how many weeks pregnant she is based on the ultrasound. Her initial conception date she told him was Oct 7 then changed it to Sept 26-28 after he was skeptical. Unfortunately I don't know her so I can't say if she may or may not have had sex with someone else during the two weeks between when they had sex.

[AnnieBrooke]

Are you sure you mean 14 weeks "9" days on that last one?  That is an unusual way to count weeks in pregnancy, usually by the time they get to 7 days they call it another week.

Anyway, you say she "gave conception dates" of the weekend of September 26-28, and that because of this, you think the whole thing is wrong.  But it's possible for her to misunderstand what the doctor said about when conception was and still be correct about him being the dad, since they slept together at the right time to give her a due date of July 4.  The second time they slept together that you named, October 15, is about the right time for conception given what the ultrasounds have said.  The ultrasounds saw and measured the actual embryo, and they identify conception as being in the week around October 11 plus or minus seven days.  A guy who had sex with her October 15 is not ruled out by the ultrasound findings but is in fact ruled in, at least enough to get a DNA test.  

If she had another boyfriend with whom she had sex in the week of October 11, both guys should be swabbed when it is time for the DNA test.  But your guy is certainly not ruled out at this point.

(For what it is worth, a lot of people don't understand that when the doctor says "You're x weeks pregnant," he or she is not saying x weeks since conception.  [In fact, it sounds like x weeks since conception is exactly what *is* being said.]  She might have gotten her idea that she got pregnant September 26-28 from that kind of misunderstanding.  But that doesn't change what the ultrasounds saw.)

[luckiec7]

This is why I'm questioning it. She gave conception dates of the weekend of Sept 26-28, but based on ultrasound results her due date would be July 4. The dates of the ultrasounds and GA are below:

There was one around 11/23 around 8 weeks (I don't have that ultrasound so I can't be sure on exact dates and GA)
12/11/14 GA 10 weeks 5 days
12/22/14 GA 12 weeks 2 days
1/9/15 GA 14 weeks 9 days

[AnnieBrooke]

October 15 is quite plausible for conception.  If her due date is July 4, the conception calculator gives the date of October 11 for an estimated conception date.  Since there is usually a margin for error when using an ultrasound to try to determine a conception date, October 11 is not far enough from October 15 for him to be ruled out.  Do you know how early in her pregnancy she got the ultrasound that gave her the due date of July 4?  By her 12th week, this kind of estimate can have a margin for error of +/- 7 days.  (Not sure where you got the idea that September 25 is the projected ovulation date for a due date of July 4, it isn't.)