Who could the father be?

[TaylorTenille]

Hi my names Taylor, and im currently 27 weeks pregnant. My LMP was October 20th 2015. I slept with 2 guys a week apart. Man #1 i slept with on oct 26th and man #2 i slept with November 7th. I found out i was pregnant at 4 weeks on November 20th. On December 7th I had a 6 week scan (going by lmp) i was 6 weeks and 6 days. But my doctor measured it as 6+2 days. She said being this early sometimes could make it off. So she had me go in the next week and i ended being 8 weeks and 2 days! :D which had put me right on schedule going by my lmp. And when my 20 week scan came it was 20+2 days :) so could the babys father be #1?

[AnnieBrooke]

I wasn't asking because I thought that conception had anything to do with what month it is.  (I've never even heard of that piece of folklore.  What a riot -- if it were true, all babies born at a given time would be a certain sex, and it would switch off at the beginning of the month.)

I asked because there is a theory out there popular with people trying to get a certain sex of baby that sperm carrying the X chromosome swim more slowly and live longer, and sperm carrying the Y chromosome swim more quickly but die earlier.  This theory is somewhat disputed, or at least scientists are having trouble duplicating it enough to say it is true.  But given when your ultrasounds seem to suggest you might have ovulated, you would have had only a girl from the first guy and only a boy from the second guy if it were true.

I've heard women on the site say they feel later ultrasounds are more accurate, but from what I've read and had happen in my own life (my son was IVF so I knew the exact date when he was conceived), the sweet spot for accuracy is the late 6th week or early 7th week.  Embryos begin as an egg and then when fertilized they divide into two cells, then four, then 8, and then 16, and this happens at a known rate.  But after a while, they can begin to develop faster or slower than average.  Most doctors will say by week 12 that the margin for error is a week, but at week 6 they will only say it's about a day.  Doctors like 8th-week ultrasounds because there is such a thing as too early -- if someone has been off on their dates, they can waste everyone's time getting a 4th-week ultrasound where nothing can be seen at all.  (I wouldn't even trust a 5th-week ultrasound because the embryo is just too hard to see.)

Anyway, you've been given dates that say November 3 for conception.  This demonstrably can't be true, since Mr. October 26th's spermies would all be dead by November 3 and Mr. November 7th's would not have come along yet.  This means your 8th-week ultrasound is in that "a few days margin for error" range.  [The 20th-week ultrasound can't be used to confirm your 8th-week ultrasound, they have a much larger margin for error, like 10-12 days.  And besides, you have no way to know if the doctor's office didn't just click on the old estimated due date and move it forward so it printed on your ultrasound again, or if they tried to recalculate everything from scratch.  But even if they did, there is still that pesky margin for error.  By your 40th week, it can be +/- 3 weeks.]

Here is how I would interpret things, but I would also be sure to do a DNA test when the baby comes, because the human body is always full of surprises.  I would assume you got pregnant on November 7.   But you are going to have to check, don't just assume.  Do both guys know a DNA test is in their future?

[TaylorTenille]

I meant to say i don't believe certain months can determine the sex of a baby. Can i ask why you thought it could have been a boy?. Because it is true lol but i feel i ovulated early this go round.

[AnnieBrooke]

Hi, Taylor, what was that last one supposed to say?  It came out "I really don't believe going off my certain months with what the babys sex will be."

[TaylorTenille]

And i really don't believe going off my certain months with what the babys sex will be.

[TaylorTenille]

Yes that is correct. Only those 2 dates

[TaylorTenille]

It is a boy. But i heard that 8 weeks are way more accurate. I also think i had implantation bleeding later that day of November 7th. Because i had pink light blood when i went to pee and wiped. As well as stringyNess with it.

[AnnieBrooke]

One good thing about having had sex with someone October 26 and someone else November 7 is that it really is not a week apart as you said, it's 12 days apart.  It tends to be slightly easier to try to interpret the conception date the further apart the events are.  You didn't have any sex in between those dates, is that right?

[AnnieBrooke]

Well, unfortunately all the info from December 17 winds up being not too helpful, then.  It would point to November 3 for conception, and sex with the guy on October 26 was too early for the sperm to still be viable on November 3, and sex with the guy on November 7 was too late for conception to be on November 3.  

This gives you two choices in how to interpret what you're being told.  At 8 weeks 2 days there is +/- a few days' margin for error when using an ultrasound to try to determine a conception date.  (By 12 weeks, this margin for error is +/- 7 days.)  This could mean you ovulated just enough earlier that sperm was still around from sex on the 26th and viable, and it could mean you ovulated just later enough to include November 7.  Is the baby a boy or girl?

The other way to interpret what you are being told is to believe the first ultrasound more than the second, the 6 week 2 day one, because it would have less of a margin for error.  If you do that, it suggests conception on November 7.  If the baby is a boy, I would tend to think that is what happened.

[TaylorTenille]

My first scan was suppose to be going on 7 weeks. But like i said she wasnt sure, so thats why we did a second

[TaylorTenille]

She didnt set my due date on Dec 7th. She said going by lmp it would be july 26th, but because we werenr sure of the size of the baby, we would see on the next U/S. So Decemwber 7th was my insure scan. And December 17th was when i found out i was actually 8+2 :)and thats when they confirmed my due date from the December 17th scan.  And it stayed that way all the way through my 20 week scan. My weeks turn over on Tuesdays.

[AnnieBrooke]

Hi, did the doctor give you the due date of July 26 at your scan on December 7?  If not, when was it given to you, and was the due date given to you from ultrasound data?

Were the two scans (December 7 that measured 6w2d and "the next week" that measured 8w2d) done on December 7 and on December 14, or was the second scan some other date in the next week?

[TaylorTenille]

My due date is July 26th :)