I tend to agree with Brooke. 60% of the time, testing too early results in a negative when, in fact, the woman is pregnant.
You can also sometimes pick up an early positive that does not develop into a viable pregnancy.
And please don't assume that Brooke doesn't have any experience with infertility.
They ask you to wait until the optimal time for a reason. Doing what you want is fine, but soooooo many times, we get these questions about early testing and negative results. It may have not been anxiety producing for you, but it surely is for many women here.
A lot of times ladies write in ready to throw in the towel and asking if there is any hope, all based on a negative home test that was rather early. Certainly someone should test when they want to test, as long as they know that it can be too early for a reliable result.
in your opinion...
personally i found testing early to be LESS stressful.
"waste of money" is relative. I bought early tests online in bulk and it was worth every penny.
and it took me 7 years of TTC to get this far into a pregnancy (36 weeks) so I do speak from some experience.
What you have to think about when choosing when to test is would you rather potentially know earlier but recognize that a BFN may not be really a BFN until you get farther along, or would you rather wait until it's unlikely for a false negative.
for me, i needed to know. for others, they prefer to wait. depends on what you find the least stressful.
I was saying that a home test taken too early that results in a "negative" is a result you cannot be certain of, because you cannot be sure what it reflects. I was not saying that hpts are uncertain when they are taken at the appropriate time. Testing early causes a lot of worry and wastes a lot of money.
i got my first BFP at home 8 dp3dt (11 dpo) but not everyone tests positive this early.
depends alot on the sensitivity of the tests as well. my doctor didn't start blood testing until 18 dpo so i had more than a week of progressively darker positive tests befote my first blood test.
as long as you follow the directions correctly, a hpt is just as "certain" as a blood test, it's just not quantitative.
It's too soon to test at home at this point. The doc picks a testing date based on the earliest he feels a blood test will be certain, and a home test is less certain than a blood test. Sometimes a woman gets a positive on a home test before the blood test at the doctor's, but sometimes not, and it can be very discouraging not to know if the problem is that you tested too soon or that you're not pregnant.