The Infuriating Reason Jennifer Garner Had to Stop Seeing Her Doctor
When you see your doctor, you generally assume that they’re going to listen to your concerns. Unfortunately, as Jennifer Garner can attest, that’s not always how it goes.
One morning 12 years ago, Garner woke up and "just knew" she was pregnant with her first child, Violet, she revealed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show this week. But when she peed on an at-home pregnancy test, the positive result was "so faint" that she ended up going to her doctor to do a test in his office.
“He gave me one and said, ‘I don’t know, you’re not pregnant. It’s negative.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I am. I’m telling you I am,’” Garner said. “So [Violet is] 12, and I don’t use that doctor anymore, but I do have her, so I won!”
At-home pregnancy tests aren’t 100 percent accurate, but they’re pretty reliable.
These tests actually work by measuring the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in your pee, which you only produce when you’re pregnant, per the Food and Drug Administration.
HCG is a hormone that’s produced by your placenta (the organ that nourishes and maintains your baby through the umbilical cord) and it appears shortly after the embryo attaches to the wall of your uterus, the FDA explains. If you’re pregnant, the hormone increases pretty quickly and can usually be detected in your pee anywhere from 12 to 15 days after you ovulate.
Depending on when you ovulate, your hCG levels might be detected before you miss a period, which is why some home pregnancy tests swear they can detect a pregnancy before then, Lauren Streicher, M.D., an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, tells SELF. But, since plenty of women have irregular periods, up to 20 percent of women won’t be able to detect their pregnancy on the first day of their missed period, the FDA says.
There are a few totally understandable reasons why you might get a positive pregnancy test result that you can barely see.
For the record, a positive is a positive. “If there’s a question if the line is there, it’s positive until proven otherwise,” Dr. Streicher says.
But a faint line could be the result of being really early in your pregnancy (so your body hasn't produced enough hCG yet) or having diluted pee, Dr. Streicher says. “We always recommend that women do a test first thing in the morning,” she says. “That’s when your urine is the most concentrated and it’s the most likely to be accurate.”
If you get a faint positive and you have no idea what the heck is going on, you have a few options: You can wait a few days and test again, or you can see your doctor and have them do a blood test to measure your hCG levels, G. Thomas Ruiz, M.D., an ob/gyn at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, Calif., tells SELF.
We obviously don't know for sure, but from Garner's story, it sounds like her doctor gave her a urine test rather than a blood test since the results came back so quickly, Dr. Ruiz explains. However, the urine tests in your doctor's office really aren't any different from the one you can buy at the drugstore. "Ours aren't any better than commercial options," Dr. Ruiz says. "If it’s weakly positive, assume you’re pregnant and repeat the test in two days."
Although a home pregnancy test tells whether you have hCG in your system, a blood test can actually measure how much, which is an important marker of a healthy pregnancy, Dr. Streicher says. Your doctor will likely want you to come back for another one in a few days to make sure your levels are increasing. If they're not, that's a sign that something may not be quite right and you may be at risk for a miscarriage, depending on how far along you are.
Of course, you know your own body. So if your doctor seems to be dismissing you, it may be time to find a different one.
Related:
