Am I pregnant? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Nell Frizzell

Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queries

• Nell Frizzell is a freelance journalist

Being pregnant, like being awake, seems fairly black and white until you try it yourself. You’re either pregnant, or you’re not. Unprotected sex, a bloodless gusset, tender breasts – you’re pregnant. Except you might not be. Or might not be for long. Or might never be again.

When you get here, being pregnant suddenly becomes a far more delicate, changeable, more abstract state than you’d imagined. You may be pregnant. But then again, you may have endometriosis, so the swelling, the late period and tender breasts aren’t the result of a baby at all. You might be peri-menopausal, so the fatigue, the skipped periods and disrupted sleep are a sign of no more eggs, not a fertilised one. You could be stressed, have disordered eating or a hormone imbalance, causing your periods to halt for a while without you knowing why.

Related: Nothing prepared me for pregnancy – apart from the never-ending hangover of my 20s

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2sOQlPT