Expert: Pat G - 6/23/2009

Question
I had an abortion on the 26th of May and I was 11 weeks and 5 days pregnant. I need to have a surgery performed on my jaw, but when I went in last Friday on the 19th of June, I was denied the surgery because I tested positive for pregnancy on both a urine and a blood test. I have only had sex once, two weeks after my abortion, but it was with a condom and the condom didn't break. Is there any chance I'm getting a false positive on a blood test or might I still be pregnant?

Answer
Hi, Liz,

Pregnancy hormones can persist after an abortion. You were fairly far along. There are a couple of ways to tell if this is the old pregnancy or a new one. And it is possible you are still pregnant; however, the baby would be large enough it's unlikely the abortionist missed. Well, it depends. Some are very negligent. One way to tell is to see if pregnancy hormones are high and increasing, or whether they are decreasing. To find that out, you need a test that tells you how MUCH of the hormone is in your body, and you need it done at least twice, hopefully about a week apart.

Condoms don't work, even if they don't break. The only way you can be sure not to get pregnant is to abstain, especially when you are fertile. You must not be using any hormones, and you must chart faithfully.You need to wait for your hormones to return to the non-pregnant state, before really relying on these things. Then it would be "safe" to have sex AFTER fertility is no longer a possibility, which would be a window of about a week. Normally, the period occurs 14 days after ovulation.

To learn more, go here:

http://fertilityuk.org/

I recommend you go to a doctor, preferably the one who was going to handle the surgery on your jaw (and get referrals as needed), to have these issues addressed. The pregnancy test they took MAY have the information needed for one of the tests. You can also get an ultrasound. Anyway, I hope things work out for you. Please don't take any more chances with getting pregnant again, and please let me know what happens.