Pink Lines and Plus Signs: Pregnancy Test Tweaking

Ladies, I honestly don’t care how unpopular this statement is: buy a pregnancy test that works. I’m so sick of seeing women posting photos of their gross pee-sticks and photoshopping the snapshot into eternity in hopes that maybe, in different lighting, the test will read positive.

I know a lot of women have difficultly trying to conceive, but taking 87 pregnancy tests will not up your chances. Neither will photoshopping, or “tweaking”, the results. Buy an accurate pregnancy test, and wait an ample amount of time before testing. Because, like it or not, if you do wind up pregnant, you will have a whole 9 months to obsess over your pregnancy. And a ton of things you need to buy. And you’ll wish you didn’t waste $18.99/month on shitty, inaccurate pregnancy tests for the last three years. If you don’t end up pregnant, you’ll wish you saved the money for IVF, IUI, other fertility treatments, or adoption. You will not want to look at your bank statement a few years from now to find that you’ve spent hundreds – possibly thousands – of dollars – not trying to get pregnant – simply buying pregnancy tests.

There’s a reason the digital pregnancy test was invented: pink lines and plus signs are ridiculously hard to decipher. The digital test takes confusion out of the equation. It tells you “pregnant” or “not pregnant”. No guesswork! No tweaking! No stress!

There’s a myth going around that digital pregnancy tests are “less accurate” than traditional lines and plus signs; that is false. And, even if it were true, it would only be 0.03% more accurate. Honestly, it’s negligible. If you are pregnant, a digital test will tell you.

Another thing, when you post those pregnancy test photos on message boards, everyone is rooting for you – but all the positive vibes in the world will not impregnate your uterus. SORRYNOTSORRY.

Here’s an example of a test someone wants to be “tweaked”:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read this test. Clearly, this lady is not pregnant. The faint line is called an “evaporation line“. It’s basically showing up because of the way the urine has evaporated in the test; it is not an indication of pregnancy. However, she’ll enlist the powers that be on the mommy boards to alter the photo “just to make sure”.

What ends up happening is this:

 

Women get “false positives” in the form of social media and mommy message boards. Perhaps the most devastating thing that can happen to a woman who is trying to conceive is being told “HOORAY! You’re pregnant!” only to visit the OB/GYN and discover no, it’s not true. Even worse, these women then get their periods and think they’re suffering a miscarriage, when, in actuality, their pregnancy existed only in fantasy land.

So, ladies, stop doing this to yourselves and to others. Buy a test that works. No need for the drama, mama.