I know that due dates and weeks along are calculated by your last menstrual cycle. What is weird this time is that I know that I had a 35 day cycle and I also know when I conceived. So I feel like I'm a week behind what my last menstrual cycle says I am. I told my doctor about my longer cycle and knowing when I conceived and all that but she still says I'm a week ahead of what I think I am. Should I just go with the date the dr. says? The problem is silly, but I have a "Belly Book" that you fill in week by week, but I'm holding off filling it out since I don't know which week to go by and I feel like once I have a sonogram it will prove what I have been saying. I worry that the weeks keep going by and the book is still blank and I'll forget all the little things from the earlier weeks!
Take the date of the last menstrual period, go back 3 months, add 7 days to the date and that's the due date, as of in the OLD days and it seemed to work for me give or take 3 days. I think now they add 10 days sometimes but my old medical book says this too. It's close enough. Just go by that.
Doc has gone to medical school.
That said, I had a similar issue when Mrs. On Purpose and I were figuring out due dates. Doc said X, and we (I) KNEW when we conceived and counted. We counted from the last cycle. We counted everything - and couldn't come up with X.
Doc was right. Guess all that college, all that medical school, all those residencies and all those years of experience actually count. Huh - who knew?
That is why due dates are really just "guess dates" and why so many babies end up being born by unnecessary c-section - doctor gets anxious that baby is 40+ weeks, mom isn't ready to induce, induction "fails" and baby is born my c-section and mom gets an abdominal scar for life.
You can either go along with what your doctor says, fire the doctor and get a new one, consider a midwife or just know that as you get to the end that you aren't as far along as your doctor thinks and that most first babies arrive around 41 weeks and 2 days if you do not get medical intervention!
Your doctor will also tell you that the "dating" will be perfect with the ultrasound but in reality that can be one week off in either direction as well.
Stop holding off, just do whatever you want...If I were you, I would use my own dates.
C.
Answer the questions in the book but write everything down on a separate sheet of paper, and fill in the book when you are sure of the due date. Congratulations! :)
I delivered on my estimated due date only because I was induced. Even if you know the exact date of conception, due date still isn't exact since it will largely be determined by baby's growth rate that dates to your cycle.
As for the baby book, just fill out the info on a notebook paper so you don't forget those things, then once you have your sono, you can fill it out by week in the book.
I wouldn't worry too much about the one week difference. You will never be 100% sure when you are going to deliver until the day you deliver! FYI - the date you conceived might not be the date you had intercourse, so you could be off a few days with that. Just a thought...
I found out during my pregnancy that they just tack a week on at the front for good measure. Go back to your date of conception and then go back one more week. THAT is the date they are using because that is what matches up with fetal development around the world. It's not because they are so much smarter than you are. It's because that is the standard that was established years ago, so instead of changing all the literature/records, they change YOUR dates.
What it actually amounts to is this: When the fetus is at this stage of development, this is how far it has to go before it's done cooking.
I used my actual date of conception--since I knew it--and just let them fall over themselves tyring to figure it out.
Well your ultra sound can be wrong give or take a week. So the ultra sound tec could just go with the due date your doctor said or change it. I have to have c-sections which you get at week 39. So with all my babies the doctor always tells me" we'll keep your due date based off your last period as long as the ultra sound date is within a week of that due date." because it could be off by a week and they don't want to run the risk of me going into labor before the scheduled c-section. With my first baby they had me 1 week ahead of what the ultrasound said (so they pushed it back a week) but then I ended up going into labor 10 days early. So I'm thinking the ultrasound was wrong. First babies don't usually come that early. Anyways I would just write down the fun stuff (like first movement etc) on a different piece of paper than after the ultrasound transfer it to the book.
I had long cycles. The first one never got adjusted and was born according to when I knew I concevied. The second one was adjusted - the 3rd and 4th one I just adjusted the "start date" of my period to make my cycle a 28 day cycle.
Pregnancy diaries always have another 2 weeks of pages in them anyway, because babies can be up to 2 weeks a late (or early!) in any case. I'd just use the doctor's dates, and if you go long you'll still have pages to write things in.
What does the fundal height measurement tell you? I always went by that rather than menstrual cycle dates, as my cycles were never regular.
