Michelle answers:

Cramping in early pregnancy is normal. Your uterus is expanding and your ligamens may be being pulled on as well. As long as there is no bleeding assoicated with the cramping, I wouldn’t worry.

Michelle answers:

14days after your missed peorid, or 14 days after having sex

Michelle answers:

Are you using a different type of birth control? How old are you? Have you had unprotected sex?
These answers would have been helpful. Continue getting pregnancy tests if your period doesn’t come.
That happened to me and I miscarried. The pregnancy tests were negative, but it was a very early pregnancy.
If you don’t want to get pregnant, find a birth control and definitely use condoms.

Michelle answers:

Wow, I feel a duty to answer this question to respond to some of the ignorant answers on here.

First of all, yes, you absolutely could tell if you are pregnant by taking a home pregnancy test around the time that you expected your period. The egg & sperm meet within a day of ovulation and implantation takes place around 5-7 days later. When implantation happens, it triggers the body to produce hcg, which is the hormone tested by a home pregnancy test.

Now, home pregnancy tests all have different levels of sensitivity. Some can detect a level so small that you could identify pregnancy within a couple of days of implantation, but most need the body to build up the hcg supply in the body before a hpt can detect it. That is also why most pregnancy tests advise you to use the first morning urine, because the hcg is the most concentrated at that time.

Now to answer you question:

You should wait another 5 days and retest. The problem with the standard days method of NFP is that it is completely calendar based and as you are finding out now for yourself, if you ovulate late for any reason, it makes the method worthwhile. I know that there are many women who successfully can use this method, but in my opinion it is risky. You are basically expecting your body to ovulate on the same day every month and personal experience tells us that that is simply not the case. Every woman goes through fluctuations in her monthly cycle due to stress, illness, travel, or just for no discernible reason whatsoever.

At this point, it is highly likely that you ovulated late in your cycle, which is why you are testing negative on the pregnancy test. There are three scenarios at this point:
1. You ovulated late but did not get pregnant. You are currently in the normal luteal phase of your cycle and your period will come the normal 12-16 days after ovulation.
2. You ovulated late in your cycle and are pregnant, but it is too early to measure the pregnancy by HPT or blood pregnancy test. You will have to wait and test every 5 days or so to see when you test positive.
3. You did not ovulate at all and your body is in a state of confusion. You may still ovulate or you may have a breakthrough bleeding episode where you spot a light or medium amount for a few days but do not have your normal period. If this is the first time this has ever happened, it is probably nothing to worry about, but if it happens with any regularity then it’s something to talk to your doctor about.

Even if you are no longer able to use the SDM for natural family planning, I would encourage you to do some research into other areas of NFP. A method that uses cervical mucus or temperatures would be far more accurate and would give you clues when you have long cycles such as this one as to what is happening with your body. For example, if you were charting your temperatures, then you might have noticed that you didn’t ovulate until day 19. That would mean that your next cycle would not begin until around day 33. You would not have had these days of worry and stress because you would have already known that your period would be delayed. Other NFP methods can also adjust if you have a cycle over 32 days, any other method would not be worthless due to a blip like this one. Because you are not judging your body with an expectation that you will ovulate around the same time every month, you are better able to adjust as needed and still use NFP with a high level of effectiveness.

I second the recommendation to read “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” or look for an NFP class in your area. Standard Days method is great… Until it isn’t, such as a cycle like this one! Good luck!