Mary* of Council Bluffs, Iowa, was still nursing her 6-month-old daughter and her periods hadn't yet returned. She thought it might just be stress from having a new baby and a 3-year-old, but her regular family physician thought it was somehow related to kidney stones so he scheduled a CT scan of her kidneys. Prior to the CT scan, the technician at the hospital told her to take a home pregnancy test the day of the scan as a routine measure. He explained that because the scan involves quite a bit of radiation, they like verification that a patient is not pregnant.

Mary took the test as instructed and was puzzled to find two lines on the test stick. She literally turned it over and over, trying to figure out how it could be reading positive. Certain that she wasn't pregnant, she cancelled her CT scan and called her obstetrician, who asked her to come right over.

The nurse, who still remembered Mary from her recent pregnancy, asked her why she was in that day. Worriedly, Mary explained the situation and said she needed to know "what else could make a home pregnancy test turn up positive?" After the nurse was done laughing, she said, "Pretty much nothing but pregnancy." They did another test, and, sure enough, Mary was pregnant again. She and her husband now have three beautiful children, but the last one was quite a shock to them both.

When the nurse laughed at Mary, it was because she knew that pregnancy tests are among the most reliable home tests on earth. In fact, they're often more reliable than the same types of urine tests taken at the doctor's office. Dr. Callie Holmgren, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based OB/GYN, says this is because home pregnancy tests are usually done first thing in the morning, when the urine is very concentrated. When done later in the day at the doctor's office, the urine may be quite a bit weaker.

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