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Paternity Question
The date of my LMP was 12/20/19.
I had sex with Guy A on 01/04/20. It was unprotected, but he did not cum at all. He never finished.
I had sex with Guy B on 01/05/20. It was unprotected, and he did not pull out and ejaculated inside.
I felt cramping on 01/10,01/11,01/12. I thought this could be implantation cramps.
I took a pregnancy test on 01/14, and it was negative.
I took another test on 01/17, and it was positive.
My estimated due date based on my LMP was 09/25/20. However, an ultrasound I had very early dated me at 6 weeks, 2 days at the time, with an estimated due date of 09/29/20.
I have went all this time not even questioning the father of this child, always knew it was Guy B. However....now my anxiety is kicking in.
I know paternity testing is the only certain way to know...but I can probably assume Guy B is the father, correct?
I had sex with Guy A on 01/04/20. It was unprotected, but he did not cum at all. He never finished.
I had sex with Guy B on 01/05/20. It was unprotected, and he did not pull out and ejaculated inside.
I felt cramping on 01/10,01/11,01/12. I thought this could be implantation cramps.
I took a pregnancy test on 01/14, and it was negative.
I took another test on 01/17, and it was positive.
My estimated due date based on my LMP was 09/25/20. However, an ultrasound I had very early dated me at 6 weeks, 2 days at the time, with an estimated due date of 09/29/20.
I have went all this time not even questioning the father of this child, always knew it was Guy B. However....now my anxiety is kicking in.
I know paternity testing is the only certain way to know...but I can probably assume Guy B is the father, correct?
COMMUNITY LEADER
That's good news! And I'll bet Guy A is pleased, as well. Now all that is left is getting the test with Guy B for legal purposes after the baby is born.
Annie is correct saying either guy could be the father, the incidents were both close to ovulation. Based solely on who deposited the most sperm, I favor Guy B by a large margin.
COMMUNITY LEADER
You're saying that the reason you didn't question that the second guy is the dad is that the first guy didn't ejaculate? Sorry, but that's a false assumption.
If a guy has ejaculated recently, he can have live sperm hanging around in his ducts and urethra from the earlier ejaculation. It's a warm environment, and sperm can live a while. (In a woman's body, it can live several days, and there is no reason to believe it won't live at least a day in the men's ducts.) When he gets a subsequent erection, his Cowper's gland emits pre-ejaculatory fluid (you've probably heard of this as "pre-cum") and it will ooze out of the tip of the penis even before he has ejaculated. There are millions of sperm in one ejaculation. So if guy A had some spermies hanging around and they took the pre-ejaculatory-fluid bus ride into your body when you had unprotected sex, plenty of sperm from him could have gone into your body whether he ejaculated or not. If so, they would have still been alive and viable when you had sex with the second guy.
The guy who ejaculated in your body and didn't pull out has the chance of putting in more sperm. But getting pregnant only takes one sperm. Lots of women have gotten pregnant without the man ejaculating in her body. I'm sorry but that's not enough for you to be sure the second man is the dad.
Because you didn't mention it, it sounds like you don't know if the first guy ejaculated or had a wet dream or anything in the time period before having sex with you. (And, unfortunately, at this date he probably can't reliably remember.) All I'm saying is, that you can't rule out the possibility that the first guy is the dad.
If you have the hefty price, you can get a prenatal DNA test; if you do, please test with both guys. (We get so many letters in this community from women who are freaked out because they only tested with one guy and then can't bring themselves to believe the results. You don't want to be out a ton of money and then not believe the test just because you're anxious.) Or, for about a tenth of the cost of prenatal DNA testing, do a DNA test when the baby comes. (As before, it is better for your nerves if you test with both men. One gets a yes and the other gets a no, meaning one test confirms the other.) The good thing about the post-natal test besides its affordability is that the courts will accept those tests as legal proof of paternity, as long as you have gone to a lab approved by the courts. (At-home mail-in DNA tests aren't approved by the courts, don't waste any money on those.)
The only thing in favor of the second guy in the information you give above is that all this time you have been sure he is the dad. If this is simply because he didn't pull out, it doesn't mean a lot, but if it comes from your women's intuition, you'd be surprised at how often that proves to be correct. We've had women write in who were sure their boyfriend was the father and ones write in who were super worried he wasn't, with no more proof than you have, and more often than not their intuition was correct. Not saying always, though.
I'm really sorry, sweetheart, but you won't get a firm answer until the DNA test. The guys were both unprotected and were only a day apart. I wish I had better news for you.
If a guy has ejaculated recently, he can have live sperm hanging around in his ducts and urethra from the earlier ejaculation. It's a warm environment, and sperm can live a while. (In a woman's body, it can live several days, and there is no reason to believe it won't live at least a day in the men's ducts.) When he gets a subsequent erection, his Cowper's gland emits pre-ejaculatory fluid (you've probably heard of this as "pre-cum") and it will ooze out of the tip of the penis even before he has ejaculated. There are millions of sperm in one ejaculation. So if guy A had some spermies hanging around and they took the pre-ejaculatory-fluid bus ride into your body when you had unprotected sex, plenty of sperm from him could have gone into your body whether he ejaculated or not. If so, they would have still been alive and viable when you had sex with the second guy.
The guy who ejaculated in your body and didn't pull out has the chance of putting in more sperm. But getting pregnant only takes one sperm. Lots of women have gotten pregnant without the man ejaculating in her body. I'm sorry but that's not enough for you to be sure the second man is the dad.
Because you didn't mention it, it sounds like you don't know if the first guy ejaculated or had a wet dream or anything in the time period before having sex with you. (And, unfortunately, at this date he probably can't reliably remember.) All I'm saying is, that you can't rule out the possibility that the first guy is the dad.
If you have the hefty price, you can get a prenatal DNA test; if you do, please test with both guys. (We get so many letters in this community from women who are freaked out because they only tested with one guy and then can't bring themselves to believe the results. You don't want to be out a ton of money and then not believe the test just because you're anxious.) Or, for about a tenth of the cost of prenatal DNA testing, do a DNA test when the baby comes. (As before, it is better for your nerves if you test with both men. One gets a yes and the other gets a no, meaning one test confirms the other.) The good thing about the post-natal test besides its affordability is that the courts will accept those tests as legal proof of paternity, as long as you have gone to a lab approved by the courts. (At-home mail-in DNA tests aren't approved by the courts, don't waste any money on those.)
The only thing in favor of the second guy in the information you give above is that all this time you have been sure he is the dad. If this is simply because he didn't pull out, it doesn't mean a lot, but if it comes from your women's intuition, you'd be surprised at how often that proves to be correct. We've had women write in who were sure their boyfriend was the father and ones write in who were super worried he wasn't, with no more proof than you have, and more often than not their intuition was correct. Not saying always, though.
I'm really sorry, sweetheart, but you won't get a firm answer until the DNA test. The guys were both unprotected and were only a day apart. I wish I had better news for you.
9 Comments
I have scheduled testing through Ravgen, but only Guy A, the one who didn’t finish, is willing to test. I am hoping he comes back as an exclusion.
I'm sorry Guy B is not willing; he's going to have to do a DNA test by court order in the future anyway, so why be unwilling to know in advance? Did you talk to Ravgen about discreet testing (for Guy B)?
Yes, it’s an additional cost for the discreet testing & I unfortunately do not have the extra money for that. Guy B is not willing to test because he firmly believes it is his child and feels it is unnecessary to test.
Sooner or later you will need to test with him, if you want there to be a legal record of paternity for your child's benefit. Is he trying to avoid that? The only way it is unnecessary is if you and guy B are married, then the law assumes the husband of the mother is the father. But otherwise, should things change between you over the years or should he decide no longer to support the child, you will need a paternity test that holds up in court.
We are not married. Eventually if the other is not excluded and we have to establish paternity legally...we will have to go through the courts to do so. However, for now, as long as I get an exclusion from the other. That would be enough to settle my anxiety.
Eventually, you will need to establish paternity legally whether or not the other guy is excluded by a prenatal test. This is only fair, because your child has rights and you can't ignore them just for the sake of being nice. Best time to get a legally admissible DNA test is at the hospital when the baby is born. See if you can work with the guy you assume to be the dad to do it then.
I plan to do so. I just need a peace of mind for everyone’s sake now. Plus, Ravgen is not recognized by the court anyway, correct? So an additional test would be necessary for legal purposes. However, for peace of mind...if the one guy is excluded, it would confirm the other guy is the father.
: ) It sure would be nice if every woman writing in who is looking at prenatal testing would be as calm as you about testing only one guy. You'd be surprised at how many get an exclusion for the guy they don't want to be the dad, and are *not* soothed, they immediately think "What if the test is WRONG?!?!" and freak out anew. This is what anxiety can do. But you're going to the best lab in the world for this kind of work, and you're moving forward with the right attitude, so you shouldn't have a problem being comfortable with the result.
Regarding whether a prenatal DNA test is recognized by the courts, when last I read up on this topic, prenatal non-invasive tests were pretty new, and the courts would not admit their results in paternity cases. But it's been a few years since I checked this particular question, and someone wrote in recently that (at least she believed) her prenatal test *was* admissible in court. She thought the company was saying it had gone to the extra effort with testing and certifications and proofs, and that their tests were now accepted as legal proof of paternity. I don't know if she got this right -- if you want to check it out, the DDC is the testing company she used. (It's a good company, nothing wrong with them that we've heard here, the only disadvantage being that they don't do discreet testing.) Certainly it would be in the best interest of any lab doing prenatal testing to get certified to legally determine paternity, the problem before didn't seem to be with the accuracy of these two particular labs but with the newness of this kind of testing, and back when this kind of testing was super new, there were also a lot of charlatan labs offering this kind of test. (Mercifully, the bad labs seem to have been dying out, leaving only the ones that do valid work.) So perhaps the issue of whether courts accept the results of noninvasive prenatal DNA testing is changing.
Regarding whether a prenatal DNA test is recognized by the courts, when last I read up on this topic, prenatal non-invasive tests were pretty new, and the courts would not admit their results in paternity cases. But it's been a few years since I checked this particular question, and someone wrote in recently that (at least she believed) her prenatal test *was* admissible in court. She thought the company was saying it had gone to the extra effort with testing and certifications and proofs, and that their tests were now accepted as legal proof of paternity. I don't know if she got this right -- if you want to check it out, the DDC is the testing company she used. (It's a good company, nothing wrong with them that we've heard here, the only disadvantage being that they don't do discreet testing.) Certainly it would be in the best interest of any lab doing prenatal testing to get certified to legally determine paternity, the problem before didn't seem to be with the accuracy of these two particular labs but with the newness of this kind of testing, and back when this kind of testing was super new, there were also a lot of charlatan labs offering this kind of test. (Mercifully, the bad labs seem to have been dying out, leaving only the ones that do valid work.) So perhaps the issue of whether courts accept the results of noninvasive prenatal DNA testing is changing.
ps -- With just a quick search, I can't find anything saying that the DDC's prenatal tests are admissible in court. After the baby comes, yes, their tests are admissible (if they are handled properly by the chain of custody of the sample), but tests done before the baby comes don't seem to be legally admissible. But I only looked quickly into it, possibly you can find something different. It's not so much the first guy that you need a legally admissible test for, anyway, I assume? One would wish that your balky beau Guy B would test, just so everyone knows everything that can be known, but unfortunately that's your sack of cats to carry now, at least for a while. (Frankly, I think in your shoes I'd do a discreet test on him even if I had to borrow the money from my mother.) Good luck in any case, write back when you get the results from Mr. Withdrawal.
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