LisaDo's Full Review: Ept Certainty Double Pregnancy Tester
Warning. The review you are about to read will, no doubt, be long and full of emotion. It's also going to be very personal. If you want to read a review about someone peeing on a stick, letting you know the result and if it was right or wrong, then you are reading the wrong review. To most women, a pregnancy test is a life changing event and emotions run high. I feel that they were needed to explain exactly why I rated this review the way I did. It's taken me 5 weeks to sit down and write this review, so please have patience while I tell my story.
I don't usually purchase EPT brand pregnancy tests for the sole reason that they are generally the most expensive on the market. I've used the cheap tests and have gotten correct results so I've never seen the need to splurge on something that I plan to pee on. The only reason I bought the EPT Certainty Double Pregnancy Tester was because it was all that the commissary (military grocery store) offered the day that I was there. I figured that with gas prices the way they were that I would spend more in gas driving to another store than I would just buying the EPT test, so I bit the bullet and bought it.
When I bought the EPT Certainty Double Pregnancy Tester about eight months ago I was just double checking that I wasn't pregnant before I started my birth control again. I was 95% sure that I wasn't, but I wanted to check just to be on the safe side. I honestly don't remember much about taking that first test, just that it was negative.
Flash forward a few months. Matt and I decided that a third child would be nice. We weren't "trying" in the sense of charting my temperatures every morning and such, mostly it was "if it happened then it was meant to be". Toward the end of October I wasn't feeling good. A reoccurring ear infection had me scheduling an appointment with my doctor. The night before I got my stuff together for my appointment. List of medications. Military ID. I went to the calendar to check for the first day of my last cycle and saw that I was well over 2 weeks late. Since having gastric bypass surgery my cycles have straightened out, so I was a little concerned and excited at the same time. I didn't mention anything to Matt at the time since I didn't know anything. I knew I had a pregnancy test under the bathroom sink and I figured I'd take it the next morning before I went to the doctor.
When I stumbled into the bathroom at 7am the next morning, and grabbed the box from under the sink, I was immediately mad at myself for not double checking the directions before I went to bed. I didn't remember the test being complicated when I took it the first time, but when you are right out of bed, doing a pee-pee dance, the last thing you want to do is try to read through the small print of directions on a pregnancy test. There are pictures, but it isn't that simple. The pictures aren't totally clear and they skip some steps.
The EPT Certainty Double Pregnancy Tester comes in three pieces. There is the handle and two sticks that are wrapped in separate envelopes, which I had a hard time opening. The handle is about 4 3/4" long and each stick is about 4 1/2" long. You put the stick in the handle, lining up the purple arrows. The display window will show a test symbol to let you know that it is ready. Don't pee on it until the symbol is in the window. Ready to pee on that stick? Not yet! You need to remove the cap from the end of the absorbent tip first. Okay, NOW you can finally go.
Doesn't sound like a big deal to you? Like I said, try figuring all of this out first thing in the morning while trying not to pee on yourself. It adds a new level of difficulty, believe me.
According to the directions you should see the result within three minutes. My result popped up in less than 30 seconds. Pregnant. Ohmygosh! I about flipped out. Matt was at a doctor appointment at a different base than I was going to so I couldn't call him, and I was running late getting myself to the doctors office, so I quickly got Jesse ready to go, Zacky off to school and ran back in to check the test again to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Pregnant. I grabbed my camera phone and took a picture of the digital window, which has EPT next to it in large purple letters, and shot the picture to Matt. I figured that by the time he got the picture I'd be at my appointment but he could call me later on. I'd have my doctor confirm my result with a blood test and could fill him in then.
When I went to my doctor appointment my doctor was also floored. She had been with me during some of my infertility treatments, as well as my surprise pregnancy with Jesse. She was supportive and happy for us. She went through my medications, making pregnancy related changes where they needed to be and sent me to the lab for the blood test to confirm the pregnancy. Normally the lab takes about an hour to run the test and get the results back to the doctor. Due to the back up of patients, however, my doctor asked me to come back about 5-6pm. It was about 11am at the time. I said no problem and headed out the door.
Imagine my surprise when I opened the door and Matt was standing in the hall waiting for me. He had left his doctor appointment, gotten my message, and went straight to the clinic instead of going back to work. He was all smiles. It was nice to have him there. He and I talked while we waited for my turn in the lab and we went to McDonalds to get him something to eat before he went back to work.
We all went home, Matt stopping by for a short visit before he went back to work. The pregnancy test was where I left it on the bathroom counter. He looked at it and told me that the display was blank. Sure enough, the display window was gone, even though I left the test in it. I was hoping that if I didn't eject the absorbent tip that it would keep the result, but it didn't. You reuse the handle for the second test, so I guess it has to "forget" the results so it can be used again. I don't like this. I kept the results from my tests from both Zack and Jesse, but you can't keep the display with this test. When you pop the absorbent tip out of the digital handle, however, you can see two blue lines (if it's positive) so I guess you could keep that if you wanted to, but it isn't the same to me.
When we went back to my doctor's office that evening we were both in a good mood. My doctor was busy with another patient but one of the nurses pulled my results up on the computer. Negative. I felt like I was going to be sick. How was that possible?!? EPT is the "Error Proof Test", right? How could it be wrong? The lab had to be wrong. There was no way my pregnancy was wrong. A false positive home pregnancy test? No way! The first test I took worked fine and said I wasn't pregnant when I wasn't, so why would this one say I was? It was all I could do to keep from bawling as I walked out of the office. While I had only been "pregnant" for a few hours, the loss was real to me. My heart was broken. Matt was also upset, but very supportive. He, and my doctor both, said that it is possible that the lab goofed. It isn't unheard of. My doctor wanted me to wait another two weeks. If I still hadn't started my cycle then she wanted to re-check my blood levels again. 12 days later, Mother Nature confirmed the lab's results. I wasn't pregnant, just late.
While any home pregnancy test can come up with the wrong results, I haven't had that problem with the "cheap" tests. EPT is supposed to be the "best" and they let me down in the biggest way possible.
Fantastic prices with ease & c...(Stock status: N/A)
INDICATIONS: Easy to Read: e. p. t Certainty provides an unmistakable Pregnant or Not Pregnant read out. Easy to Use: Test any time of day from the fi...More at Amazon Marketplace
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