No matter how careful you are with your birth control method, it's only human to wonder every now and again if it's actually working. But you don't have to pee on a stick or call your ob-gyn every time you get a random wave of nausea or a strong burrito craving. (Again: Those things are only human.)
Instead, look for these early symptoms of pregnancy to determine whether you actually need to take a pregnancy test — or to test your patience by waiting for your next period to arrive.
1. YOU'RE NAUSEOUS.
Pregnancy causes certain hormone levels (human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG) to rise really quickly, explains Maria Sophocles, board-certified gynecologist and medical director of Women's Health Care, a private practice in Princeton, New Jersey, and a mother of four who's delivered more than 8,000 babies. These particular hormones affect digestion and make it harder for your stomach to keep food down.
Unfortunately, the morning part of morning sickness is actually a myth—the kind of nausea linked to pregnancy can last all day, beginning no sooner than four weeks after your last period began. The good news for women who actually want to be pregnant: Nausea is sign of a normal, healthy pregnancy. (Miscarriages can occur when hCG levels stop rising — so a suddenly settled stomach could warrant a call to your doctor.)
2. YOU'RE RIDICULOUSLY EXHAUSTED.
When you're pregnant, your body is basically taking on a second full-time job of growing a human inside of you—as you can imagine, that requires a whole lot of energy. So early on in pregnancy, you might experience fatigue. "It's like you get up in the morning and by 10 a.m., you just want to be sleeping," says Dr. Sophocles. "It's overwhelmingly different from anything you've experienced before."