Can you see a line? Blog!

OK, comments are becoming a bit of a nightmare!  The point of them is to allow people to give their opinion on your test – to explain why they’ve voted yes/no/maybe.  But sometimes they can be hard to judge – is the person just trying to be honest, or are they trying to be mean?

Even with the best of intentions from whoever is leaving the comment, it can come across as very harsh to hear that your line looks like it might not really be a line after all.

Furthermore, it can be very difficult to judge the tone of a comment by the words on your screen so it’s easy for a comment to come across as insensitive.

So, for those who’d rather not have any comments at all, you can now choose whether you allow them or not on your test picture page.  When you’re adding a new test picture, you’ll find an option “Allow comments” with yes or no options.  It’s near the bottom of the ‘add new test’ page, below “Allow voting”.

You can also go back and edit an existing test to disallow comments, which will hide any comments already posted.

For those who are allowing comments, please bear in mind that they are just opinions – nothing more, nothing less.  Nobody can possibly know for sure, just from looking at a picture on a screen!

And just because someone had a test that looked like yours and they weren’t pregnant, doesn’t mean you aren’t.  Likewise, if someone had a test that looked just like yours and they WERE pregnant, it doesn’t mean you are too – you would need to have a pregnancy confirmed by a medical professional.

Good news – I managed to find a new way to provide inverts and grayscales for the test pictures!  As many of you will know, there have been problems with the invert & grayscale buttons for a while.  I’d asked the hosting company to look into it, but they weren’t able to offer a solution.  But I’ve found a NEW way to do it, so fingers crossed it works for everyone!

Please have a go and let me know if you have any problems.

If you’re having any issues on the site, please post a comment here and I’ll do my best to help!

It’s come to my attention that we have some problems with trolls on canyouseealine.com!

Not only have test photos been stolen and re-posted, but many hurtful and inappropriate comments have been posted in response to users’ test photos. 

I’ve found this really quite upsetting, as canyouseealine.com is supposed to be a nice, supportive community site. To think that there are people out there with nothing better to do than make unpleasant comments to women who are newly pregnant or trying to conceive is awful and, frankly, quite sad.

For this reason, I’ve taken the following action:

* I have disabled right-clicking on the view test picture pages
* All comments are now MODERATED (by me) before appearing on the site. This means therewill be a time delay of up to a few hours – especially if you’re in a different time zone to me (I’m in the UK).
* Unfortunately I had to delete ALL old comments. There were so many comments (over 50,000) that it would have been an impossible job to go them them all to strip out the nasty/spammy ones. So, it’s a case of having a clean slate, fresh start etc.

I’ll shortly be introducing a ‘report this picture’ and ‘report this comment’ feature in case anything slips through the net. In the meantime, you can email me at mail@canyouseealine.comif you have any questions, problems or suggestions.

I try to respond to messages as quickly as possible but please do remember that we might not be on the same timezone (and I do occasionally step away from my computer  !)


Carol x

We have THOUSANDS of pregnancy tests in our gallery now and tens of thousands of unique visitors each month which means that the cost of keeping the site up and running is set to increase.

So, in order to fund the hosting of the Can you see a line? website and keep the website alive, I’ve had to introduce some advertising in the form of banner ads and google ads. 

You’ll find these ads at the top of most pages on the site.

After ovulating, a fertilised egg will typically take 7-10 days to implant in the uterus. It then takes around 2-3 days to produce enough hcg to be detected on a home pregnancy test.

Therefore, you could see a positive HPT from as early as 9dpo … but it could also be as late as 13dpo … or even later for a late implanter!

BBT stands for Basal Body Temperature, which is your body’s resting temperature. Your BBT should be taken first thing in the morning – before you’ve got out of bed, before you’ve had anything to eat or drink and before you’ve had any other kind of activity. It’s important to take your temperature at the same time every morning and to use a digital thermometer which is correct to two decimal places.

Now, why is your BBT important? Well, after ovulating, your body’s progesterone levels increase which causes your body temperature to increase every so slightly as well – this is known as a thermal shift. So, by carefully and accurately charting your resting temperature every morning, you can identify precisely when you have ovulated each cycle. Interpretation of your BBT is most accurate when combined with other fertility checking methods such as ovulation tests, ferning, CM observation, etc.

Since the change in body temperature after ovulation is so slight, there is some debate over exactly what constitutes a thermal shift. A general rule of thumb is to see at least at leaset three readings which are at least 0.2 degrees (c) higher than the previous three readings. 

You can chart on pen and paper, or there are some sites offering free charting facilities online, like FertilityFriend (only basic charting is free) or BeAMommy.com (new service, still being tested). 

You should chart your BBT for several months to get a clear indication of how regular your cycles are (or aren’t!) and to see if any issues can be identified. Potential issues include annovulatory cycles (when you don’t ovulate) and luteal phase defect (where your luteal phase – the days between ovulating and getting your next period is too short for pregnancy to occur. Don’t worry – this can be treated!). Most cycle-related issues can be resolved – see your GP if you have any concerns.

An evap line (or ‘evaporation line’) is a faint grey-ish line visible where the test line should be on a home pregnancy test. 

You might see one after the HPT time limit has expired and your urine has evaporated. 

By definition, an evap line will not usually appear within the test time limit (since it requires the urine to have evaporated) – although false positives are still possible.

HCG levels can vary wildly from pregnancy to pregnancy, but here’s a rough idea of the expected levels.

Weeks since LMP | HCG Level
3 | 5- 550
4 | 5 – 426
5 | 18 – 7340
6 | 1080 – 56500
7-8 | 7650 – 22,000
9-12 | 25700 – 288000
13-16 | 13300 – 254000
17-24 | 4060 – 165400
25-40 | 3640 – 117000

BD – Baby Dance (sex)
BFN – Big Fat Negative (negative test)
BFP – Big Fat Positive (postiive test)
DC – Darling Child
DD – Darling Daughter
DH – Darling Husband
DPO – Days Past Ovulation
DS – Darling Son
EVAP – Evaporation Line (faint line appearing after test has dried – NOT positive result)
IC – Internet Cheapie (cheap pregnancy test)
IMHO – In My Honest Opinion / In My Humble Opinion
IMO – In My Opinion
LMAO – Laughing My Ass Off
LOL – Laughing Out Loud
LP – Luteal Phase
O – Ovulation
PG – Pregnant
ROFL – Rolling On Floor Laughing
TTC – Trying To Conceive
WTF – What The F*ck?
WTH – What The Hell?

Any more?? Add below.