The Evils of the Blue Dye Bandits

What's that saying.... fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Yeah, I think that's the one.

Thie week I was let down big-time by a false positive (I can't bear to call it an evap - it was thick and blue) on a blue dye test. I can't begin to put into words the elation I felt when I saw the line come up, thick and strong, nor how dark and empty I felt when all other tests proved negative.

The worst part? I should have known better. I did know better. I have given the same warning time and again about blue dye tests to others, and I have spent years avoiding the evil blue dye. The only reason I had started using them again in the last couple of months was I'd grown tired of the same tests, cycle after cycle, and wanted some variety.

How come I was so wary in the first place? I wasn't always as HPT-savvy as I am now. Back in the days when we were trying to conceive our first I had limited experience of how pregnancy tests worked and which were the best kinds. I knew about evap lines and never read a test after the 10 minute mark, but beyond that I wasn't very clued-up on such things.

I liked blue dye tests. I liked them because blue had been my favourite colour since childhood. Had I been a girly-girl I may never have experienced the gutting disappointment of my first blue dye evap as I might have plumped for a FRER instead.

I'd been off the pill for a few months and my cycles were pretty long, irregular and bizarre as my body struggled to get back to normal. I didn't know very much about ovulation or telling when I had Oed yet, so when I was late for my period I thought I would test. I wasn't the POAS addict that I am today, although I think the compulsion was always just bubbling under the surface. Never the less, when I had tested three times in a week with cheapies and found only BFNs I wondered if I should try a better test.

Now I had tried Clearblue before. Remember my favourite colour? The chance to pee on something that could turn blue was one I couldn't resist. So when i went to pick out a better test I went straight for a Clearblue easy. The next morning I excitedly scurried to the bathroom and took the test. As soon as the dye passed across I could see something forming. A lump appeared in my throat and my heart felt like it stopped beating for a moment before coming back hard and fast with twice as many beats per minute as usual. A thin, dark and clearly blue line had formed in the test window. Beside it, the control line was appearing. A plus, and a line. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

For the rest of the day I was walking on air. I kept it to myself, like the most wonderful secret only I had the privilege of knowing about. I didn't want to tell my husband until I had tested again to see the line get darker. By the following day I was anxious to watch another line form before my eyes and hurried to the bathroom as soon as I woke.

When I took the other test, I thought it had to be faulty. there was not even a hint of a line there. Not a whisper. Nothing. I waited for three minutes and looked again. Five minutes. Ten whole minutes. This time the lump that rose in my throat was of extreme sadness, confusion and emptiness. Nothing but a minus sign and a control line stared back at ne.

I was devastated. My joy had come crashing down. What had happened? the line had been so dark the day before, if I was miscarrying then surely I would have still seen a faint line. I spent the rest of that day googling 'Clearblue false positive' and my eyes practically spun in my head from the number of people reporting the same thing. Blue dye tests, it seemed, were not the reliable tests we'd been led to believe.

On that day I learned more about pregnancy tests than I ever thought possible. I read and read, all about the kinds of errors, tests, sensitivities and time limits that you can face when you take a test. I read about the history of HPTs, found out more about how to track ovulation and discovered about the brand new digital tests that had reached the market.

But more than anything I learned not to trust blue dye tests.

It turned out that I hadn't even ovulated when I received the false positive. And in the months that followed I became better acquainted with my cycle and eventually conceived my eldest daughter.

This week I revisited the sadness attached to a false result from a trusted brand. It's a lesson in why forgiveness is not always the best policy. That is one brand I will never be using again.