How to Take a Pregnancy Test in Japan

    The other week, I realized with horror that I did not remember when my last period had been. Combining the stress of all the 2020 things could push any menstruator’s dates around, but I couldn’t be sure, so I went to get a pregnancy test.

These expensive things are not pregnancy test. They're ovulation tests and they are much more expensive. If your test costs more than 1000 yen per test, it's probably not a pregnancy test.

    Pregnancy tests are available at drug stores in Japan fairly cheaply. The are usually near condoms and on the same aisle as hygiene products like pads and tampons. Most of these are pretty easy to use. The 24 hour Welcia in my town also has a note suggesting people can only buy products like this between the hours of 9AM and 7PM, though I honestly have no idea why. Many tests come with basic English instructions provided and are usually easy enough to understand.

    I bought what I needed and headed home. If you haven’t taken one of these before, it’s best to do it in the morning when higher concentrations of any hormones in your system will be most apparent. The difficulty I have with this is that holding the applicator at a 45 degree angle to my urine stream when I am barely awake isn’t easy. I rarely get even close to enough sleep as it is and my sleep deprived hands couldn't keep the thing steady. It turns out the brand I chose to use has a design flaw in that if the pee doesn’t hit it just the way it likes and in the exact amount it wants, it just gives no information at all.

The first window should have a blue line to say that the test is complete. If it is the only line to show up, the pee is not from someone throwing off enough human growth hormone to register on the test. If a blue line shows up in the second window, there’s probably a pregnancy occurring.

    So I took the test and it told me nothing, not even a negative result but a null result, so I had to go buy other tests. This time I also bought paper cups. The test will also work if left in a cup of urine for a specific time noted on the enclosed information sheet. The next morning I had the confirmation of an empty womb and a few days later menstruation made that even more obvious.

    Going forward, I will never try to hold one of these in the stream again.