We’ve come a long way baby. Peeing on a small, chemically enhanced stick, 4-5 days before our periods are due, to help determine whether or not a little nookie has become a little mass of rapidly developing cells hurtling towards being a baby. If that test can’t be considered reliable, we can duck into a doc’s office for a blood serum test. Poof. The instant results.

But pretend with me, for just a moment. You are an ancient Egyptian lovely, in the New Kingdom period. Some twelve hundred years prior to even Christ’s birth. The desert sands blow by your stone abode, maybe you’re applying your morning kohl and malachite, achieving that perfect Cleopatra look du jour. Suddenly, you feel ill. A bit peakish. Maybe as if you may vomit. Oh, darn that Ra. He’s sooo demanding after a day at the pyramids. Of all his wives, he just had to pick you, already a mother of seven. What to do? Oh, how can you know whether or not your household will be expanding? Whether or not your gold and lapis belt will soon be too snug?

Well, dear, go pee on some barley, of course. Or perhaps, some wheat. The seed to be exact. And if the barley grows, it’s a boy. The wheat? A girl, naturally. Nothing growing? No baby. D’uh.

It seems that the estrogens in a pregnant woman’s urine stimulate growth. At least in these two grains. And a study done in 1963 to determine the accuracy of this ancient pregnancy test revealed a 70% rate of being right-on. Go figure.

Later, in Middle Ages Europe, there was job so-called “piss prophet”. These uniquely named discovered that occasionally, when pregnancy urine was mixed with wine (who thought that up?), particular results revealed impending baby. Or not. Apparently, the color and clarity of urine was also an indicator. Clear, pale and lemon-like? Leaning towards off-white? Maybe having a cloud on it’s surface? Bingo, baby’s coming. Not a job I’d want. Especially in the Middle Ages. Those people really didn’t adhere to strict hygiene standards. Something about a bath a year, or so.

And as recently as the Nineteenth Century? We got sophisticated, baby. Looked for certain crystal-like properties. But that was about it. Mostly, women were told to watch for their own tell-tale signs. The absence of their period, and morning sickness, primarily.

But by the end of the 1890s, many doctors were beginning to identify and describe the things going on in the female pregnant body. They were called at first “internal secretions”, and later named “hormones” by a gentleman named Ernest Starling. And doctors began encouraging women to seek health care as soon as possible, following pregnancy being suspected.

It wasn’t till about the turn of the Twentieth Century, that more pieces began falling into place. Progesterone was identified as the hormone that promotes gestation. Big news for those of us who have needed progesterone supplements to have a healthy pregnancy. And in the 1920s, scientists found one substance only found in pregnant women. HCG, or human chorionic gonadatropin. It was not named thus at the time. It was, however, discovered in 1927, that when this HCG substance was injected into immature rats, the young rat would, well, go into heat. Sad, little confused rat. All injected up, and no place to ho’, I mean, go.

The ‘30s saw a frenzied increase in shooting up all sorts of poor little creatures with HCG. Rabbits, frogs, toads. All kinds of little female animals were getting all hopped up (no pun intended). But what exactly could this tell us? These docs weren’t sure yet. So they convened the First International Conference of Standardization of Sex Hormones. Whew. Sounds like a par-tay. But it gave us new words like gonadatropins, and focused interest on the role of ovaries and testes in human reproduction.

And by 1960, the very first, mostly reliable pregnancy test was created. Called a “hemagglutination inhibition test” (aren’t we glad we can just say “EPT”?), it used purifed HCG, mixed with a urine sample and some antibodies directed against the HCG. What does this hoo-haa mean? Basically, if you were pregnant, some red cells clumped in a particular pattern. I’m not sure what pattern, but these guys seemed to know what they were looking for. And it had to be done in a doctor’s office.

In 1970, the drive of the burgeoning sexual revolution and the demand for legal abortion brought about the Wampole 2 Hour Test. Described for use by “professionals” only, and coming with 2 test tubes, a plastic rack, a bottle of control solution, of HCG antiserum, and of “cell suspension”, testers would also need a small funnel, filter paper or a centrifuge, clean pipettes or syringes and saline solution. Holy Cow. Wouldn’t it be easier to just wait for the birth? Not when women were clamoring for more control over their own lives, their own sexual health. And reproductive choices. To know that you are pregnant, right away, gives more time to prepare, think, get health care, or just let it sink in. And for some, the choice is to terminate. A particularly new phenomenon in the early 70s. Knowing the timing of the pregnancy helps some women make this terribly difficult decision.

So in 1976, Warner-Chilcott sought FDA approval for the first e.p.t., or “Early Pregnancy Test”, later known as the “Error Proof Test”. By the end of ’77, it was ready for home use. Able to be used 4 days after a missed period, this test would allow women to test in the privacy of their own home, in their own time. And from this time, there has been very little change in the make-up of home tests, save the advent of the digital indicator, by Clearblue Easy. No wondering about faint second lines, there.

Now, of course, you don’t even have to walk into the local drug store for your EPT. Just get on line, and order up whatever you like, including ovulation predictors, and fertility supplements.

So, we don’t have little buttons on our bellies that pop up the moment of conception, yet. But we’re sure a far cry from peeing on our seed stock.