No one likes a waiting game

Think you see a trace of a line, almost like a shadow? There are a few reasons why you might see something, which are common across all test brands. You might notice what's called an evaporation (or "evap") line, which looks a bit more gray. This can occur after about 10 minutes of taking the test. Pregnancy tests have a reaction time within about five minutes afer they're taken - that's why the directions indicate checking your result at the five-minute mark, when the urine is still damp. However, if you wait too long to read the result, the urine in the test can dry up and leave an evaporation line behind. Unlike the light pink of a faint positive result, an evaporation doesn't activate the dye in the pregancy test, so it may show up as a colorless gray line. This can also happen if the test gets wet beyond the MAX line or is taken incorrectly.

Similarly, you may have heard of indent lines on pregnancy tests. A test's control line and test line start as indenations that fill with ink when you test-all strips are manufactured this way. Sometimes as ink moves across the strip, a little bit can get caught in the test line's indent and become more visible as the urine evaporates. This makes it super important to keep the strip lying flat as it develops and to interpret the results within five to 10 minutes.

Any time you see a faint line and are unsure what it means, the best thing to do is to repeat the pregnancy test two days later with the first-morning urine.