8w6d another scan

I had no spotting or bleeding since Sunday. I felt so confident I stopped wearing a pad. And then I woke up this morning to another gush of blood. For the love of God, can this stop? Or can I have a definite sign that the pregnancy is over and I can move on? Of course it's friday, what do I do? Shall I stay put till tuesday when I have my scheduled appointment? This would be 4 more days of drugs and my face already looks like a full moon... So I called the clinic and went in. Fav Doc is on annual leave this week but another lovely nurse scanned me. I told her about the bleeding, about the SCH, about the slow growth and slow heartbeat. I told her I was not expecting to see a heartbeat today, in fact a part from the tiredness I don't think I have many other symptoms (big boobs aside, but sure with the hormones....a tree would have grown boobs by now). She said let's have a look, it was a frozen embryo I've seen all sorts of slow growth and healthy babies at the end. Ok.
Sure enough Phoenix was much bigger, and with a heartbeat. Not only that, the SCH is much smaller (she thought it could have bled out this morning) and definitely not threatening. I told her I stopped the aspirin but was still on clexane and that I wasn't sure it was ok with the SCH. She said great I stopped the aspirin and the dose of clexane I'm on is low and to keep that up. Then she started taking measures, Phoenix is catching up in growth measuring now 8w2d she said perfectly within range (it was 7w1d last saturday so it's a big growth) and the heartbeat is up to 157. She was so kind she showed me the amniotic sac which is already formed, the umbilical cord, the placenta and the yolk sac being pushed away as you would expect between 8 and 9 weeks of pregnancy. She showed me the brain vesicle which looks normal.  This looks like a very normal pregnancy to her, she even gave me pics! Through the tears I said to her "I better start loving this baby so" And she said "You better!". She also said there's no need to have a scan every week, but if I feel anxious to go in. I told her that strangely I don't feel anxious but for some reason I feel quite negative. I actually thought I was developing an infection of some kind, I don't feel very well overall, I have shivers, headache for the last two days and my tummy is acting up too. In my head these were all signs of a miscarriage. But this is not the case. Stop thinking this is gong to end any minute now. Start believing.

Bright red

Bright red bleeding this morning. Not much. No cramping. Seems stopped now. Will update later if things change. The plan is to stay put and see how it goes.

8 weeks, emergency scan, Phoenix hanging in there

8 weeks today. I had a dream about bleeding and then it happened after a visit to the bathroom after breakfast. Now, it's 8 weeks, it happened with Oliver too, but the situation is different. So I decided to call the clinic, no point in waiting till tuesday if things have stopped already (mainly for the meds). As always they are great and just said to come in, there was a very experienced nurse available to scan me but also Fav Doc would have been in at 11 if I wanted a second opinion. The nurse was great, in fact she also said, if she had concerns or if I had concerns after the scan we would wait for Fav Doc. The screen was on, we followed the scan together. Phoenix is still there, growing, though not fast at all, he measures 7w1d today (grew 3 days from tuesday) and the heartbeat is up to 144. The nurse said if it wasn't for the fact that we know I'm 8 weeks, she would see nothing wrong with the embryo or the solid heartbeat. But I am 8 weeks so it's still not looking good but it seems to hang on for the moment. I also have developed a clot which is below the sac but definitely obvious at the scan, I can't tell if it's the same as last tuesday given that last tuesday I didn't see a thing on the screen. In her opinion, this is not threatening for the pregnancy, there is no bleeding in the sac, no misshape of the sack or yolk sac, and it's between the sac and the cervix. It may bleed and if it does it can be quite a lot. Or it may just reabsorbe. Who knows.
In any case, I cancelled my scan for this tuesday and booked it for the following tuesday (unless something happens in the meantime), no point in going in every 3 days.
It must have been a tough day at the clinic, the nurse said I was the third pregnancy that went in with bleeding this morning (and it was 10am), I hope the others got good news.
I am calm and ok with the situation, something strange going on with me, I am remarkably calm when things are bleak and I fret about nothing when everything is going well...

I once again wanted to thank you for your comments, I actually replied to most of them on the blog but I am not sure if you get notified, so you may want to check!

A trip to the ER in the end

All was fine yesterday until Mike came home. I had no spotting, I had rested in bed and then on the couch, I had a bit to eat and watched the match.

Then I went to the loo again and the spotting was back. A good bit more, not dripping, but definitely a lot in the paper. And the colour was definitely off. Not brown and not red, kind of purple. And the consistency. I was sure it was over.

Me: "Mike, I'm bleeding now, I want to go to the hospital, I need to know if Elvis is still alive"

Mike: "Maybe we can wait until tomorrow and go to the clinic" (Men!)

Me: "I don't think I'll be able to sleep at all"

Mike: "Let's go then"

The ER of the maternity hospital was empty, I got checked in and the midwife took my vitals. I got to use the loo again to give a urine sample. No more blood. The midwife was lovely and reassuring, the fact that I had no pain or cramps was a good sign. The doctor on call was busy with a C-section but she was going to be with me in minutes. I was so tired at that point that I think I actually slept for a few minutes.

Dr. Z. came down and she brought me to the u/s room straight away. She was going to do an external u/s which took me by surprise, I didn't think you could see much at 8 weeks, but she was confident we would. And we did. The gestational sac was immediately visible and to our eyes much bigger than last Thursday. And Elvis was there too, also bigger than last Thursday. But I couldn't make out if there was a heartbeat at all. And then Dr. Z. pointed it out to us "There it is!" Oh my God, thank you so much. I actually hugged her sobbing. What a relief. She didn't take any measurements, this was just to reassure us that we still had a viable pregnancy. I couldn't see any sign of obvious bleeding around the sac so I asked her where could I be bleeding from. She said they still don't know for sure what the cause of bleeding around 8 weeks may be, but that all the research points towards the fact that it may be caused by the placenta embedding in the uterus. That made perfect sense. She said everything looked as it should be, and that unless the bleeding worsen or I start cramping there is no reason for concern at the moment. I had no more bleeding. Thinking about it now, it was very very little in any case, but I'm glad I went.

Hanging in there

Well, I don't have much of an update but I really wanted to tell you that all your comments are keeping me sane. The bleeding/spotting has completely stopped since monday afternoon (I bleed a bit after the scans) and in fact now I have completely clear mucus which I believe is normal. No pain on the right side which is good. Some twinges but no cramps. Of course I know this means nothing until we have a proper ultrasound but still...

I didn't go back to the hospital yesterday, couldn't be bothered even phoning in my beta as of monday. One girl that posts on the board I post too told me that the same hospital screwed up her daughter bloodtest too and that nearly brought tears to my eyes!! Maybe maybe they did screw them up.
Reading around (as you can imagine I've done this nearly 24/7!) there is also the possibility that I did miscarry one of the embryos. This, assuming no lab error was made, would fit well with the HCG odd behaviour and the fact that they did indeed pick up again on monday. We'll just have to wait and see. Yesterday to be honest I wasn't feeling positive at all, started wrecking my head with all the possible scenarios of discrepancies between values and the fact that I don't have one from the clinic for friday is my main worry (like...what if the lab result from the clinic on friday would have been indeed in the 3000 range...) but then I know there is no point. I have taken a few days off work, basically I think I'll go back next monday if everything is well, this is too important to be underestimated. Mam will go back tomorrow and she was a fantastic help.
I have gone out of the house yesterday and today for nice walks, and it didn't seem to bring bleeding along. The Favourite Doctor actually said there is not much point in staying in bed really. So that's the news for today, thanks to all of you and big hugs.

Hoping and praying

Your posts and emails have been so so important to me in this last couple of days.
I'll say it immediately that we seem to have still some hope and I tell how it went over the weekend.

On friday I was so distressed I was sick. I didn't sleep much as you can imagine.

On saturday, I spent the day in bed dreading going to the loo but the bleeding seemed to have ease a bit. My mam booked a flight there and then from Italy (the 15th it's a holiday there!) and arrived by dinner time. In no time she had done the cooking and the ironing and didn't want me to leave the bed unless I had too. But night time I was only barely spotting old blood.

On sunday, I had hardly any bleeding, but the thing is that when that's happening it's heavy-ish, no clots or anything, but red or dark red. In the evening we went back to the hospital for the second blood test. The first bloodtest wasn't ready and was not going to be done until monday anyway. I met the same doctor that scanned me on friday. I told her I had no more bleeding but she said not to hold hope that she was not expecting the HCG to be increasing anyway. She was adamant I had miscarried. Thankfully a midwife was much more human and gave me a bit of hope as she said I woudln't be the first not have a visible sac at 5w1d with that old machine. That it was a good thing the bleeding had eased and that I had no cramps.

This morning we set off for the clinic, my Favourite Doctor wanted me to tell her again what happened and she was so sorry I had a worrying weekend. Again she said that bleeding is very normal and for what she was hearing from me I didn't bleed much at all (well...ok then, but it looked a lot to me!) that some women may have a full-on period. She scanned me and she said it was still very early to see much but that my lining was perfect and look look here...see? there is a small gestational sac! That's all we can hope to see at the moment. She took my blood as well for more HCG testing in the same lab and she said to let her know the results from the hospital and she would call me with their results.

So next we went back to hospital given that we were told to go back at 11 for a more accurate U/S at the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit. Well, we waited two hours, blood results weren't back and the doctor seemed to be of the opinion that the HCG would have told us much more than the scan (yeah...well, you are not exactly around the corner from where we live...why have we be told to come in then??). Eventually Mike argued that we were specifically told to come in for an U/S. She said "oh in that case, I'll gove you a quick one" And by God it was quick. She basically measured the lining, didn't say anything about a sac, told me it looked good but that the HCG would have told us more. And we were sent home. Honestly, like many of you, I can actually make out an U/S by myself right now and I couldn't figure out which way this one was oriented! So I could't look for the tiny black spot I had seen at the clinic.

Anyway, the waiting for the HCG was longer than normal, it should have been in by 1 pm which is when we left the hospital and they werent. I phoned at 2.30 and the nurse said she wasn't authorised to give the results over the phone (WTF??) but that she'll talk to a doctor to call back. Eventually at 3.40 pm they called. The phone call was in a quite alarmed tone, she said they wanted to see me again tomorrow morning at 9 am, I said I was there today, how about they took me seriously then? She kind of pretended not to hear and it took ages for me to convince her to give me the damn values. It turnes out that the value on friday was 2143 which grew quite stedily from 637 only 3 days before. But then the bad news was that on sunday the value was only 2628... so didn't drop like the doctor expected and now the panic for an ectopic was REAL... My heart sunk of course, I said I didn't want to go back there that I didn't think I had been looked after properly and dismissed on friday with "You have miscarried, sorry about that, come back to CONFIRM this on sunday". She insisted that it was very important, that it was now SERIOUS and to go back tomorrow. I hung up and called the clinic straight away. Spoke with my Favourite Doctor and she was all cheerful, the results were back and high at 4004! WTF is going on?? Alright different labs can have different readings, but this much?? Never hear it before and I WORK IN A LAB!! From 637 to 4004 in 6 days is perfect growth for a singleton (of course I plotted it immediately) I asked her if I had maybe lost a twin over the weekend and this explains the discrepancies? She is actually more keen to believe that blood samples left hanging around for days and checked for unstable hormones such as HCG whenever suits rather than when it's needed is a crime and makes those values (BOTH!) unrelaiable. In fact, if the one on friday was even a bit lower like 1500 still would fit perfectly, than the one last night is just a mistery. It cannot possibly have gone from 2628 to 4004 in just 12 hours! Anyway, she said I'll see you next week for a scan.

So here I am now, baffled with the news. Mam is so angry at the doctor at the hospital who plainly said we were doomed with such a light heart when obviously, at least for now, we aren't. I don't think I'll go in tomorrow, I was there today, it won't change much I'd say, and all that poking around simply brings more bleeding which I'd like to avoid, thanks. Last time with the ectopic I didn't even get to 4000 and I was in theatre with serious pain. I just want to believe that for now I'm pregnant. I may call the hospital with my latest bloodwork to let them know, but I haven't decided that yet.
Once again, I'm sure all your prayers and thoughts helped a lot, and for this I'll never thank you enough.

Numb

Yesterday when I got home around 6pm I started bleeding. A lot. I called the clinic and left a message. Then I called the hospital where I went for the ectopic and where I had my ealry scan booked. I spoke to a nasty midwife I suppose who was very dismissive, she said I could go in, but noone will give me a scan, it's too early, they'll either admit me to the gyn ward or send me back home. I insisted a bit and she snapped back "are you telling me how to do my job?" what's the point...I was in tears anyway. I called another hospital, a private one, but again they would have been able to see me only this morning. Tried another maternity hospital, they were much nicer told me to go in immediately and that definitely they would scan me.
So we went in. I even POAS to see if it was still positive and the control line was barely visible in comparison with the test line, meaning HCG hadn't dropped from Tuesday.

And then they scanned me. Nothing in the uterus. I was numb. Couldn't move, talk or cry. Again. It's happenin again. But I have no pain, no cramps, nothing. Just bleeding. They took my blood but because it's the weekend they'll process it on monday. This is Ireland. I have to go in again tomorrow for another blood test and see what's going on. We went back home in total silence. We both had tears streaming down the face.

At home there were 5 messages from the clinic, two doctors had called and my favourite one said to call back on her mobile at any time. Mike called her. She said not to stop the meds at all and that it wouldn't be the first time that a hospital doesn't see a sac at 5 weeks. To go into the clinic on monday morning and she'll do the scan. She said my hcg were good, this can't be happening. I'm glad at least she is still hopeful. I don't want to be, I simply cannot take it. I'll be resting for the full weekend, bleeding has stopped now, just old brown stuff.

Mam is flying over today, I know she has to see me, the distance is a killer when one of us is not well. I want to thank you all for your support and prayers. I don't know what else to say...