What to Do When You Think You Are Miscarrying Again
"What exactly is that?" I asked, propping up on my elbows on the examining table, scrutinizing the ultrasound monitor.
"That is a 7-week-sometime embryo with a heartbeat," my physician said.
"No, await, is information technology homo?" I asked, gasping for air, staring at the flickering heartbeat pulsing through the little body.
I couldn't believe it. Two weeks before, I'd been diagnosed with a miscarriage——specifically, a chemical pregnancy. I'd raced to the doctor'due south role after experiencing heavy cramping and bleeding, and an ultrasound seemed to confirm my gut feeling that my pregnancy was ending. There wasn't an embryo where in that location should take been one. And yet, here I was, two weeks later, finding out that I was yet pregnant.
I had spent the past 2 weeks saying goodbye to this pregnancy. My friends had taken me out and gotten me properly sauced. I purposely did everything a pregnant lady is non supposed to do——sucked down soft cheeses, exercised strenuously, and drowned my sorrow in wine and beer.
I'd even yearned for a D&C to end this "lost" pregnancy and clear the way for our next attempt at getting pregnant. Give thanks God I'd scheduled this second ultrasound before booking the surgery.
Because there was our embryo, with its tiny leg buds and that unmistakable heartbeat, alive and, obviously, human. It was simply a week "behind dates," i.e., conceived much afterward in my cycle than we thought. And my bleeding and cramping? Information technology turns out that I'1000 one of the of women who can experience that and not miscarry.
My husband and I are in a land of shock at this turn of events. And although I experience cautious about jubilant this news until the embryo lives past 10 weeks, we can't assistance but feel excited and so incredibly lucky.
I hesitated to share this news publicly, because I am wary of sowing false hope for other women: Most miscarriages really are miscarriages. Simply I wish I'd known, as I fully embraced the grieving process after my miscarriage diagnosis 2 weeks ago, that this was a possibility.
How often does this kind of reversal occur?
That's what I asked Charles Lockwood, MD, the chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
"It's a pretty rare consequence," Dr. Lockwood tells me, "but we exercise see it happen. Sperm tin can remain agile and viable in a woman's reproductive tract for upwardly to six days," so conception can be much later than a woman (and her doctor) predictable.
Dr. Lockwood sees this almost often with IVF or other forms of assisted reproductive applied science. "Even when we think nosotros know with incredible precision when the date of conception is, we can exist three or 4 days off. Delays in women's ovulation and/or an embryo's implantation can occur. I have seen twins that are both growing at a perfectly normal charge per unit just one of them has been about a week off."
So a fertilized egg tin can take several days to implant and begin growing in a woman'due south uterus, leading to initial hCG tests and ultrasound results that seem to point an embryo that is slow to develop and therefore likely to exist miscarried. In fact, the embryo is simply behind schedule due to its later-than-expected implantation.
But usually, if information technology looks similar a miscarriage, it is.
"The vast majority of times that we see blood pregnancy hormone (hCG) levels rise slowly, or a sac in the uterus that isn't doubling in size accordingly, it turns out to exist a miscarriage," he says, "It doesn't terminate happily."
Merely, he cautions, "If there is no heavy vaginal haemorrhage, people shouldn't be in a hurry to cease the pregnancy until they're confident it'due south non viable. What I tell my patients is, 'I'yard not admittedly certain [this is a miscarriage]. I'm pessimistic, but I'd similar you to come back in a week.' And so they are improve prepared psychologically for what might happen."
I know I wouldn't accept gone in for a D&C before verifying over again that the pregnancy wasn't viable, simply information technology terrifies me how dead fix I was on catastrophe this pregnancy.
At present a big fan of second opinions, I also talked to Paul Blumenthal, Doc, the manager of family planning services and research at the Stanford University School of Medicine, to learn about his experience with what he calls "erroneous diagnoses of missed abortions."
Why did I drain so much, I asked Dr. Blumenthal. "The fact of a pregnancy establishing a foothold in the uterus causes bleeding," he tells me. "And hormone levels fluctuate, leading the uterus to let go of some of its lining sometimes. Usually, in the case of bleeding, the pregnancy's continuation is tenuous. It'southward only possible to diagnose a missed abortion if you await a few days after the haemorrhage," he says.
But what about that ultrasound I saw, the 1 that looked like a blighted ovum?
"This is a new conundrum people face," he says. "We don't want people to get upset by the [ultrasound] technology, because when we're looking at an early on pregnancy, we tin't be sure which side of the coin we're coming down on—: a pregnancy or a missed abortion. That'south why we've got to await a few days and examination once again." (And, I might add, it's probably a skillful thought not to break out the Johnny Walker until those second examination results are in.)
In the future, it may be possible to measure out hCG levels more precisely with at-home urine tests, says Dr. Blumenthal. Then a adult female who is not sure of her diagnosis might exist able to test daily and spotter if her levels are rising or falling.
I called up the the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to see if they had any information on this phenomenon. Just they could point me to no studies that count the number of times women ride this specially crazy roller coaster of conception.
Chiliad for miracle
I've lived through the M-discussion, and I idea I knew everything there was to know about it. It turns out out I was wrong, equally was my doctor. At present that M-word for me is phenomenon.
Will it proceed to survive? Will this new baby stop our hearts once again with more drama? For me, every additional day I go with the little being is like a gift. I've already mourned its passing, so this is now a bonus baby as far every bit I'yard concerned.
Source: https://www.health.com/condition/pregnancy/still-pregnant-my-miscarriage-was-misdiagnosed
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