A Disappointing Loss

I hesitated to do a post about this but now that we have gotten past the rough time, I feel like it's OK to share what Keith and I went through about a month ago.

It all started on July 29th when we found out I was pregnant. I knew that I was late and took 3 home pregnancy tests that all came back negative. I decided to call the doctor's office and the nurse told me to come in and get a blood test done. It came back positive!! Keith and I were so excited! The nurse told me to come back in a few days to get another blood test to make sure my HCG (hormone) levels were rising the way that they should be. (Side note: Keith and I have been seeing a reproductive specialist because we both have some issues that could make it hard for us to get pregnant. Therefore, when we found out that I was indeed pregnant, the doctor wanted to monitor my progress closely).

Well, when I went back to the doctor two days later, the prognosis was not good. The doctor called me after my blood work came back and said that my HCG level was not rising like they wanted it to (in the very early stages of pregnancy, it should double every 48 hours and mine went from 68 to 81 in two days). The doctor told me that it was very likely that I was going to have a miscarriage. He did say that he wanted me to come back two days later, on a Saturday, to have more blood drawn. He said that there is always a chance that the embryo is "slow starting" and they wanted to make sure this wasn't the case. Keith and I held felt very sad but thought that maybe a miracle could still happen.

I went back to the doctor's office on Saturday to have more blood drawn and he called me that afternoon with more bad news - my levels had only gone up to 99. At this point, he said, he was almost 100% certain that I was going to have a miscarriage. The bad part was that he did not know when it would happen - he said it could take weeks! We were devastated!!

The doctor had instructed me to come back to his office to get more blood drawn three days later (at this point, I felt like a pin cushion!!). They were continuously monitoring my hormone levels to see if it was going to start dropping (a sign that the cells were breaking up and the miscarriage would start soon). On Tuesday, when the nurse called to give me the results, she said she was happy to tell me that my levels were now indeed doubling - up to 199! I was overjoyed!! I thought a miracle could really happen and everything would be ok!! At this point, the doctor wanted me to come in and have an interuterine scan done to see if he could see an egg sac in my uterus (which would indicate a viable pregnancy). He scheduled the scan for the next day and Keith and I were very anxious to find out what was going on.

On Wednesday afternoon, we had the scan done and unfortunately, the doctor did not see anything in my uterus. This was a sure sign that the pregnancy was not viable. Again, it was devastating news. The doctor said that there was a chance that the pregnancy could be an ectopic one, meaning that the embryo was developing outside of the uterus, most likely in my fallopian tube. If this was the case, it could be very dangerous for me and it would need to be remedied soon. He took more blood and said that based on the results, he would know more the next day.

Over the next few days, it was determined - through another interuterine scan (that showed nothing) and more blood tests (with increased levels) - that it was definitely an ectopic pregnancy and it would need to be ended. If it was not, my tube could rupture and cause internal bleeding and possibly death. In the long run, it was a good thing that it was caught early so none of these bad things happened.

On Friday, August 8th, I went to the hospital and got a shot of Methotrexate, which is a drug used to fight rapidly-dividing cells such as pregnancy cells. The shot in itself was not bad. I got two injections, one in each upper arm. It was not really painful and I was able to go back to work right afterwards.

The bad part, once again, was that the doctor could not tell me when this whole thing was going to be over with. They continued to take blood from me once a week until it was all over with. I had pretty bad cramping a week after I got the shot and, unfortunately, was not feeling 100% when Keith's family was visiting. But, all in all, it didn't end up being as bad as I had invisioned it was going to be.

Thankfully, it is all over with now and hopefully we will be able to start trying again in another month. The doctor said that once I have one normal cycle, we should be good to go. Now it's just a waiting game to see how long it takes my body to bounce back after all of this. I'm hoping it won't take too long.