It's Almost Over, Really (I Think)

Out of all the miscarriages I've had, this has definitely been the most unusual one. Typically, my numbers go up, my numbers come back down, the end.

Not this time. Beta #5 (last Monday, 8 days ago) was 188. The bleeding that had started 5 days before that (and seemed like a full period) was pretty much winding down by that point. Beta #6 was Friday, and there had been no bleeding at all for a couple of days by then. It was 187.

The nurse wanted to talk about a D&C or methotrexate, but I wasn't ready yet. They were concerned about the possibility of an ectopic, but I wanted to push it out a bit to see if we could get confirmation that that's really what was going on. (My logic being that if it's truly an ectopic, then I can hold out hope that this cycle was just bad luck. In all my other miscarriages, my beta was back down below 5 by time time I stopped bleeding, so it seems strange to me (and the nurse agreed) that my beta would still be that high even after I stopped bleeding.) She made me promise to call if I started having any pain or other symptoms.

We didn't wind up with official confirmation, but I'm about 95% sure that's what it was. On Saturday, I woke up to pain on the lower left side of my pelvic area. It wasn't super sharp, but it wasn't dull either. It was pretty constant, but I didn't want to call RE's office, because I knew they'd tell me to go to the ER. Then when I went to the bathroom that afternoon, there was bright red blood again. Not a lot, but it struck me as strange seeing as how I'd just ended a week's worth of bleeding a few days before.

So I called. And they told me to go to the ER. And I had blood drawn twice, because the doctor decided to order one more test after the nurse had already drawn blood. And the nurses kept marveling that I wasn't a sobbing, hysterical mess. And I was treated to the lovely experience of a bladder catheter. And the ultrasound tech wanted to do the trans vag portion of the ultrasound with the bladder catheter still in place! (A word to the wise - never, ever. Ever. let someone try to do that to you.)

And after 7 hours in the ER, we were told mostly what we already knew - that my numbers were too low to show anything on ultrasound, so they couldn't be certain it was ectopic. But the one new thing we learned was that my hcg level was down in the 120s. So it seems to be moving in the right direction at a pretty significant pace.

The pain went away by Sunday morning, although the bleeding is still continuing, at that same small rate as it was on Saturday. Beta #8, to confirm that the number has gone back down below 5, is scheduled for Friday.

This is the first time I've ever wanted a pregnancy to be over.