I can’t believe how quickly you can go from being happy that blood HCG levels are fine, to less than 24 hours later being stressed by bleeding.  So yes, spotting thismorning.  I popped down to the medical centre that I seem to be frequenting regularly right now, and they squeezed me in even though they had no appointments available today.   I just didn’t want to wait and see what happened, particularly with it being a long weekend.  I guess I just wanted someone to say “just relax, there’s nothing you can do, what will be will be” or tell me what I should do if there really was something I could do. 

So the verdict was that my GP thinks it’s still too early for a scan…I’ll be 6 weeks tomorrow.  She’s decided to take yet more blood and continue monitoring my HCG levels.  I had a blood test today and will have another done on Monday, and I see the GP again on Wednesday.   She’s told me that if the worst happens and I do miscarry, she’ll refer me to a fertility specialist since it would then be 2 confirmed miscarriages and 1 suspected.  She also told me to stay positive, and that many women bleed and still have fine, healthy babies.  I know that, but it’s just that so far my only experience of bleeding is miscarriage, so it’s sort of hard for me to be positive.  Particularly when my GP says it’s a good sign that I have no pain, but then I point out that I had no pain with the last miscarriage. 

Why is this pregnancy thing so hard???

My GP rang me on Tuesday as promised. She said she had the results of the HCG test but was still waiting on some of the others. Apparently my HCG level was lower than she would have liked, and wanted me to have another blood test that day just to make sure that the levels were rising. That’s how my miscarriage was confirmed, by my blood HCG levels decreasing over a 3 day interval. So I popped down to the medical centre that day for the blood test and booked my next appointment with my GP.

The legacy of miscarriage seems to be that you can’t help but assume at every turn that something has, or will, go wrong. So, to put our minds at least a little at ease (we hoped) since we were both nervous after my discussion with my GP, Andrew bought another home pregnancy test on the way home on Tuesday. The two I did last week gave quite faint positive results, and it was with relief that this time the positive line was dark, about as strong as the control line. It seemed obvious to me that my HCG levels had increased in the last week.

So I wasn’t too nervous leading up to this morning’s visit to my GP which went well. Last Friday (4 weeks, 6 days) my blood HCG level was 297, and last Tuesday (5 weeks, 4 days) it was 2198. I was just so happy to find it was going up. According to americanpregnancy.org, the range for 4 weeks is 5 – 426, 5 weeks is 18-7340 and 6 weeks is 1080 – 56500 mlU/ml. So it all seems ok.

More good news, my vitamin B12 levels have risen to 300 from 102 (acceptable range 150 – 400 (I don’t know what the units are)), so obviously my problem is a lack of vitamin B12 in my diet. However, my iron levels haven’t done much at all, they’re still very low and were about the same as last time. So I’m on a higher dose of iron now, and I go back to see my GP on July 17 to have another blood test to see if my iron levels have increased, and to fill out the paperwork for the hospital. My first appointment at the hospital with the midwife is July 23 and I’m also booked in for my Nuchal Translucency scan on July 25.

So many appointments booked…I just hope I’m still pregnant when the time comes for them! But, so far so good. 🙂

Just working from the dates, I’m 5 weeks pregnant today (though I think in reality I’m about 3 days less than that). So far I feel pretty normal, making it hard to believe that there’s anything going on in there.

I went to visit my GP yesterday and she ordered a few blood tests for me: iron, vitamin B12, a screen for celiac’s disease (though I think that’s unlikely) and a blood HCG. I don’t know when I’ll get the results, she said she’d ring me but she also said she’d see me next week. She also told me to think positive about this pregnancy. Not that I’m negative, it’s just too early to be excited about something that could, any minute, decide it’s not quite right and stop developing.

Development information from birth.com.au:

You are now 5 weeks pregnant (21 days after conception), which is the beginning of week 6. During week 6, your baby’s heart develops and first begins beating at around 24 days after conception. At this point, their heart is simply a long tube, rhythmically expanding and contracting. By the end of the 10th week their heart will have its various chambers and valves and be connected to a network of blood vessels supplying your baby’s body. The baby’s blood is initially produced by the yolk sac. Their blood stream remains completely separate from their mother’s.

Your baby’s neural tube now closes at the top (over their brain) and over the base of their spinal cord. This is an important time for the mother to have sufficient folic acid in her diet to support this process and avoid neural tube defects. During this week, small hand and feet buds start sprouting from your baby’s upper and lower body (as shown in the image). Their body stalk elongates and starts to form 2 arteries and a vein inside, creating their umbilical cord, which will transport oxygen and nutrients from mother to baby and take away carbon dioxide and waste products from baby to mother. These are filtered through the placenta, along with many other substances that may be in the woman’s system (such as alcohol, vitamins, herbs or medications).

At this early stage, an ultrasound image may only show a gestational sac and a heart beat may not be detected yet. During the next week your baby becomes visible and is seen to be bent and curled in the shape of the letter C. This makes it difficult to measure them from head to toe. Therefore, ultrasonographers routinely measure the baby from the crown of their head, to the base of their back (or rump), referred to as the ‘crown to rump length’ or ‘CRL’. By 6 weeks, your baby’s crown to rump length is around 2 to 4 mm.