Should I assume pregnancy tests wont work for me?

[mangosandlime]

When I last came off the pill i had no period for 2 years. Within 18 months of that two years I became pregnant.

I tested regulary for pregnancy throughout, and found out from a doctor I was in fact 22 weeks pregnant. Unfortunatley I lost the baby, but we have recently decided to try again and I am concerned I wont know that I am pregnant again.

My doctors thought I had PCOS/Graves Disease that was causing me not to get pregnant, and I was seeing a specialist who thought neither of those were bad enough to give me any problem conceiving. Which I guess might have been the case seeing as I did eventually conceive even though I didn't know about it until 6 months in.

I worry that this was partly the cause to me losing it, due to the stress and also that I didnt think I was pregnant and was doing my best to keep at a healthy weight at instruction of doctors. I therefore didnt show because I was eating less and less

[danikagrace]

Mangos so so sorry to hear of your loss Are you having a regular cycle now? Did tests show you had PCOS? The docs def shouldn't have let you go that long without a period.

[Scarydinosaurs]

Mangos that is so sad, I am so sorry for your loss.

What weight were you maintaining? Where you heavily restricting calories? I have been told that the baby will always take from you, and can survive even low calorie intake- every consultant I've seen has said that, so please reassure yourself that it is unlikely that you could have done anything that caused the miscarriage.

Pregnancy tests detect HCG levels, have your doctors explained why the HCG levels weren't detectable in your urine? When you discovered you were 22 weeks, was the baby viable at that point?

Again, I'm so sorry for your loss.

[mangosandlime]

i think i went into a bit of shock and so didnt ask many questions.

after the loss i went back onto contraception so have never had a genuine period since i was in my teens.

i stopped the pill this week, so time will tell

[mangosandlime]

i still dont understand how i didnt show a bump at all at 6 months. i was a size 12.

i now realise that my baby was kicking, when at the time i thought it was a symptom of the stress.

i dont hold out much hope for the doctors being much of a help after all this.

i am still being seen by a specialist but the appointments are so few and far between that I am lucky if I have one a year .

[AprilLoveJ]

Birth control pills suppress ovarian function. This could be the reason for your absent periods - a lack of progesterone or estrogen. I would certainly think progesterone, as many are low in that anyway even without birth control. We still make estrogen in our fat cells not just the ovaries, whereas progesterone is only made in the ovaries and a very small part of the brain, which is just one of the reasons it is more common and easier to have excess estrogen in relation to progesterone.

Sometimes it can take some time after stopping birth control for ovaries to resume normal hormone production again. It can take a while for periods to come back and in some cases women need a helping hand with hormone therapy in order to resume a normal menstrual cycle. Natural hormones are always better than synthetic hormones. (Birth control is always estrogenic - even when it contains synthetic progesterone. This is because synthetic progesterone acts like estrogen in the body.)

You need progesterone in order to maintain a pregnancy to full term, too low an amount or too sudden a drastic drop can result in miscarriage. Stress drops progesterone levels which is one of the reasons why stress itself is implicated as a cause of many health issues, not just miscarriage.

PCOS is another sign of low progesterone/high estrogen ratio. (The ratios are as important as the levels.)

I'm sorry for your loss op. I would be asking a specialist to take blood/saliva samples of hormone levels over a period of a month at least.

Arm yourself with knowledge and push for the things you want the next time you have an appointment. Go to the gp again if it's too long a wait and request tests. They can do blood tests of hormone levels without referring you to a specialist. Unfortunately it's finding a gp with the knowledge of this area that is willing to help is going to be your hardest challenge. Just keep trying different gps. Change surgeries and travel further if you have to. There are good and helpful gps out there.

Good luck op. I do hope things work out for you.

[Scarydinosaurs]

How many times did you use pregnancy tests that gave negative results whilst you were pregnant? Were you actively TTC and you were already pregnant? Had you been tracking CM? Or ovulation testing? As the latter two would have been big indicators that you were pregnant even without the + pregnancy test.

Is it possible that the baby at 22 weeks wasn't a viable pregnancy from the start, and therefore why the + pregnancy tests didn't work? How did they finally realise you were pregnant?

I think if you wrote down a list of questions and took them to your next appointment, then that would help you understand what happened in the past, and how to help you become pregnant again now you're TTC again.

[mangosandlime]

I used one once a mont in that time

They finally realised I was pregnant when the doctors took a test

I've never done any other ovulation or temp tracking. All seems a bit tricky to me

[Scarydinosaurs]

What test did a doctor do? Blood or urine?

I would advise finding out the answer to that question- why wasn't your pregnancy detectable by home tests up to 22 weeks- will be key to you understanding your fertility and how to successfully test for pregnancy next time.

[mangosandlime]

It was a blood test

How would that help me know more ?

[Scarydinosaurs]

Because if it was a blood test, I would ask why were your HCG levels detectable in blood and not urine, and if your GP could then arrange for you to have monthly blood tests if urine pregnancy tests are not reliable?

[Scarydinosaurs]

how many weeks were you when you lost the baby?

[mangosandlime]

26 weeks

[Scarydinosaurs]

And at 22 weeks did they consider the pregnancy viable? Were there any anomalies flagged at the scan?

[mangosandlime]

It was healthy

It was all put down to stress at the time.
When I found out I was pregnant I had just moved back in with my parents after finding out my husbands father was arrested for child sex offenses and I had lost my job

[Scarydinosaurs]

mangos that sounds incredibly sad and difficult, who was it that told you the MC was caused by stress?

I think you should make a GP appointment and ask the following questions:

1. Why was my pregnancy not detectable by urine home pregnancy tests?
   
2. What caused my miscarriage at 26 weeks?
   
3. How can I assist my body to ensure I am successful to TTC again?
   
4. Do I have PCOS/Graves?
   

When they were investigating PCOS, I would have expected that they would have performed an ultrasound- at this point they would have seen the baby. Did they perform a pelvic exam? Surely from doing this they would have seen from your cervix that you were in your second trimester?

I really hope you get some answers.

[mangosandlime]

I had an internal scan for pcos but was about 6 months before pregnancy

I am seeing endocrinologist in a few weeks so maybe he can answe a few of these questions