IVF pregnancy measuring behind

[Hopingforhappiness1]

Hi all,

Was hoping someone might be able to give me some positive stories as I'm spiralling.

I should be 6weeks 1 day today following a fresh transfer, and I had a private scan but was only measuring 5 weeks 1 day, though they did see a heartbeat.

I'm fearing the worst as I've had 4 miscarriages before this, but to stop me from going insane, has anyone ever had the same and had a positive outcome?

I know that I didn't implant late as I had a positive test at 6dp5dt.

Thanks!

I am sorry to hear of all your losses and very much hoping this does go on to be a successful pregnancy for you.
Although measuring behind sounds scary, the measurements are so small at this stage that any slight error in measuring might put you further back or forward. Can you have a scan again in a few days or a week?

So we have a scan booked in with our clinic at what should be 8 weeks (2 weeks time) but I'm tempted to ask the gp if the nhs will scan me next week to see if there's any improvement as I think waiting 2 weeks will be torture! We've had to pay for all of our ivf treatment and what with it being Christmas soon I can't afford to keep having private scans.

Hey OP

I could have almost written this post word for word a couple of years ago

I had my 7 week scan with clinic and we were measuring almost a week behind. I was in pure panic and booked private scans and continued to measure behind on those also despite knowing exactly when implantation etc would occur.

Baby did eventually catch up in dates around half way, and my the end of my pregnancy she was measuring ahead. My DD is now away to turn 3 years old :)

Measuring weeks for babies at this stage is so hard, a millimetre is all it needs to be off by to throw their calculations off so really hard to predict exact dates.

Seeing heartbeat is really good sign :)

Do you have to pay your clinic for the scans? If so try somewhere like Ultrasound Direct which would probably be cheaper (showing as £75 in my local branch, I remember my surprise at how much cheaper the pregnancy scans were compared to the many many follicle tracking scans I had).

All scans at my clinic were included in the package but my clinic was in Spain so I used places like Ultrasound Direct.

Hopefully you wouldn’t need to keep paying for scans if you get some reassurance.

Like another poster said, getting an accurate measurement this early on is difficult, and it is really common to measure slightly over/under.

I would try wait for the scan with your clinic, they will have more experience with scans this early and potential outcomes might be.

When we went for our 8 weeks scan we measured 7weeks +1, but the sonographer reassured us it was normal and 1 week either side is nothing to worry about. By 12 weeks we had caught up and were measuring slightly bigger.

@Goldpanther the staff in my local Ultrasound Direct were very experienced in pregnancy scans including early scans. Many of them also worked in the local NHS hospital including the most senior sonigrspher in the maternity unit.

I would say generally they were very experienced with pregnancy scans, and a bit hit and miss sometimes with fertility scans (of which I had many).

The NHS won't scan you on the basis you've described. It only offers two scans as standard, one at 12 weeks and the other at 20. For most women conceiving naturally and not accessing private scans, they wouldn't know at the stage you're at if their baby was measuring behind, and they'd just have to wait it out for the first 3 months. I would wait until your clinic's scan. As others have said, the cells are still so small at this stage there's plenty of room for error, which is why accurate dating can't really take place until 11-14 weeks. it's completely understandable that you're anxious but lots of extra scans won't change the outcome, so you really do just need to try your hardest to be patient and find things to pass the time that will help take your mind off the process. Best of luck with everything and I really hope at your viability scan it's all looking good.

@xMrsxHx87x lots of private scans obviously don’t change the outcome but for me and some others they have provided some reassurance at various stages. Or if there sadly won’t be reassurance someone is not waiting so long to find out. The NHS offers basic monitoring. After so many years of IVF treatments I was willing to follow my clinic’s advice on early scans which was around 7, 9 and 11 weeks (my clinic was in Spain and pregnancy scans would generally be more frequent). Now that I finally have had a happy outcome I would say do what it takes to get through on an individual level. I got to a point where I would no longer compare myself with women who’ve conceived naturally without any issues because it has been a very different journey. My mental health was suffering and having reassurance scans really helped. The OP has had 4 miscarriages so I can only imagine not having been in her shoes that she might benefit from extra monitoring.

(I would not have done something like buy equipment to measure the heartbeat at home later in pregnancy like I had seen suggested here before as I believe that could cause more anxiety or give false reassurance in untrained hands ).

Anyway I hope OP will have positive news and a successful pregnancy this time.

I’m sure it’s all fine like the others said. I would check with your local EPU. Because I also had a miscarriage history they were happy to see me for an early scan to ease my anxiety. The scan was for 7 weeks I believe.