id really appreciate some help/advice as I feel like I’m going crazy.
On the 6th September, a Clearblue digital said Pregnant 1–2 weeks. I’d had negative tests before that, so I knew straight away that if I was pregnant, it must have happened later than my dates suggested.
I was referred to the Early Pregnancy Unit and had an early scan, but they couldn’t see a pregnancy in my womb and they couldn’t see a definite ectopic pregnancy either. I was told I had a pregnancy of unknown location (PUL). They also found ovarian cysts and some free fluid in my pelvis.
That was basically the start of what has felt like endless blood tests, scans and hospital appointments.
My hCG levels have gone:
104 → 117 → 165 → 212
So they’ve continued to rise, but nowhere near the way they should in a healthy progressing pregnancy.
At the same time, I started bleeding. It began as brown blood when wiping, then became heavier with cramping, darker/red blood, small clots and bits of stringy tissue. Everything about it made me think I was miscarrying, and I kept expecting the next blood test to show my hCG dropping.
But every time I had another blood test, it had gone up again.
I had another scan and there was still nothing visible in my womb. My womb lining had actually thickened from 15 mm to 18 mm, which confused me even more, but I was told that pregnancy hormones can continue affecting the lining even when the pregnancy isn’t developing normally.
The cysts have also been looked at more closely. I have a 5 cm simple ovarian cyst and a 3 cm haemorrhagic cyst, meaning there has been bleeding into that cyst. They have said the cysts could account for some of the pain I’ve been experiencing, which makes everything even harder to distinguish.
I’ve spent hours and hours at the hospital through all of this. I’ve been backwards and forwards for bloods, scans and reviews, sometimes sitting there for six hours at a time, only to be told they still couldn’t give me an answer. The following day I went back and waited another three hours. I’ve spent so much time sitting in waiting rooms and corridors watching everyone else have somebody beside them while I’ve been doing most of this on my own.
I was also supposed to go on holiday with my daughter and family on the 14th September, but because they couldn’t rule out an ectopic pregnancy, I was told I couldn’t fly. So they all went without me and I stayed home to continue with the hospital appointments.
Eventually one of the doctors rang me and said mine was a really difficult case. He said he thought it was more likely that I was miscarrying, but he was concerned because my hCG just wouldn’t start falling. He told me that whatever was happening, this was 100% not a healthy progressing pregnancy.
Initially I asked whether they could just give me something to make the miscarriage happen and get this over with. He explained that they were reluctant because they still didn’t know where the pregnancy was. If they treated me for a miscarriage when it was actually ectopic, that wouldn’t treat the pregnancy in the tube. Equally, they didn’t want to give me methotrexate for an ectopic pregnancy unnecessarily when they weren’t certain that’s what was happening.
So once again, I had to wait.
After further review, they’ve now decided to do another hCG blood test and, depending on that result and their assessment, manage it as a suspected ectopic/persistent pregnancy of unknown location with methotrexate. After the injection I’ll need further blood tests to make sure my hCG starts dropping and eventually returns to negative.
So in less than two weeks I’ve gone from finding out completely unexpectedly that I’m pregnant, to being told nobody knows where the pregnancy is, bleeding and thinking I’m miscarrying, watching my hCG inexplicably keep rising, having repeated scans where nothing can be found, finding out I’ve also got two ovarian cysts, losing my holiday, spending hours and hours in hospital and now potentially being treated for an ectopic pregnancy that they’ve never actually been able to see.
And I still don’t really know where the pregnancy was. I just know that it isn’t healthy, my body hasn’t resolved it by itself and I’m absolutely exhausted from waiting for this whole thing to finally be over.
i guess what I’m asking is has anyone been in a similar situation and was it an ectopic or a miscarriage? I’m bleeding just not actively and I’m so exhausted of waiting I just need answers.