Confusing Early Scan

[cloud313]

Hello,

This is my first time posting on here and I'm just really confused and scared after a second early scan.
Bit of background, I had two miscarriages last year that happened naturally, we hadn't been able to get pregnant for a year since but I found out 18th October I was pregnant. I'd had a very small amount of bleeding (tiny pink) and was referred for an early scan. I was (and am) so worried of going through another miscarriage so any scan makes me a pile of nerves. At our first scan, we saw a sac and fetal pole measuring a tiny 1.6mm. We initially felt upbeat and the sonographer said looks like our dates are off and we are slightly behind where we thought we were. We thought that was ok and we booked in to come back for a rescan 10days later.
Today we've been back and the sonographer (nowhere near as friendly) wouldn't let us see the screen, she said "Its not grown as much as we hoped" and that it's either dates are off or its not viable. She didn't mentioned a heartbeat or anything. The follow up with the nurse revealed it has grown to 3.4mm so they can't rule it an unviable pregnancy as there is growth but they'll have to bring us back in another week. She said its measuring 6weeks ish. I've no idea if this is normal for it to grow so slowly and for them to not be able to see a heartbeat. I realise its so early and no amount of reassurance can stop what will happen but I just can't seem to figure it out.

Any help or advice would be really appreciated <3

P.S Should also mention Im on progesterone tablets and still have pregnancy symptoms like sore boobs, fatigue and feel sick

I hope the next week goes quickly for you unil your next scan. How far do they think y ou should be measuring?

Thank you! They didn't really say, they said I'm measuring around 6/6.5weeks but if I go off my last period I should be 8 weeks..hard to know 😬

@cloud313 hey I'm sorry you are going through this, did you confirm ovulation? Just asking as the nhs are dating me 9+5 by last period, but I know I am 7+5 based on my ovulation date xx

@Moosh18 pregnancies are dated by the last period until the scans between 11-13 weeks where the due date is adjusted based on midwife assessment of the scan.

so at this stage you are 9+5. More or less all women have their ovulation date about 2 weeks after their period.

@cloud313 its possible you ovulated very late, towards the end of the cycle. If the conception happened about 6 weeks ago then I don’t think there is an issue if they can’t see the heartbeat yet, it happens. But I wonder if the midwife meant measuring as a foetus would be after 6 weeks from the last period or did she mean measuring at 6 weeks of growth?

Its 100% possible I ovulated late, I have completely mental periods and I ovulation tests which showed it was quite late(2nd October) so Im hoping it could be dates. They were really vague with the measurements just the fetal pole grew from 1.6mm to 3.4mm but that apparently is slow? I don't know if they just really freaked me out with it all

Ok so I see on nhs that at 6 weeks it should be about 6mm. They also say that “Sometimes the heart beat can be picked up by a vaginal ultrasound scan” so it’s not that the heart would or should be picked up every time at 6 weeks scan, which I also thought.

www.nhs.uk/start4life/pregnancy/week-by-week/1st-trimester/week-6/

week 4 they say 2mm, same for week 5 - 2mm (!)

for week 8 is 16mm.

if you go to this link you’ll see they start with week 4 which tells me is week 4 from last period, not week since conception.

obviously if you conceived towards the end of the cycle the foetus will measure way less than a woman’s that conceived mid way, the most common period.

still it is measuring less, you’d hope for 16mm if conceived mid way and for something like 6mm if conceived 2 weeks later.

it does look smaller than it should be. The heart is not a concern yet as it’s not measuring above 6mm with no heartbeat, but the growth could be. It’s not hopeless like they said, you’ll have to wait for the next scan. Sorry I couldn’t find better news. Don’t give up, and try to distract yourself, I know easy to say, hard to do. Fingers crossed for you x

Thanks that's so helpful :) Its hard to know, midwife had called and said it could be possible dates are wrong but to prepare for the worst so its hard to know what to do. I'll just have to brace for a week I think 😔

I know it's so much easier said than done but try not to panic yourself too much. It's still very early days. We went for early scans due to heavy bleeding, had 1st scan at 6 weeks and they could see nothing, like literally nothing. Back again at 8 weeks and initially they could see something but again very early days and nothing concrete, then a consultant came in to scan because of the bleeding and she found a little something straight away. Too small to know if it was viable or not at that point but still there. So it does depend on the technique of the person doing the scan i think. Then at our next early scan I went in fully prepared for bad news and that's when we got a heartbeat etc. I'm 36wks now and all is OK so feeling very very lucky. They're going on something so teeny at that stage that there's a big margin for error with dates etc. It turns out baby is now measuring a week ahead so they caught up with themselves and then some. I really hope it works out for you op. It's very hard on the head all that uncertainty.

@Cw112 Oh wow that must have so hard to go through but so happy to hear you're through it. Its so hard when its this early, you're right. Just keeping it all crossed and hopefully it'll come out right in the end. It seems this is common thing that they can't see much early on so it could just be one of those things xx

@cloud313 that is one of the reasons I never went for early scans, for both pregnancies I waited until the nhs scan. And I assumed unless I had a reason to believe otherwise (bleeding) I would assume everything is fine.

I understand a lot of women want reassurance but I think in a lot of cases you don’t get that you get more stress and then later you see there was no reason to stress out at all.

My advice is try to keep yourself occupied and tell a friend who you trust to keep it to themselves and be there for you regardless of the outcome. It can feel quite lonely in the early days I found, it's not always the nice exciting secret you sort of think it's going to be. So having someone outside of dh to talk to was really nice because some days he was struggling as well but putting on a brave face. We were limited on how much I could do but we tried to fit in lots of extra date nights at home/ watching lots of bingeworthy TV and then my friend coming to visit made for good distractions. I also let my manager in work know really early just because of the scares we had and the nature of my job but that's personal choice if you feel they'd be supportive or if you'd want to wait a bit longer before telling your workplace anything.

@Cw112 great advice thank you,I'll do that😊

@CristinaNov182 oh yeah you're right, I initially said no to early scans but because of my history and bleeding they brought me in on NHS, but totally agree I wish I hadn't, just felt like I had to. I suppose it will be what will be.