Early scan showing no Fetal pole or heartbeat - advice?

[Boymama87]

I had a previous ectopic in 2019 so had an early scan today to confirm the pregnancy was in the right place. They were able to see a pregnancy sac and yolk sac, but no Fetal pole or heartbeat and I’m measuring 5weeks ish when I should be 7w5d going by lmp. Obvs assuming the worst 😭 Has this happened to anyone else and it worked out ok in the end?

Hi OP, I understand how stressful this can be. Normally the fetal pole is not visible until around 6 weeks and the embryo and heartbeat can be seen between 6 and 7 weeks so, in terms of your measurements, what you can saw at this stage is perfectly normal.

As for the date discrepancy, do you know exactly when you ovulated? Were you tracking? Was it IVF?

The LMP is only used as a very loose guide at the beginning to give a starting point but it's not accurate for a lot of women. It's based on a very regular 28 day cycle with ovulation on day 14 so if you have longer cycles or they are irregular, or you ovulate late in your cycle, then LMP wouldn't be accurate for you.

I have long and irregular cycles and know for a fact I ovulated late the month I conceived. I have had 3 scans so far and baby is consistently measuring about 12 days smaller than what LMP would make me. There are no concerns as this fits with my actual ovulation date and I'm now 12 weeks pregnant.

Could this be the case for you?

Thank you so much for your reply. Tbh I don’t really know what my cycle length is. I had my first baby in 2020 and second in 2022 and only had 1 period between them due to breastfeeding and then I probably had 3 after 2022 baby and getting pregnant this time so the cycle lengths were very irregular. I guess this could mean that it’s just thag my lmp isn’t reliable? I also wasn’t tracking ovulation, we just did the deed every other day.
im just so worried as this baby is really wanted and my previous early scans due to the ectopic have always shown a heartbeat by now. But every pregnancy is different I suppose. I just feel so helpless in this waiting stage now.

It's probably just too early to tell xx