HCG levels 35 - possibly ectopic??

[luv2shop]

I went for my dating scan today, thinking I was 11 weeks pregnant but they could see no signs of a baby.

Bloods were then taken and I've been told this evening I need 2 more blood tests taken on Friday and Sunday but I won't get the results until Tuesday night. My HCG levels are at 35 so very slight signs of pregnancy but not where it should be at 11 weeks and no signs of baby/miscarriage at ultrasound scan.

Was told there were three options 1) v early signs of pregnancy (but have taken 4 tests over last 2 months all positive) 2) recent miscarriage (no pain/blood)3) ectopic. I just don't know what to think. Feeling very sad and in limbo. Don't really know what I'm expecting from this post but hoping someone can offer some words of advice.

oh sweetheart, i'm so sorry, it must have been a devastating day. 35 is really very low, tbh, so even if it is an ectopic there's a good chance that it's a self-resolving ectopic, where the little pregnancy reabsorbs into your body. they'll keep doing the bloods to get a better picture before doing anything. och, i'm so sorry, what a crappy thing, i'm so sorry.

I agree 35 is really really low, which is good as hopefully not an ectopic but not good in terms of the pregnancy.
See what your next level is and that will give you more definitive answer so thinking of you the next few days.
It's really really rubbish.

Thanks. I had no ideas what HCG levels should be (I've got 2 DC aged 5 & 3, both perfect pregnancies!) so in a strange way it makes me feel better now to think its unlikely to be an ectopic.

My minds very jumbled at the moment. Wondering if I could have got pregnant recently as obviously not using contraception as thought I was pregnant. Totally confused as don't understand how there could be numerous positive tests but absolutley no signs of a miscarriage.

well, to give you an idea, they count you as not being pregnant if the figure is under 10. at a very elementary level, you might expect to be at 1, day 1 after conception, so 2 on day 3, 4 on day 5, 8 on 7, 16 on 9, 32 on 11, 64 on 13 etc etc so it's very low for eleven weeks. it's really possible that your wee baby went to the wrong place, struggled to keep goiing for a while so you got your positives and then just didn't make it and is now being reabsorbed into you. heart-breaking but very possible. i hope that you know there are lots of people on here who can sympathise and support you if you find the next while tough going.

Thanks AitchTwoOh, that helps me to understand a little better. I had a few two many glasses of wine last night which had the desired effect to numb my feelings but have now woken up feeling desperately sad again. I know I am lucky as DP is being very supportive and my 2 LO's will distract me but I have so many thoughts running round inside my head which I can't make any sense of. I won't get any definitive answers until at least Tuesday when they have the results of my HCG's and it seems like an unbearable wait.

I'm not expecting any anwers to my questions but any advice/information/experiences would be most greatfully received. After my first missed period I had a couple of days of a brown discharge (sorry TMI!) which both my midwife and myself assumed was implantation bleeding, could this have been a miscarriage? If so, is it possible that I haven't had a period as I got pregnant again and I'm at the early stages, hence low HCG's? Am I right in assuming that if it were an ectopic pregnancy and the baby was still alive my HCG's would be higher? If it were ectopic and the baby had died and was beng reabsorbed in my body would there be any symptoms?

I have felt very pregnant up until now - so tired, metallic taste in mouth, sensitive to smells. Am now thinking that I must have been imagining all this. Sorry for rambling, just don't know what to think.

Hi Luv2shop. I'm sorry to read about what you are going through.

As others have said, an HCG level of 35 for a pregnancy at your stage is not good. If your pregnancy is ectopic, it does sound to me (not a doctor) as though it could be self-resolving and that maybe the pregnancy has ended by itself. To put your HCG level in context, with my ectopics at between 5 and 6 weeks my HCG was between 1000 and 3000, and was continuing to increase.

Even though your HCG level is low you might be continuing to have symptoms because your levels are not as low as a non-pregnant woman. I found I continued to have some symptoms until I got a negative pregnancy test and all of the HCG had gone.

As for whether you might have lost one baby and since conceived another, well, I don't know whether you would have had more signs of a miscarriage if that were the case. I imagine the repeat blood tests will clear this question up for you.

Again, I am sorry this has happened. It is just miserable, and I hope you are as ok as you can be.

Tentatively I'd agree that this sounds like it might be a self-resolving ectopic. By 11 weeks you should have either had bleeding or pain, even for a conventional tubal ectopic which didn't continue growing.

A uterine pg, even where the embryo has reabsorbed, would usually show a thickened lining if you've not had a bleed. Your levels are high enough to prevent bleeding so your womb should look like it had tried to grow a foetus. Therefore, it is sensible to conclude that a pg elsewhere in the body is causing the raised levels.

My tubal ectopic showed levels in the hundreds rather than thousands at 6 weeks an very quickly I started bleeding. It was presumed that it was an early mc and only another bleed and a EPAU nurse who wouldn't leave me alone until I got a negative pg test that led them to discover the ectopic.

Have they/are they going to have a gander at your tubes (internal scan) to be on the safe side?

I had a similar situation - my hcg's never got beyond around 50 - they did blood tests every 2 days for over a month and they sometimes went up and down by a couple of numbers. They did not want to do surgery as they could not find where the ectopic was but it was diagnosed as a self-resolving ectopic. In all it took bloods tests and scans every two days for nearly 6 weeks, they kept a close eye on me until the hcg reached around zero and then I started to bleed. It was very distressing as it just seemed to go on and on but there really was no other option than to 'watch and wait'. At the time I first went for a scan I thought I was about 8 weeks pregnant but nothing could be seen on-screen hence the serial blood tests. Hang in there and I do hope you get some answers, I know what this horrible limbo is like. Thinking of you.

sorry to hear of everything you ladies have gone through. remember that with a miscarriage, the biggest amount of bleeding comes from the womb giving up on making a placenta, so it comes away. the fact that you have enough of an hcg to tell your body not to give up quite yet would perhaps be why you've not experienced any bleeding yet.

brown blood, i'm afraid, is a classic sign of ectopic pregnancy (if it was prune-juice like) however i don't want to over-state that as tbh it might really have been old blood left over from implantation. i had that with one of my successful pregnancies, so there's kinda know way of knowing. did they look for 'free fluid' around the tube area when they did the scan? that can sometimes indicate a wee bit of bleeding where the baby has burrowed into the wrong place.

i'm sorry everything's so in the air right now, it's ghastly. the bloods will tell you more. it's all very sad, though, there's no getting away from it.

was the scan an internal or external?

because at 12 weeks by lmp with dd my hcg levals were 18 and they couldn't see anything at all on an abdominal scan.

luckily the sonographers sister had had a similar experiance so she offered me a vaginal scan to be sure and lo and behold there was dd, hearbeat and all but 9+4 by their reckoning

don't want to give you false hope, it's ridiculously rare, my gp had never come across it in 20 years of practice but it does happen

so did they get the hcg levels wrong, PT? that did happen to me once, i must say. they said they were 10,000 and they were 1000.

nope, the preg tests the gp did all came back -ive, hense me being at the hospital in the first place.

she's just an awkward child

gosh, that is amazing.

she's that too

The amount that bhcg varies from person to person and pregnancy to pregnancy so it is really hard to produce a 'normal' range.
The best way is to do serial bhcgs so you are comparing yourself rather than others.A scan can be helpful too which I imagine will be the next step if your bhcgs are increasing rather than decreasing.
And PT's tale is amazingly fabulous but also vvvv rare.
Prepare yourself for the worst case scenario and then you can be pleasantly suprised if everything turns out fine.
Early pregnancy bleeding, miscarriages , ectopics, all this wondering are seriously shit, all you want is a definitive answer and often only time can give that which is rubbish.
Let us know what your next bhcg is

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences and knowledge with me and I'm so sorry to hear what you've been through. Having had 2 normal pregnancies I always knew I was lucky but this experience has made me feel such admiration and sympathy for women who aren't so lucky.

Hangingbabyofbabylon - I can't imagine how you got through those 6 weeks of limbo. Did you go on to have a successful pregnancy? (I hope thats not too personal a question). Funtimewincies - the sonagrapher did say there was a thickened lining but that there was definitely no signs of a pregnancy or of a miscarriage. She was totally incompetent and inarticulate which didn't really help the situation. AitchTwoOh - no they didn't look for free fluid around the tube area as far as I'm aware but the sonagrapher could barely string a sentence together so I don't think I would have known if she did. She did talk about a molar pregnancy (??)though, which the doctor then quickly dismissed. Pinktuplips - I did have an internal ultrasound so don't think theres any chance of a viable pregnancy. Good to hear some positives for you though. MrsHappy so sorry to read that you've experienced this more than once. I think its totally unlikely I'm pregnant, guess I was just grasping at straws yesterday! DarrellRivers you are totally right about how rubbish all this can be. I guess the fact that so many people have bad experiences in pregnancy & conception but carry on trying shows how the end result is worth it.

Today I've had stomach cramps which feel like very bad period pains and have had a red spotting and now a browny discharge. The hospital did say yesterday that if I felt ill or had pain to get to A&E straight away so I phoned them to explain my stomach cramp and general pains (feel very aware of every twinge!) but they said not to worry as A&E would only send me away with paracetamol. We have taken the kids to Legoland today to try and forget whats going on. I can confirm that standing in a queue for 1hr to go on a 5 minute ride has certainly helped me to focus my frustration on something else! Its strange how you can feel perfectly fine one minute and desperately sad the next. I am a bit of a control freak so find the total lack of control over the situation and lack of knowledge dreadful but hopefully time will give me some answers. Thank you again to everyone, its so much easier to 'talk' here than to well meaning, worried family members.

hi luv2shop - I'm glad you're hanging in there, can imagine trip to legoland would take your mind of it all for a bit! Yes, I have been really lucky. I did have a miscarriage within a month of my ectopic finally ending which was so painful but have since gone on to have 2 lovely dd's and am now 17 weeks pregnant with the next one . It was probably the lowest point of my life and the waiting was horrendous, I do hope that whatever way things turn out for you, it doesn't go on for too long. Keep in touch and let us know how you're doing.

Distraction and keeping busy helps
Plus buying yourself treats
Good luck

DR - have kept v busy today. Not a good idea to go to Mothercare to buy DS a new car seat though...babies everywhere!

No more pain, no more spotting/bleeding and absolutely not feeling pregnant . Had my bloods taken today but won't know the results until Tuesday night.

Had my results on Tuesday and have been told I had a missed miscarriage. I had no signs of a miscarriage other than a slight brown discharge at 6 weeks, which one doc told me may not have been related. They are unsure when I miscarried but apparently the HCG hormone can stay in your system for up to 6 weeks after a miscarriage. My HCG levels on Wednesday were 35, on Friday they were 29 and on Sunday they were 14, so definitely not pregnant. I have been discharged and told I can start trying for a baby after my period, which coincidentally came on the day of my results.

I'm very glad that it wasn't ectopic but am feeling very up and down about the miscariage. One minute I can rationalise it because it was very early and m/c's are so common, the next I feel a real sense of loss and blame myself. My pregnancy wasn't planned. I was on the pill, had just stopped taking anti-depressants so they would have been in my system, drinking alcohol..... I really want to start trying to get pregnant but am scared of having another missed m/c and being a nervous wreck until the pregnancy was confirmed at 11 weeks.

luv2shop I'm so sorry to hear your news but glad that you at least have some answers. You can ttc as soon as the docs say but the only one who knows when you're ready is you. The first 12 weeks of any new pregnancy will be hellish for you, there's no way round it but you can do it and there is no reason to think that another pregnancy would have any problems at all. And I know you'll be thinking it but I bet the miscarriage was nothing to do with the ante-depressants, alcohol etc, just one of that crap things in life. I was on Sertraline when I conceived this one and a couple of weeks ago had to double my dose as my anxiety had started to creep back. Sertraline is safe in pregnancy and the doc agreed that my mental health was paramount. Hang in there. xxx

Thanks Hanginbellyofbabylon. Your message has helped. I was also on Sertraline and decided I just didn't need it anymore so stopped taking it and then got pregnant. BTW, it wasn't like I was drinking loads, just socially until I found out I was pregnant at around 6 weeks. I know that the m/c could have happened anyway, I guess its easier to blame someone/thing. I do hope everything goes well for you. It must be virtually impossible not to be anxious after your previous experience. Good to hear that Sertraline is safe in pregnancy. I hope your increased dose is helping. Thanks again.