Well, Crap

So, uh, yeah. Yesterday was the ultrasound.

And things didn’t go so well.

The good news (and sadly, there was good news) is that the baby is measuring right on schedule. According to when I ovulated, I was 6w6d yesterday and the baby measured 6w5d. This is much better than the m/c pregnancy where I went in at 6w4d and measured 6w1d.

However, that is it as far as the good news goes. The rest of the news ranges from potentially neutral to “dismal”—the term I frequently read in the medical journals yesterday.

The potentially neutral info is that I have a subchorionic bleed. “A what?” you ask as I did. It’s a blood clot in the placenta. There is great debate in the medical journals as to whether this is bad or not. Most folks believe it doesn’t mean anything as long as it can bleed out (explains the spotting last week, no!?). However, there is some evidence that it could be related to a 20% miscarriage rate.

Oh, if we could be that lucky.

Nope, we’re currently hanging out in the 80% miscarriage rate. The heart rate yesterday was 80 bpm. Average for the age of our peanut is around 137, but the med journals like to see something at least between 120 and 130. Between 110 to 120 is considered borderline and is associated with a 20% chance of miscarriage. From 100 to 110 is considered slow and is associated with a 60% miscarriage rate. Less than 100 is considered very slow with a dismal prognosis with an 80% chance of demise. I find it odd that all the discussions on heart rates this low involve D words like dismal and demise, but not death.

Also, in case you’re wondering, during the first m/c at 6w4d, the heart rate was 105, which we were told was normal but was really borderline. And it was measuring too small!!

Our doctor says he’s not ready to throw in the towel yet which astounds me. Yes, I know that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, but if you want to come over to our house, we can hear her warming up in the hall. She’s running through her scales and copiously using throat spray.

How am I doing? I’m really pissed off. I’m pissed off that everything seemed “better” this time. I still have sore boobs, serious fatigue, indigestion and morning sickness—including gagging over the toilet this morning. The HCG numbers were stronger and supposedly in the normal range. But even then I get angry thinking that I TOLD THEM that the numbers didn’t seem to be as good as they kept saying.

And yes, it is possible that we’re in the 20% of the population who go back next week and get a perfectly normal heart rate. It’s possible, but it’s not likely. Over 100,000 women with embryo heart rates less than 80 bpm, 20,000 will go back to normal the next week. (Sadly, 5,000 of those will still have a miscarriage before 12 weeks). But 80,000 of those women will have a dismal demise usually within the next week. I don’t believe in miracles; I believe in statistics. And the probability is very high that next week, when we go back in, there will no longer be a heartbeat. There’s an 80% chance of rain. We should take our umbrella.