Tumbling Through the Rabbit Hole...
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6wks and bleeding

Posted by Haisla Thursday 18 February 2016 0 comments

We had our 6 week ultrasound yesterday at the EPU and saw this:




Two teeny tiny embryos with beating hearts.

Such an incredible moment.

Then last night when I went to the loo I noticed I had started bleeding. Properly. No more brown spotting, this was proper red bleed. No clots, but then again I'm on blood thinners so perhaps unable to form clots.

Cue a sleepless night.

I'm wondering whether all the prodding with the ultrasound wand could have caused this..? The ultrasound technician could not see any cause for the spotting that had restarted on Monday.

My uterus feels angry. Not crampy as such (not like during my period) but just irritated. And the trickling continues.

I'll need to ring up the EPU first thing this morning again. Just as they had sent us off saying that they hoped not to see us until our 12wk scan..

I'm also wondering whether I should start inserting the progesterone pessaries up the back passage, just to minimise any kind of further irritation..

Why can't things just go smoothly for once?

And I've got a big meeting (well three big meetings) at work today that I cannot miss. It's gonna be a busy day. Maybe that's for the best. It'll hopefully keep my mind off worrisome things.

4w5d, still pregnant..

Posted by Haisla Monday 8 February 2016 0 comments

I'm sorry I haven't updated before, I have been feeling pretty exhausted this past week.

I got a call back from the clinic on Wednesday. It was the nicest nurse possible and I got very teary on the phone. She wasn't too concerned about the spotting; when I asked whether they could do some blood tests she told me just to keep an eye on the bleed and contact them if it got any worse. She was nice about it, but there just didn't seem to be much room for negotiation. The spotting continued intermittently throughout the day, but certainly didn't get any worse, so I left it at that, not wanting to jinx anything.

I spotted on and off the rest of the week. Again thankfully no fresh blood. I couldn't find any correlation between my activity levels (I initially thought it might have been triggered by my morning walk to work) so I carried with normal daily routines, whilst trying to take it moderately easy. It tapered off towards the end of the week. On Friday I rang up the clinic as it was my OTD and re-confirmed that I was still pregnant (I'd been peeing on sticks all week). I was congratulated and then given my first scan date- 29th February. I nearly fell off my chair. That was a whole 3 weeks away. I asked whether I could have an earlier scan, but the nurse said there wouldn't be any point, as it would be unlikely that there would be anything much to see before then.

I was too shocked to say anything. I mean, I've never had a scan where anything has actually been visible to the eye, so what did I know?

Thankfully I still had the GP appointment booked for this morning so I psyched myself up to fight my corner to try to get some extra monitoring (i.e. the beta blood tests). The spotting was almost non-existent by now, so I did feel like a bit of a fraud. I had my my spotting argument, my previous missed miscarriage argument and my potential previous ectopic pregnancy argument all well rehearsed.

Thankfully I didn't need to argue. I was seen by a lovely female GP, who listened to me and took my concerns seriously. I nearly burst into tears from sheer relief. I had been so worried about being dismissed by some awful unsympathetic doctor, but the one I saw today had been through five rounds of IVF herself, so was very understanding and immediately referred me to the local Early Pregnancy Unit for a scan.

I got an afternoon appointment so went there straight from work and had a scan (yep, blood test was all I was really after, but they seem to be extremely hard to come by in the UK). I was not expecting for them to see anything (as per the words of the nurse from our fertility clinic), but I was wrong. The lady doing the scan asked me how many embryos had been transferred and then turned the screen around so I could see it. And there they were, two beautiful blobs in the middle of my uterus. It's not ectopic and we're pregnant with twins!!

They couldn't call the blobs gestational sacs yet (they called them 'cysts' instead..umm), but could clearly identify that two had implanted. Also there was nothing in the uterus that could account for the spotting. The sonographer reckoned it might have been implantation bleed. She also noted some fluid in my pouch of douglas. I've read up on it in Dr Google and it appears to indicate endometriosis, so obviously the evil witch has come back, as I suspected. Hopefully it won't be very significant, I may ask about it next time.

I've got a follow up scan next week (Wednesday) by which time there will hopefully be more to see. I was also instructed to contact them immediately if I start bleeding more heavily.

I am exhausted but ecstatic. It looks like both of our embryos took. And I'm so happy that I'll be getting more frequent scans, I don't think I would have survived until 29th. God bless the Early Pregnancy Unit. Who ever knew they even existed!


9dp5dt, still pregnant but now with added spotting..

Posted by Haisla Wednesday 3 February 2016 0 comments

I'll try to post a longer update later on today, but suffice it to say, that I'm freaking out a little bit. I know spotting in early pregnancy can be completely normal, but I'm freaking out all the same.. I had such bad cramping yesterday that I was convinced my period was about to start. It's calmed down quite a bit by now but the spotting is still present.

I've contacted the clinic and am waiting for a call-back. Am just hoping that they'll agree to get some blood tests done to check my hCG and progesterone levels. Sadly it's not standard procedure in the UK probably due to costs. But surely they'll do it for a freaked out, spotting lady..?

I couldn't get an appointment to see the GP until Monday, such is the state of the NHS these days.

As said, I will try to post a bit more later..