I cannot begin to tell you how sick I am of beta draws and the ensuing downward spiral of emotions that follows the phone call with my beta number.
Beta #4 came in at 392. They are calling it another slow, but low, appropriate rise. The nurse sounded worried. She told me that they brought my labs to the head nurse at the clinic for review and collectively they decided to stop with the beta insanity, wait another week and just bring be back in for an ultrasound. She also noted that for 5 1/2 weeks my numbers are very, very low. But what do they have to compare them to? I’ve never been pregnant before, so who knows what normal for me is, right?
At next week’s ultrasound they are looking for the baby and they’re going to make sure it’s in the right place. Right now our biggest concern is an ectopic pregnancy, which is somewhat common with IVF from what I’ve read.
By the time I got off the phone I was in sheer panic mode. I ran off to Dr. Google and found this:
“Caution must be used in making too much of hCG numbers. A normal pregnancy may have low hCG levels and result in a perfectly healthy baby. The results from an ultrasound after 5 – 6 weeks gestation are much more accurate than using hCG numbers.”
Is my beta low? Yes. But does that mean something is wrong? No. So that’s what I’m going to hold onto so that I can keep it together another week.
