Light reading for today

Decline of Serum Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and Spontaneous Complete Abortion: Defining the Normal Curve.

Quadratic curves not really my thing, but the tables were pretty easy to read. It looks like the wheels probably fell off this thing last Thursday, the very day of the 1,111 beta. It does put a special spin on my Tuesday claim that "I'm glad to say that I am much much better -- I have been steadily improving since last Thursday." Well, duh. No wonder I was feeling better.

Can't help replaying the events of that Thursday. The night before was the height of my misery (also, not-so-coincidentally, the height of my hCG). By the morning I was exhausted and so sore. I crab-hobbled my way to the blood draw lab. As soon as I sat down everything started to swim and (apparently) I turned dead white. The very sweet lab manager got me a paper cup of water and suggested that I go upstairs and see my doctor. I assured him it was my very next step.

I wasn't on his appointment schedule, and he visibly winced when he saw me. We sat in the waiting room until all of his other patients had been seen. Then he sat down across from us and gave us the don't-ask-to-be-admitted peptalk. Telling us how if I could just tough it out it'd be fine.

He was right, because by that evening I was already feeling a little better. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Whenever this thing pooped out was probably not related to my swoony fit in the blood draw lab. I've had vagal events like that before. I'm sure the proto-placenta-trophoblastic-cells-whatever (embryology also not my thing) detaching was just a biochemical blip and I didn't notice its happening in any way. I kind of want to pretend that I did, though. I would like to have had that connection, at least.

Anyway, having the date and approaching another table in the paper tells me that tomorrow's hCG should be around 18-23. That perfectly jibes with this morning's faint-but-visible line (my tests detect 20 mIU). The last bit trails off slowly, but by next Wednesday I should be completely in the clear, with a level <5.

I know things don't always exactly go on schedule, but I feel better having an approximate timetable.