- I don't want to freak you out but I would NOT do a D&C if my betas were going up (Unless I saw an ectopic). What if it was a twin that didn't make it?
Since I did IVF, we know exactly when I "ovulated", and I should be 7 weeks pregnant right now. At 7 weeks, with a beta of 800, and with nothing seen in the uterus (and you wouldn't expect there to be with the beta that low) there is zero chance that this is a healthy intrauterine pregnancy. Zero. Average levels at this point are over 50,000. While there is a wide range of normal betas for any point in pregnancy, the range for 7 weeks is 36,000 to 72,000.
A 7 week pregnancy with a beta of 809 is either an unhealthy intrauterine pregnancy or ectopic. Unfortunately, there's no good way for us to tell since we can't see it on the screen. So I am doing the D&C solely so the tissue can be analyzed for the presence of placental cells, so we know whether or not it's ectopic. The fact that it will (hopefully) end this horror show is just a side benefit.
A lot of people would have just had the methotrexate shot weeks ago, just in case. I probably should have, but I just don't want to take a strong chemotherapy drug unless I absolutely have to. If the D&C shows no pregnancy there, the joke'll be on me and I'll have to have the shot anyway. But since chance favors it not being the case, I think it's worth it to try and avoid it.
You can get away with hoping after one bad doubling time, because the twin thing does happen. But after two bad doubling times, it's pretty clear what's going on.
P.S. Betabase.info does show six pregnancies that had a heartbeat and had day 30 betas of under 1000. But those are almost certainly data errors of one kind or another.
I'm very sorry you have to have a D&C. :( Thanks for posting this for me.
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