Ectopic pregnancy

Hi all,

I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d
pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a
sonogram on which she could not find the baby. She checked the HCG
levels and they were over 2,000. The doctor assumes an ectopic
pregnancy, maybe.

I have another appointment today but I'm restless and scared. I am
also overdiagnosing myself -- I feel pricks and stabs everywhere in my
body. However, I don't really have any pain. I feel nauseous,
exhausted, hearburn-y... my usual pregnacy symptoms (I have two
healthy boys already) but no pain -- I read that pain from ectopic
pregnancy is really bad.

Two questions: Who has experience with ectopic pregnancies and can
tell me more about them? The webpages are so... medical. They don't
help me at all. What are the symptoms, how much do they vary, when is
rupture possible?

And then, who had the experience that in early stages the baby
couldn't be found and then everything turned out all right?
(Naturally, this is the one that I'm most interested in!!)

TIA and best wishes to all,

Claudia

"Claudia" wrote in message
om...
Hi all,

I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d
pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a
sonogram on which she could not find the baby. She checked the HCG
levels and they were over 2,000. The doctor assumes an ectopic
pregnancy, maybe.



I can't speak from personal experience, but I have read that the rule of
thumb is that a sac should be visible when HCG 1000. That may be why your
doctor has mentioned ectopic as a possibility.

See, e.g.,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...PubMed&dopt=Ab
stract&list_uids=89285165

Did they do a transvaginal ultrasound? Or just an abdominal? That would
make a difference.


If and only if you have an ectopic --


Ectopics, if that's what's going on, can be in your fallopian tubes or much
more rarely, in the abdomen. Fallopian tube pregnancies eventually
rupture -- which is very dangerous, causes a lot of bleeding -- if they are
not terminated. There are ways to terminate early and save the tube --
using an abortion pill to stop progesterone production, for example. This
carries benefit to you, because you will have 2 tubes to try for your next
baby. They can also go in surgically, which may please the doctor because
it's more conclusive immediately and thus more llitigation proof? But that
damages or removes the tube. It's your decision.

Abdominal pregnancies are also highly dangerous, but because the baby can
sometimes reach viability before something horrible happens, (which never
happens in a tubal pregnancy), sometimes mother and baby are healthy after
the dangerous operation to deliver the baby without having Mom bleed to
death.

Fallopian tube pregnancies would not necessarily cause pain until the
sac/placenta/embryo was big enough to start stretching the tube. Sometimes,
maybe no pain until rupture.

I am so sorry you are going through this. This sucks. I wish they had a
way to transplant the baby into the uterus. Ectopics are horrible.

Dagny

"Claudia" wrote in message
om...
Hi all,

I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d
pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a
sonogram on which she could not find the baby. She checked the HCG
levels and they were over 2,000. The doctor assumes an ectopic
pregnancy, maybe.

I have another appointment today but I'm restless and scared. I am
also overdiagnosing myself -- I feel pricks and stabs everywhere in my
body. However, I don't really have any pain. I feel nauseous,
exhausted, hearburn-y... my usual pregnacy symptoms (I have two
healthy boys already) but no pain -- I read that pain from ectopic
pregnancy is really bad.

Two questions: Who has experience with ectopic pregnancies and can
tell me more about them? The webpages are so... medical. They don't
help me at all. What are the symptoms, how much do they vary, when is
rupture possible?

And then, who had the experience that in early stages the baby
couldn't be found and then everything turned out all right?
(Naturally, this is the one that I'm most interested in!!)

TIA and best wishes to all,

Claudia
What type/level of ultrasound did they do? A trans-vaginal U/S shows more
than an abdominal one early (but is not the most pleasant experience), and a
high-level one shows more than a regular one.

Here's hoping that the baby is just hiding, but is where he/she's supposed
to be.

"Claudia" wrote in message
om...
Hi all,

I need to tap the vast knowledge of this group. I am currently 5w6d
pregnant. On Friday, 5w3d, I went to the doctor and she made a
sonogram on which she could not find the baby.

When I was 5 weeks pregnant with my twins, I had absolutely crippling
abdominal pain in the middle of the night. We got up and went to the ER,
assuming a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. They could not see anything,
however - no sac, no nothing, not in the uterus and not in the tubes. They
COULD see an absolutely enormous corpus luteum cyst, which had apparently
leaked some fluid but not ruptured entirely (I was told by a nurse this
could not happen, but as the cyst stayed enormous for months, I think she
was wrong.)

Anyway, I was told that ectopic pregnancies cannot be seen, and do not tend
to rupture, until 7 weeks or so. I was referred for further follow-up
appointments. At 7 weeks, we did see the pregnancy - in the uterus as we
hoped - but there were 2 of them (which was not at all what we had hoped!
But we got used to it!)

That's what I was told at any rate. I hope for your sake that the fetus
cannot be seen merely because it is still too small - but that it is where
it belongs.

--angela

Hi Claudia. (I love your name!)

We were discussing this at work last night...

Ectopics can be detected as early as 3 weeks in someone with a very
sensitive tube.
The pain from an Ectopic pregnancy differs to (for example) appendicitis in
that ectopics cause bowel pressure. (even small ones)

If you do have an ectopic and it is in the tube, you would be feeling pain
(enough to make you sweat!) and bowel pressure.

If there is no pain, perhaps you don't have an ectopic?

I hope so!

Good luck!

Jo(RM)

Donna wrote:

What type/level of ultrasound did they do? A trans-vaginal U/S shows more
than an abdominal one early (but is not the most pleasant experience), and a
high-level one shows more than a regular one.

Here's hoping that the baby is just hiding, but is where he/she's supposed
to be.

I think it was a regular level one, and it was trans-vaginal.

Thanks for the good wishes, they seemed to have helped: we found a
tiny something INSIDE the uterus at the ultrasound yesterday. It's
still kind of small for age but, as my doctor said, some people have
to be at the end of the bell curve to make a bell curve. Best news
is, of course, that it's inside.

Next check-up is Thursday.

Thanks for answering and also thanks to the very detailed post from
Dagny which was very helpful and informative. For some reason, I
cannot answer to your post directly but I did want to say thanks.

Claudia - much less agitated but still worried, a bit

"Chotii" wrote:

When I was 5 weeks pregnant with my twins, I had absolutely crippling
abdominal pain in the middle of the night. We got up and went to the ER,
assuming a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. They could not see anything,
however - no sac, no nothing, not in the uterus and not in the tubes.

Huh. Interesting. Now I don't feel so bad about the tiny something
anymore (see my previous post).


Anyway, I was told that ectopic pregnancies cannot be seen, and do not tend
to rupture, until 7 weeks or so. I was referred for further follow-up
appointments. At 7 weeks, we did see the pregnancy - in the uterus as we
hoped - but there were 2 of them (which was not at all what we had hoped!
But we got used to it!)

:-) That actually sounds lovely to me at the moment.


That's what I was told at any rate. I hope for your sake that the fetus
cannot be seen merely because it is still too small - but that it is where
it belongs.

--angela

We've got reason to hope that now, thanks! And thanks so much for
writing back, it helped a lot to know this!

Claudia

"JoFromOz":

Hi Claudia. (I love your name!)

Thanks! (I'm German and it's a common name around here -- I don't get
too many compliments on the name, so I appreciate it quite a bit!)

We were discussing this at work last night...

Ectopics can be detected as early as 3 weeks in someone with a very
sensitive tube.
The pain from an Ectopic pregnancy differs to (for example) appendicitis in
that ectopics cause bowel pressure. (even small ones)

If you do have an ectopic and it is in the tube, you would be feeling pain
(enough to make you sweat!) and bowel pressure.

I didn't feel much pain and after the ultrasound yesterday -- where we
found a little something inside the uterus -- that little pain
subsided too. (My doctor friend Natalie told me I was
over-diagnosing...)

Your post did reassure me quite a bit, thank you so much for that!

I'll keep you all posted on what we find on Thursday. Hopefully, it
will all turn out all right. I'm glad and lucky to have escaped the
ectopic but this roller coaster of emotions and fear were no fun,
either!

Best to all and thanks again to all who answered!


Claudia

On Mon, 31 May 2004 04:55:26 -0700, Claudia wrote:

Two questions: Who has experience with ectopic pregnancies and can
tell me more about them? The webpages are so... medical. They don't
help me at all. What are the symptoms, how much do they vary, when is
rupture possible?

I have no experience with ectopic myself, but I do know that a lot of
pains can be normal in the first weeks of pregnancy. And they can get very
intense too, even worse than my normal period-like cramps. From what I
heard and read, if you have an ectopic, the pain becomes truly
excruciating at one point. Furthermore, your hCG levels will not double
within the usual 48-72 hours at this point, but slower.

Was your u/s transvaginal? If not, they would not have seen anything,
since it's too small at 5w3d. If it was, it can still be a close call to
even see the gestational sac. You will not see the embryo until you are
~6w along, and even then it's hard. Your hCG levels are well within
normal, but that doesn't say much, you need two tests to confirm a viable
pregnancy.

And then, who had the experience that in early stages the baby
couldn't be found and then everything turned out all right?

I know at least one person directly who was even operated on to remove an
ectopic, and then it turned out she was just too early to see anything on
the u/s. She was literally rushed into the OR since she had quite a lot
of pain as well. She is now almost 11w along, so far with a healthy baby
(the operation usually has no effect on the pregnancy).

--
-- I
mommy to DS (July '02)
mommy to three tiny angels (28 Oct'03, 17 Feb'04 & 20 May'04)
guardian of DH (33)

"Claudia" wrote in message
om...
Donna wrote:


Thanks for answering and also thanks to the very detailed post from
Dagny which was very helpful and informative. For some reason, I
cannot answer to your post directly but I did want to say thanks.


Don't mention it, I'm so glad they found something in your uterus. Crossed
fingers.

Dagny