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@mrskansas: I'm 5 weeks today and the level was 267, up from 171 on Saturday. I have an ultrasound appointment on Friday to (hopefully) know for sure. My first ectopic was resolved with MTX and the doctor mentioned that as an option if the us doesn't show anything in my uterus, but I really was thinking I wanted to go with surgery if it was another ectopic. I needed 3 rounds of MTX the first time, and then there's the waiting time... This will be my third loss in less than a year, and I just want to keep moving. I've never carried to term, but I had a miscarriage this time last year, so it seems like at least one of my tubes is working.

@mrskansas: Thanks. Nobody should have to go through this.

Your ectopic story sounds a lot like mine. Same not really a period, same spotting, but my doctor started monitoring for ectopic right away, and I was diagnosed at ~6 weeks. I'm hoping since I've had none of the symptoms this time it's an IUP, at least that way I keep both my tubes, we don't lose time, and I can beg my doctor for a repeat pregnancy loss work up.

@Kaohinani: Thank you, lady. You are literally the sweetest. I’ve been telling myself those things over and over, and trying to remember that if not for my history I would have no idea what my levels are right now or that anything might be wrong. Right now I have to hold out hope that I have a fighter. One of the ways I work against anxiety, though, is to make plans for every eventuality, so for me “this baby is still growing” and “I might be in surgery getting an ep removed on Friday” and “another miscarriage would be preferable to another ectopic” are all necessary and useful thoughts to hold in order to prepare myself for whatever the future may bring. Really, I was looking for info on what my future looks like if it is another ectopic pregnancy, because about 35% of the time they’re asymptomatic. Also the doctor mentioning methotrexate on the phone really didn’t help yesterday, because that was the worst hell I’ve ever been through and I even though I know last time I needed 3x the dose it usually requires and probably wouldn’t need that much a second time, I really don’t want to do it again.

@pachamama: Thanks, no real update. I have another blood draw today, so I’ll see what the level is doing. I had terrible hot flashes last night, which is new, but I have no idea if it’s normal or not.

@Shantuck: Thanks. ️

So the results from my blood work this morning came back as a 25% decrease compared to 2 days ago. We may never know where it implanted, and the doctor is counting it as a chemical pregnancy even though I’m almost 6 weeks and we only know it’s failing because of the extra blood work. Chemical pregnancy means they won’t test me for anything linked to repeat miscarriage. I don’t know if I should get a second opinion or what. It just feels hopeless right now.

@Sams Mom: Thanks, I had an appointment with another doctor at the same practice on Friday that I think I’m going to keep. Partly to see what she says and partly because DH will get a chance to ask questions, too.

@Chuckles: Thanks for the perspective, because one of my losses was ectopic and my first mc was at 9 weeks and this loss will be ~6 weeks depending on when I start bleeding the main doctor I’ve been seeing doesn’t think there’s enough of a pattern to warrant testing. I take issue with the chemical pregnancy label though because it’s based on my hormone level not how far along I am, and they only know the hormone level because of the testing related to my ectopic, in 98% of cases this would be a termed a miscarriage at 6 weeks. I just want to know that either there’s nothing they can find, or there’s something we can fix, or we might as well not put ourselves through this again, because there’s something we can’t fix. You know?

@Kaohinani: Thanks, I asked my main doctor three times on the phone today for more testing and the only thing she offered was a referral for for a test to make sure my tubes were open and/or IVF, which was so frustrating. IVF isn’t going to stop my babies from dying. I’ll see what the other doctor from the practice says on Friday, but I might take the IVF referral and hijack it to ask the RE for more testing.

So they had me do more blood work yesterday and it came back higher than the day before, but only by 5 units. My doctor is more confident than not that it’s a repeat ectopic, apparently they never see levels that change direction in interuterine pregnancies. I go in 2 hours for an EUE to definitively rule out IUP, and I keep going back and forth on whether this is the right thing to do. Really I don’t have any other options, but I wish we could wait until we would expect to be able to see something, so that at least I knew there wasn’t a chance. I’m just so confused, I’ve had no bleeding at all and no pain. I feel like I’m never going to trust my body to do this again. And on top of everything methotrexate is the only option they’re giving me for management when the pathology comes back because I’m 20 points above the HCG threshold for expectant management and they won’t do exploratory surgery even though this would be my second ectopic in 5 months and they admit there’s clearly something wrong with my tubes.

@yellowbeach: Thanks, and it turns out they were probably right about the ectopic, I still feel just as pregnant 24 hrs post EUE, but we never would have known if I hadn’t pushed for the EUE which prompted the doctor to ask for the level that showed HCG rising again. It stinks that another ectopic pregnancy is the answer, but at least we know and can be on the same page. What I don’t know now though is what this means for our future. I understand probability and know that just because we’ve had a two straight ectopics it doesn’t mean we’re going to have a third., but it’s so scary to try again without any real knowledge of what our risk is, because ectopic pregnancy is so rare and there aren’t any studies that my doctor’s can cite about outcomes after more than one. They just push to IVF if I’m nervous, which as you know is a whole other can of worms.