Pregnancy Chronicle- Week 5

For the moment, this blog is offline because you aren’t supposed to tell anyone about the pregnancy until the risk of miscarriage is over.

Actually I was supposed to miscarry this week. Yes, that’s right. Simultaneously I found out that I was 1) pregnant, 2) going to miscarry.

Kind of shitty to news to get all at once. You are mourning before you even have something to mourn.

But let me back up to the beginning of the story.

I missed a period and was feeling like shit. For 2 weeks, I suffered from bloating and cramping that just seemed to get worse. Nothing I did alleviated the discomfort. (By discomfort I mean a real whopping OMG I’m going to die if this doesn’t stop, holy god something is wrong kind of pain.)

I took a pregnancy test. Followed the directions and everything. Negative.

A few days later when the pain wouldn’t stop, I took another. I did it first thing in the morning just in case. Negative.

Okay. I asked friends and family to see if anyone knew what was wrong. Good thing I did because it’s the same exact symptoms of an ovarian cyst.

I made a doctor’s appointment. She confirmed it was most likely an ovarian cyst, and sent me for bloodwork and an ultrasound to confirm. 4 hours of poking and prodding later, I got to leave the doctor’s office. Hooray!

Though as I was leaving, my cramps intensified further. Seems like the poking and prodding made stuff worse. I was pretty pissed about that, because I had psyched myself up for the doctor. I’m going to feel better! I’m going to the doctor! She will fix what is wrong! I had the whole happy ending played out in my head where the bad cramps and bloating were magically turned off after being examined.

The next day the doctor called back. I remember this conversation, so please take this as direct quotes.

“I have news for you. You’re pregnant.”
“What! I am!”

“But there’s a problem. Nothing showed up in the ultrasound. The blood tests confirmed you are pregnant but the hcg levels are too high. Since you are 6 weeks* pregnant, there should be a fetus in the ultrasound, but there isn’t.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“You are pregnant. The sperm met the egg and there is implantation, but no fetus. Sometimes they just don’t develop. It’s called a blighted ovum. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Is there any chance....”

“Yes, for sure. The ultrasounds aren’t perfect. I’ve seen many blighted ovums turn into healthy fetuses. But...”

“But what do you think will happen in my case?”

“Your hcg levels were too high. I think you should prepare yourself for a miscarriage. I’d like you to make an appointment for another ultrasound 7-10 from now to check again.”

“What happens then?”

“We redo the test. If there isn’t a fetus, you’ll have to decide if we should remove it, or let it miscarry naturally.”

Right well, there wasn’t much more to that conversation. It sucks to hear the news that you are pregnant, but not really because there’s no fetus, and you’ll be asked to decide between a suction procedure or 2 weeks of bleeding.

BTW still no relief from cramps and bloating.

It felt a little stupid to mourn, because what the hell are you mourning? There was nothing there to begin with. So for the next week, we didn’t consider ourselves pregnant. Just another illness we have to get through.

Next week, ultrasound #2.

*for those clever readers who saw “week  6” and said, “but this blog post is titled week 5”, you are absolutely right. And you may have guessed what is coming next.