Pregnancy of Unknown Location for the 2nd time

[Guidedbylight]

Hi everyone, I'm a bit of a mess at the moment and just want to see if anyone has advice. I had an ectopic pregnancy back in August last year, which involved lots of spotting and near the end, a bit of pain too. It was treated with methotrexate at about 6 weeks LMP I think.

This month we've been TTC'ing, and my LMP was the 24th of December. I did an ovulation test on the 7th of January and I had a dark line - we had sex that night, then on the 9th the line was light so we didn't try anymore, and I presume I ovulated on the 7th/8th. Anyway on the 19th of January, I had some VERY light spotting (11-12dpo), then I had a faint positive on a First Response test on the 23rd which I was of course really happy about. For a week or so I was testing every other day to track the darkness of the lines and it has been getting quite a bit darker, but I was also doing Clear Blue Digital tests with the weeks estimator and even when I was apparently 5w 4w my LMP it was stil 1-2 weeks. I haven't done one since as I was just torturing myself! At around 5 weeks LMP I started having spotting - firstly pink, then turned into more of a browny discharge. This lasted just over a day, and was usually when I was doing a #2 on the toilet tbh! I've had nothing at all since, unlike with my prior ectopic where it was non stop.

Today I had an internal scan at the Early Pregnancy Unit and they couldn't see anything in my uterus the woman doing the scan did see a black 'spot' which she said could just be blood or the start of the pregnancy, if my dates are wrong. My left ovary has a 'lump' on it, and this was where my previous ectopic was so she said it may be due to that. She said my uterus lining was thickened, and I had not tenderness on each ovary/tube which is usually associated with ectopics.

So she said I'm either too early, I'm miscarrying/miscarried or it's ectopic. I was diagnosed with a 'Pregnancy of Unknown Location' and had a hCG blood test today, and will be having another on Friday (48 hours later). If it's increasing I'll be having another scan in a week which will hopefully help work out what's going on.

I want to remain hopeful because I've had no spotting at all for over a week and I've also had no pain (other than the odd twinge/cramp which is associated with pregnancy anyway), but I really can't see how I could be earlier than I thought given I know roughly when I ovulated, and haven't even had sex since that night! My cycles have been strange since the ectopic - started off about 35 day cycles, then my last one was 29, so I guess going my LMP date is a bit wrong. But surely if I ovulated 31-32 days ago, they'd be able to see the baby?

 

[TJF24]

So sorry you are going through this hun. Maybe it was just too early. I had a scan at the beginning of january thinking i was 5 weeks but hcg came back 400 and nothing showed up on the scan at all. I was just too early. I was 2 weeks behind according to my 11 weeks scan where i found out i was only 9 weeks.

 

[Guidedbylight]

Glad that everything was ok with you 😊 I phoned for my hCG results just now and it was only 147 😟 Just doesn’t make sense, even with my ectopic it was so much higher

 

[love.peace]

Sending love. I had an ectopic over Christmas and has surgery and part of my left tube removed on 28th December so I know the pain 😔 and I'm sorry.
However with my daughter I went for s scan at 5w1d and they didn't see anything. I went for another scan at 7w1d (the longest 2 weeks of my life) and saw her beautifully in the right place. So stay strong. I hope the blood results come back quick. We are try now and I know when I do finally get a bfp I'll be a nervous wreck xx

 

[NDH]

I has two pregnancies as you describe. My conclusion based on a lot of reading I did was that for some reason, dodgy egg, poor blood flow to uterus, implanted in a thin spot, or another reason, the embryo simply didn't grow, but continued emitting hcg and my body still acted as if it was pregnant. The first time I got to 10 weeks before discovering there was nothing on ultrasound and my bloodwork came back at 2, so it had already fallen back down and my body hadn't realised yet. The second time my tests weren't progressing much still by 6 weeks so I went for blood work and 3 tests 2 days apart all had the exact same hcg level. And my uterus was the same as you describe - nothing but signs of possibly very early pregnancy and no way the dates could match up. A week later it had dropped and then I started bleeding.

I have a hypothesis that phantom pregnancies are often this scenario that goes undetected for much longer.