Tilted uterus. Difficult ultrasound?

jaapno11200112

Today I had my first ultrasound at what I thought was 7 weeks. The tech was having such a hard time getting a view of anything because of the position of my uterus. When she thought that she got a decent view her measurements showed me at 5 weeks 6 days. I was immediately worried. She was trying more angles and thought that maybe she saw a flicker of a heartbeat. I saw it too but the angle was so bad it was hard to see. I am going back in a few days to check again. They drew blood to check hcg levels and I am waiting for those results. Has this happened to anyone before?

AMAmom79

Yes, a retroverted or retroflexed uterus can make imaging difficult. Also, at less than 7 weeks getting a decent heart rate is challenging at best. As far as your dates, you are a week and one day off, that isn't uncommon to be off as many as 14 days, and as long as you are not having any problems, you should stop worrying about it. Everytime I hear of a doctor scheduling an ultrasound without blood work I just shake my head. Ultrasound is best used after 8 weeks, any earlier and it is a toss up on if you will see anything worthwhile.

delujm0

AMAmom79 said:

Yes, a retroverted or retroflexed uterus can make imaging difficult. Also, at less than 7 weeks getting a decent heart rate is challenging at best. As far as your dates, you are a week and one day off, that isn't uncommon to be off as many as 14 days, and as long as you are not having any problems, you should stop worrying about it. Everytime I hear of a doctor scheduling an ultrasound without blood work I just shake my head. Ultrasound is best used after 8 weeks, any earlier and it is a toss up on if you will see anything worthwhile.

What does blood work have to do with it? Your hcg number cannot tell you how far along you are. Most doctors only do blood work for high risk or previous loss moms.

I do agree though that having you come in at less than 8 weeks from lmp is silly though...it's very difficult to see anything valuable prior to 7 weeks, so if you go in at 7 weeks and are even a few days off it can wind up being a waste of time.

SnarkasaurusRex

I have a retroverted uterus. My OB didn't even send me for an ultrasound until 10 weeks because she knew imagining would be difficult. Even that far along, it took the tech a while to be able to get a good image using the transvaginal probe, and the pictures I have are not as clear and nice as my friends who had them done around the same time. Even still, it's hard to see a lot at 7 weeks anyway, so I wouldn't stress about it. As long as your HCG is doubling appropriately, you don't have anything to worry about.