Early miscarriage, sharing experience

Hi,
I’ve decided to share my early miscarriage experience as I felt very anxious before it happened and looked all over the internet for people in a similar situation to try to predict what was going to happen to me
I am 36 yo. I found out I was pregnant before my period was late using a very sensitive urine pregnancy test. I probably wouldn’t recommend doing a test this early, as a lot of pregnancies do not pass this stage - they end before the day your period is due and you don’t even realize you were pregnant. Doing a test this early can cause a lot of emotional distress, as you celebrate and get attached to the idea of being pregnant, when there is a good chance it won’t go ahead. So probably wait at least until your period is late or a little bit after.

Well, once my period was 2 days late (I was 3 weeks and 5 days pregnant) I did my first blood test and the HCG was 16 (considered equivocal). I expected it to be positive and not equivocal, since the urine test was clearly positive but didn’t think much of it. I decided to repeat it a week later to be sure it would become officially positive. At 4 weeks and 5 days, my HCG was 158. This hcg was expected for someone 3-4 weeks pregnant, not 4-5 weeks like I was. However, it had about doubled every 48 hours, which was an adequate progression, so I tried to reassure myself.
I was wearing a pad everyday to be able to tell if any suspicious discharge happened. I noticed minimal light brown discharge on my pad sometimes. I knew this was common in early pregnancy. However, since I was already a little suspicious of my HCG, I went for another repeat. At 5 weeks and 6 days, another repeat HCG showed 785. I was almost 6 weeks, when the hcg should be around 4000. These variations in hcg however can happen and some people are not necessarily at their exact range but can go on to have healthy and normal pregnancies. What was concerning though was the fact that my hcg had stoped doubling every 48 hours.
Again, this doubling rule is also not perfect. I started looking for evidence of healthy pregnancies in people that were not doubling their hcg levels. I found sources saying the very minimal is an increase of 49-50% every 48 hours. I also found one place mentioning a 35% increase as a possibility of still a viable pregnancy.
(Please note that I am talking about hcg progression very early in pregnancy. Once hcg reaches higher values, it doesn’t go up as quickly anymore and it stops doubling). In any case, my situation was concerning but not yet a definite problem.
I wanted to have an US to make sure everything was ok. Once HCG levels are not progressing very well, a couple of possibilities exist: it may be a normal pregnancy with a slower hcg progression; it may be a blighted ovum; it may be a sign of miscarriage; it may be an ectopic pregnancy.
Normally, to be able to visualize something on the transvaginal US, your hcg should be around 1500-2000 at the very minimum. So they thought it was best to follow my hcg progression for a little longer before attempting an US
I waited around 48 hours and repeated my hcg: 819 (at 6 weeks and 1 day); in 48 hours it went from 785 to 819. It was an insignificant increase and I was sure at that point that something was wrong.
Again another 48 hours wait (6 weeks and 3 days): hcg 875….
At this point I was advised to have an US to try to exclude an ectopic pregnancy. They saw something inside my uterus that looked like an empty sac. However, as there was no yolk sac, no fetal pole and no heartbeat, they couldn’t say for sure it was a gestational sac and they told me they could not exclude an ectopic pregnancy yet.
I was told that same day that they were already happy to “call it”, which meant to diagnose my pregnancy as unsuccessful… they offered me the option to wait, to have misoprostol to induce the miscarriage or to have a dilation and curettage. Since they couldn’t even tell me it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy, I decided to wait a little longer
The wait however was very difficult . I was so sad about what happened… and there was always that little hope that maybe something would develop on the next US and I was just an unusual case of slow to rise hcg. Weird things happen. It was probably irrational to hope things could be normal… Also there was the background fear of an ectopic and the chance of having a ruptured tube and etc.
Up to this stage I was being managed on the public system but decided to connect to a private O&G for some second opinion. He advised repeat HCG at 7 weeks and 2 days: 1869.
It was strange that a “doomed” pregnancy had suddenly decided to get such a raise in the hcg. Was there still hope? Another emotional roller coaster. I went for another US… This time they could at least say that I had something in my uterus very suggestive of a gestational sac, which kind of ended the fear of an ectopic pregnancy. But once again, no yolk sac, no fetal pole… I was 7 weeks and 3 days , at a point where even a heartbeat can be seen in most cases but not even a yolk sac showed up in my scan.
My doctor explained that if I was sure of the dates (which I was), we could be confident that the pregnancy was not progressing appropriately at that stage. I was again offered the option to wait and see if I would miscarry spontaneously but the wait was too emotionally challenging for me, after all the stress and false hopes I had gone through. I decided to go with a dilation and curettage, which I had yesterday… I am still waiting for the pathology results to definitely confirm the pregnancy was inside the uterus.
Please don’t take my case and my numbers as a rule, as every pregnancy is different. Especially if you have irregular periods and are not so sure of your dates, don’t rely too heavily on hcg values. Also don’t despair if your hcg doesn’t double every 48 hours as there is a big range of variation that is still normal, but if this happens to you just talk to your doctor and make sure you have appropriate follow up. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have and hope sharing my story could be helpful in some way. I will try to get pregnant again as soon as my period returns and hope I can come back with a happy ending