Saturday, December 23, 2006

Bundle of nerves

Holy cow, this anxiety is intense!! I woke up yesterday morning feeling great . . . as in not yucky like I felt the day before . . . as in not pregnant anymore. Just had that feeling, you know? Had my last beta drawn at 7am and started the long 5 hour wait for the call . . . isn't there a quicker way? They should make home-serum-beta tests for us wackos. Anyway, thank you Jenn for trying to keep me calm, but that is an impossible task on a good day.

FINALLY they call at 1:30 (yes, even later than I expected so freaked out more), and beta was 1253. Didn't double. Didn't even rise by the minimum 66%. My heart sunk. For no reason. The nurse assures me its fine, that the number is so high above average for my dpo anyway, that she is not worried. She said it could be because my blood was drawn and hour earlier than Wednesday's test. Or it could be 3 reducing to 2 or 2 reducing to one. She was excited to schedule my ultrasound for next Friday. No more betas. Boo hoo.

So I run to the internet and hit my trusty beta-doubling-time calculators I have bookmarked, and start to assess the damage. Would love to make a beautiful excel spreadsheet for all of you to follow along, but I just don't have the energy at the moment. What I figured out is this:
  • Every website says something different. Some say betas should rise at least 66% in 48 hours, others say they should double in 48-72 hours.
  • Everyone website calculates differently . . . some give you doubling time in hours, some in days (with an annoying decimal), and one fab website actually graphs you results in comparison to "average". Like that one a lot.
  • Every website has different beta "averages". Can't they work together?
  • Every message board has horror stories with good betas, and miracle stories with low, non-doubling betas. They discuss vanishing twins, miscarriage, bleeding, etc, in comparison to rising or non-rising betas. Point being, I need to stop reading.
What did I learn to help me relax a little? Not a whole heck of a lot. But the common finding is that 1253 at 18dpo is pretty darn high. So that's what I'm going with. For now.

**Edited to add what I found on PubMed . . . gotta love online access to medical journals through my job!

I found a study that looked at beta HCG levels at 12dp3dt and predictability of pregnancy outcome. It showed that my beta levels were 97% predictive of ongoing pregnancy. Phew!!

2 comments:

Holly said...

Don't you hate that roller coaster of not knowing. I know it is going to take forever for Friday to get here, but your beta does sound really reassuring, it's high!! I can't wait for Friday to get here! You better be on here telling us the news girl!!!!

CariP said...

Fingers crossed for that u/s!!!