More Number Crunching

I had meant to write the post several days ago, but with the holidays, time got away from me. When I had the heartbeat scan last last Wednesday, my doctor said the baby was measuring 5W5D, which see said was only 1 day off from her calculation that I was 5W6D and 1 day difference was not significant. We did discuss pregnancy dating and she is dating by conception, but she is defining conception as occurring 2 days after the 2nd IUI. This is almost physically impossible given that I was using donor sperm and the trigger shot would force ovulation to occur earlier, but by that point, we had been back and forth on the issue a number of times, so I just let it go. I mean why schedule IUIs at 12 hours and 36 hours post-trigger if conception occurs so late? I think really the latest that conception could occur would be the day after the 2nd insemination and the day of the 2nd insemination is more likely. If I use my dating, that would mean the baby is measuring 2-3 days behind. This concerns me some, since that seems like a significant amount of time so early in pregnancy. I'm trying not to worry too much.

I did ask my doctor as well about the bleeding that I had experienced. She saw no evidence of bleeding on the ultrasound and she felt that the bleeding was probably from cervical trauma from the IUI. I'm not buying that explanation either. I had bleeding as late as 16 days past the last IUI and I think cervical bleeding would show up a lot earlier plus there would be less blood than what I had. I had 2 bleeding episodes overall -- one at 8-10 days past the IUI and one at 14-16 days. I'm pretty sure the one at 8-10 days was an Estrogen withdraw bleed that I normally get during injectable cycles and that would precipitate an early arrival of AF. My doctor said this withdraw bleed would not occur if I was pregnant, but I don't think that is true. I have no idea what caused the later bleed. In general, I know my clinic does not really view bleeding in early pregnancy as indicative of any underlying problem, so I'm trying not stress about it. I haven't had a bleeding episode in 2 1/2 weeks, but I have been having fairly persistent cramping for the last few days. It isn't painful or really comparable to AF cramps, so I'm hoping it is just the uterus stretching.

I did ask to be called with bloodwork results and my old nurse, who I really love and who has since been promoted, called to give me the numbers. My hCG levels were up to 10,708 and my progesterone had fallen slightly to 14. That puts me at a doubling time of about 62 hours since my prior Beta. I was expecting levels to be a bit higher, but I think that is still fine. That still puts me at only 10% off the median for 29DPO according to the Betabase site. If my doctor is right and I ovulated later, then I would actually be above the median.

I go back to the doctor tomorrow for another scan and more bloodwork, so I will have more numbers to share then and, hopefully, more good news. If all is well, we should be able to hear the heartbeat, which will be very exciting.