Today was our first appointment. We spoke to financial first, got the “congratulations” from everyone my husband and I spoke to, then we were off to ultrasound. This is our first pregnancy and were/are so excited about becoming parents together. Got through the normal picture taking of my anatomy (quite painful as it was a vaginal US) and then on to see our baby. The first day of my last period was December 1st, this I am sure of as I was tracking it, so therefore I should be 8w2d. They measured the baby and our little one was measuring at 6w2d, and no heartbeat was found. My heart shattered as our tech told us this and I asked for her to try to look again, she did and explained all that she was seeing but still no sign of a heartbeat. From there we are moved to a room to talk with my doctor, he explained the possibility of a missed miscarriage but that we will wait a week and check again. He said that in these situations the baby just stops developing for no known reason, but that my body continues to support the pregnancy carrying on as if nothing has happened. This all is understandable to me, hurtful, but understandable. But here is where I am confused. Around 6w I was noticing some brown bleeding and was having mild cramping, I called my office four days in a row until I finally found someone to ease my worries. They did say my bleeding was likely due to a subchorionic bleed, which did show up on my ultrasound today. They brought me in on January 14 (I would be 6w2d that day and where the doctor is saying my baby stopped developing) to look at my blood levels which were HCG: 11,562 and Progesterone: 9.9. That was a Friday so they said I would come back on Monday to see where they were again. Monday the 17 at 6w5d my HCG nearly doubled and was 20,955. That’s where my confusion is, if my baby stopped developing at 6w2d then why were the levels from 6w5d doubled? I really wished I could have asked my doctor this, but in the moment I was in such a state of shock that all I could is nod as he spoke to us. I’m still in a state of shock, it’s like today didn’t happen and I can’t feel anything.

Picture is of our little baby. It was originally the doctors copy because the tech didn’t think to print one for us, which hurt as this may be one of the only things I have of our baby.