Miscarriage and Pregnancy

My last cycle was 8/26/23. I found out I was pregnant with a very faint positive on September 15th. Followed up with my local pregnancy center to confirm on September 26th, which was a faint positive, and given a due date of June 1st, 2024, based of my LMP. My cycles have been pretty irregular for the last year, and have been anywhere from 35-47 days to 48-66 days long. I had a miscarriage in April 2023, so I think that partly had something to do with my irregularity.

So, once I got a positive test with the pregnancy center, I called to schedule an appointment with my OB, which was scheduled for Oct 16th. September 29th I started feeling light cramping in my left side on and off all day, took some Tylenol, and felt a lot better. A week later, on Oct 6th, I started spotting, I mean it was extremely light, I barely noticed it. My husband and I have unprotected sex that evening (Oct 6th), and then on Sunday, Oct 8th, I woke up to brown spotting, which I’d only notice whenever I’d wipe. I kept an eye on it throughout the day, and it eventually turned pinkish, but was never enough to need a pad, or painful enough to need any kind of pain medicine. Whenever I woke up on Monday, I still noticed it, but it became more pinkish red. I continued to monitor it, and by Monday evening, I decided to go to the ER just for some reassurance on the progression.

When I went to the ER last Monday, I would’ve been 6 weeks, 2 days. However, once they completed the ultrasound and took my HCG, it showed I was only 5 weeks, 2 days, and HCG was 829. MD wasn’t concerned since everything lined up, even though I was a week off, which he said was fine given that I have irregular cycles and not sure what I exactly ovulated. So, he told me to follow up with my OB within a week, which I did, on Monday, the 16th. I told the ultrasound tech everything that I’d been experiencing, as far as test results and ultrasound findings, and she reassured me that if we didn’t see anything today, it’d be completely normal, since they don’t recommend an ultrasound before 10-12 weeks.

So, we completed the ultrasound and she tells me that she didn’t see the baby, and to not feel discouraged. The midwife said she’d check my HCG levels again, and that if they went up, that’s a great sign and that she wanted me to dome back in 7-10 days to have a repeat ultrasound done because they’re seeing something in my uterus, but that it’s small and they don’t want to intervene on what could potentially be a viable pregnancy. I asked her if what they’re seeing on the ultrasound looked bigger or smaller than what was seen on the ultrasound from the ER last week, and she said she couldn’t see the ERs results, but that she didn’t want to go off of size because everyone uses different standards of measurement and that because my cycles aren’t the regular 28 day cycles, it makes it difficult to decipher the ultrasound for as early as I am, which is understandable.

So my ultrasound is scheduled for next Tuesday. However, my HCG levels came back from this Monday and they’re 171. So she messaged me and told me that we’d discuss options at my next appointment next Tuesday. However, I was technically only 5 weeks when I miscarried. My husband and I have had unprotected sex before I started miscarrying and 3x since I stopped bleeding last Wednesday. I took a pregnancy test this morning, and it’s a faint positive. If my HCG levels were 171 on Monday, and they decrease overtime, wouldn’t they have already been down to zero by Monday if it weren’t a viable pregnancy, or wouldn’t they have gone down a lot since then to have had a negative pregnancy test today? I am experiencing what looks like implantation bleeding, but I don’t know if it’s spotting from the miscarriage or if I could potentially be pregnant again. Can someone offer advice who’s been through this before? How long does it take for HCG levels to reach zero if I miscarried early on?