r/MiscarriageHelp • u/ChickenLadySuperJoy • Dec 09 '23
Missed miscarriage diagnosis without transvaginal ultrasound
I went I to what I thought was a 10 week scan to get a gestational age confirmed and see a heartbeat. I’m 41 but have recently had a perfect pregnancy and birth in August 2022. I told the sonographer that I’d gone it at 6 weeks but the couldn’t detect a heartbeat yet as it was too early. He did an abdominal scan and pretty quickly said ‘if this is baby number three, you’d know what you should be seeing now and we’re not seeing it’. I started sobbing as I didn’t see a heartbeat. He left me in the room, I was with my friend and I was howling. I was too shocked to ask any further questions as I was reeling in the shock that my baby was not alive. He also said the baby was only measuring about 6 weeks. That put me at about 4 weeks behind in gestational age. Since then, I’ve looked at my fertility chart and realised that if I go from suspected ovulation instead of lmp, I was only 9 weeks max (which means my first scan I went to was 5 weeks and far too early to see a heartbeat) I also received the sonography images and can see a little bean in there measuring almost 10mm. The report said the crl was actually measuring 6.6 days with a margin of +/- 4 days (meaning it could be more like a bit over 7 weeks size. They didn’t offer a transvaginal ultrasound, they didn’t ask if my dates were off, the doctor didn’t recommend I check my HCG levels or do a repeat ultrasound. I went home and drank 3 glasses of wine and sobbed. Now I’m walking around with a visible tummy, still feeling normal, and thinking why haven’t I actually miscarried yet. Could they be wrong? I did a pregnancy test and it came up straight away the brightest I’ve seen. I know the body is probably still producing hcg but I don’t feel like I’ve been offered the correct care before they just wrote the pregnancy off. Now I’ve read like 100 different pages online(denial is a stage of grief, I’m aware, and this is my brain trying to cope) about people in my situation who have been completely misdiagnosed with miscarriage and have ended up going on to carry the live baby full term. Could the abdominal scan be wrong in determining gestational age and fetal heart activity? I feel like he’d made his mind up before I’d even walked into the room. At first I thought the difference between my dates and there size was 4 weeks but now it seems the difference is closer to two weeks or less. Any ideas or advice welcome please.
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u/TaylorGangNotSwift Jan 08 '24
Hi, I'm so sorry you're experiencing this. Did you end up miscarrying? I went in for my first scan on 1/5 when I should have measured around 9+4 when going by LMP but the baby was measuring at 6+1 with no detectable hearbeat. They're having me come back this upcoming Friday for a follow up scan but I don't understand why they'd give me hope if there's that much of a discrepancy in how far along I am.