Let’s just cut
to the chase: it’s over[1].
I played with fire and I got burned. On Friday I went in for my second blood
draw, to see whether the pregnancy was progressing normally. The hope was that
my HCG level would have doubled (or, because I’m an overachiever, tripled),
signifying that it was viable (at least for now).
On Wednesday, my
number was a moderate, but perfectly respectable, 65.8. By Friday? 69. To say
it wasn’t living up to it’s potential would be one way of interpreting things.
The nurse broke
the news kindly: I’m sorry. This is what we call a biochemical pregnancy. An
early loss. A miscarriage.[2]
Then I cried through my mouth said some things amidst the tears – which must have been nonsense because she
offered to call me back after I took a minute to, ahem, get my act together.
But, bless her heart, I made her suffer, asking, essentially, the same question
in eleventy bazillion different ways: isn’t
there any way this could be a viable pregnancy?
‘Fraid not. But
she did have one exciting alternative: I could
have an ectopic pregnancy. Because I’m a sadist they need to make sure
I don’t, I get to return on Monday for another blood draw (my veins, and
patience, are wearing thin).