Chapter 4, HCG Levels

My first scheduled beta HCG level was for December 29th.  The two weeks between this date and the transfer felt like forever.  I recently joined a FaceBook page with other surrogates/gestational carriers and some of those girls pee on a stick EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. once they have a transfer.  That makes me crazy!  It just seems irresponsible to waste the money on that many pregnancy tests.  Plus once you have an HCG level high enough to test positive, why must you keep peeing on sticks!?  To compare yesterday's positive test with today's positive test!?  Okay rant over...so that said, I did have a home pregnancy test (from the dollar store!) that I decided to use the day before my blood test.  Within minutes I had my result:  2 lines=POSITIVE

It was such awesome news, I felt so happy that I just had to share with my IPs.  I texted them and asked them to call me, I wanted to tell them together.  Once they called back, I broke the news!  What a wonderful thing to tell somebody!  They have waited a long time and worked so hard to get to this point.

My beta HCG (that's a blood test that measures the actual level) on Monday morning was 403.  Next up was to repeat this lab and make sure the level was climbing.  It should double about every 2 days.  On Wednesday my level was 940. Perfect!!!  I was officially pregnant but with how many?  The put in two embryos and there is always a chance those embryos could split so I was scheduled to have an ultrasound on January 5th.  That ultrasound would also check for an ectopic pregnancy.  

YS= yolk sac, GS= gestational sac

So this image shows just one YS inside the GS which means 1 baby inside my uterus.  It's funny, some people were kinda disappointed that there is only one baby and not twins.  My OB doctor felt totally differently, he texted me after reviewing the ultrasound...and I quote, "Only one. Perfect."
The baby itself is too small to be seen on this ultrasound.  They actually measure the GS to date the pregnancy at this stage.  Next up is to repeat the ultrasound and look for cardiac activity.  We waited 10 days.   

My 2nd US was on January 15th:  The baby has grown!  In just 10 days you can now see the little fetus, the heart was fluttering, 138bpm, and you can still see the yolk sac.  Pretty amazing!

  

The baby measured exactly 6 weeks and 6 days.  My official due date is September 3rd.

The agency I am working with posted this on their FB page, I though it was pretty neat.  It made me feel special at least.

Thanks for reading!  Until next time!