ultrasound...

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
Hi all,

I just needed to get this out of my chest, i guess this is my way of dealing with a possible fact.

A few weeks back my wife found out she was pregnant. 2 tests and one of them predicted she was around 5 weeks. This was on the morning of leaving for holiday‘s. We immediately phoned our doctor who scheduled an ultrasound for once we are back.

While we were at home, my sister in law, who works is a radiology clinic and our brother inlaw is a Dr there, told us that a private ultrasound is not that expensive (30euros) and we decided to conduct an ultrasound. The doctor mentioned all looked normal for this time. We did the ultrasound, we could see the heart already beating. We were thrilled, happy, excited and scared, as this is our first child.

We came back home after holidays and got the appointment in our local clinic. The doctor mentioned all looked normal . This time we did not see the heart beating and the doctor told us to go back this Friday. We phoned our brother in law and he mention the possibility of a misscarriage. He Dr however did not mention this. Obviouly both of us are scared and the possibility of a miscarriage, but the doctor did not mention it. We got home and start googleing this and it only made matters worse... talking about the benefit of new technologies...

Needless to say our mental condition is going to down the drain. And to make matters worse my wife is a hausfrau and she sits at home studing german while I come to work. We hope for the best.

R.

2
Your doctor saw the scan, and your brother-in-law didn't.

Its a tough situation. But try to relax, trust the doctor in the room and go along on Friday. Maybe you can call your doctor to discuss your concerns with him or her

Good luck

3
look on the internet for headache symptoms and you can end up with a brain tumour......... so relax and wait for the doctor.

4
The first thing my Midwife told me when I got pregnant was to never ever use Google in terms of searching things about pregnancies. It just makes things worse!

I truly hope that everything is fine with the baby and that you can try to calm down. I don't know how far your wife is now, but reading I would guess around 7 weeks? Not seeing any heartbeat at that point is nothing bad at all! I guess I didn't see the heartbeat until week 12 or 13...

I do wonder thou why your brother-in-law even puts the idea of miscarriage in your mind? That's not the first thing you should tell expectant parents!

5
Have you picked up the phone and asked your Dr why he wants you back in on Friday?

This may be the easiest way to address your concerns.

Just because you - I assume you mean this vs. the Dr didn't point it out to you - did not see the heart beating doesn't mean that it wasn't there beating away.

Don't rely on an internet diagnosis or your BIL's opinion.

Ask the Dr to be open and honest with you.

Oh & good luck. Hope it all goes OK.

6
a) Everything looked normal

b) did you ask why you should come again so soon?

Good luck.

7
I'll echo everyone else and add though, due to my own sad experience, if there were something the doctor was concerned over, you'd have either been sent directly to hospital or asked to come back the next day, rather than a couple of days later.

Possibly the baby was not in a good position to see this, or maybe your wife ate something that was making things difficult to determine heartbeat (gurgly tummy making strange noises or whatever), and having you come in for another look on Friday is in hope to help settle your mind, rather than something to worry over.

(PS. Maybe a good idea to avoid broccoli, asparagus, brusselsprouts and similar foods on Thurs and prior to appointment on Friday)

8
First of all good luck no matter what happens.

I have had both successful and unsuccessful pregnancies and the first weeks is-there-a-heart-beat is nerve wrecking.

There could be many reasons for this anomoly. The second machine might not have been so sensitive for example. The doctor thought everything looked normal - hope for the best and go in on Friday.

Godd luck and keep us post.

9
What I want to add is that even if on Friday doctor says it is miscarriage I would go and check in another clinic on another day with another doctor. Sometimes they don't hear the heart and not because it's not beating. So check twice before doing any steps recommended by the doctor.

And the other important thing - help your wife to calm down. If it is miscarriage there is anyway nothing to do about is - just to accept. If the kid is ok, she does a lot of harm when she is nervous or crying or panicking.

Pregnancy is a very long period. She has to be patient and courageous. I wish you all the best.

10
And your wife would have symptoms, like heavy bleeding and terrible pains, and since you didn't mention this, it should be fine.

11
I agree to some extent. What you read online should usually not override the professional opinion of a dr but in some cases (mine included) having a bit of knowledge can be literally life saving when it comes to pregnancy and babies. Drs are only human and can't be expected to know everything. A little bit of research is fine. Jut don't spend every waking hour googling and try to make sure you are only looking at reliable sources. Stay away from pregnancy forums!

In the OPs case i agree though. I know its hard but there is nothing you can do excpt wait till friday. I really hope everything is ok with your pregnancy and you get good news on Friday.

12
Another reason you may have been asked to "come back on friday", is that, by my rough calculation you may be about 11 weeks now, at which stage they do a nuchal fold test.

Read up about this here:

http://www.baby2see.com/medical/nuchal_12weekscan.html

From my doctor I heard that it was only to determine downs syndrome, not any other chromosomal difference, and there are a few. (This is not an opportunity to start worrying about them(!!))

I second (or third) the idea that if there was no blood, there was no miscarriage.

13
Call the receptionist, tell her your problem and get an appointment for today or tomorrow.

It's not healthy for you or your wife to worry like this.

14
So here comes an off-topic: I can't believe they do this test before informing you and/or asking if you want it done. I remember my first pregnancy my doctor sort of blindsided me "... oy yes, and we're going to do this and that..." and since I was (too) young and stupid I didn't object. But that didn't happen with my second and third pregnancy, I said I didn't want the test. Because let's face it: What would you do if it was positive? - off-topic over

15
Be careful to say that if there's no blood..etc..then there is no miscarriage as this implies a viable pregnancy. One reason scans are so useful is that not all women will naturally miscarry and it then becomes critical to either start contractions with medication and/or surgery to remove the dead tissue.

Plus, not all women will have heavy bleeding with a miscarriage. It also depends on your body and how far along you are in terms of whether it will be very painful/heavy cramping.

*big hugs to the OP and his wife* I know it's a scary and sad thing to be going through and you're both in my thoughts. Please let us know how it all goes.

16
Hi R,

I fully understand your worries. My wife has been pregnant quite some times now (we have 4 kids), and every pregnancy was a nail-biting story. Every scan was nerve-wrecking, and yes, sometimes the heart was not seen on the early scans. Being a medic did not help for me, because I knew too well what can go wrong during early pregnancy. I will not repeat that here. If you are interested, get a good book about pregnancy from the library.

Now, in our experience, the time that we did NOT see the heart of our little one beating, it was in very early pregnancy. I do not recall exactly, but it was certainly within the first 3 months (within the first 12 weeks). In our case, the next ultrasound DID show a beating heart. So we were thrilled, and now that one will turn 5 years old next month.

However, one can never exclude the possibility of a miscarriage. Most miscarriages (3/4) will occur exactly during the first three months, although most of them will go unnoticed. The longer the pregnancy, the higher the changes of a live-born child, but you probably knew that all-ready. And no echo on day X is a guarantee that on day X+1 you still have a living baby inside. Having said that, it was always very heartening for us to see a beating heart on every echo.

Thus, the main message is; yes, it is possible that your wife has a miscarriage. And yes, on Friday you may again not see a beating heart, which may confirm a miscarriage. On the other hand, there is still a chance that the echographist just missed the heart in the previous echo, and that he/she (and you) will see it beating on Friday. I know it is a lot to bear, for us it was terrible and we could not sleep after having seen the heart NOT beating. But, like I said, the next echo was positive, and all ended well. An earlier echo is usually not the best option, although it will give a momentarily stress relieve that all is still well up to the moment of echo. Usually, it makes more sense to make an echo at a later time-point to deny or confirm a miscarriage.

For your own mind it is usually best to accept not to jump to conclusions and just wait and see. It is out of your hands, and no Dr or medicine can help you either way at this stage. Prayers will help.

I wish you and your wife all the best, and hope for a healthy baby!

P.S. for more read-up, you may want to look here and here .

KR,

Henk

17
For every 10 people that try to build you up, it only takes one to tear you down again.

Breath, have a coffee. Worry about the spilt milk, when its happened.

It would be more productive arguing with your wife if you're going to get a bugaboo or a stokke kinderwagen, in turquoise or jade...

18
Good book, trusted source: http://www.amazon.com/Mayo-Clinic-Gu...1738048&sr=1-1

19
Hmm. Although I agree that it is helpful to try and be calm, it is NOT harmful to be nervous or crying or panicking. Human emotions are fully allowed and NOT directly harmful. Of course, any rash action CAN be harmful. And any prolonged state of depression may also need you to seek professional help. However, it is perfectly normal to observe all kinds of emotions with your wife and yourself. You are only human...

20
And don't forget or underestimate the impact of hormones, they go roller coaster with you.