12 days after ET. Beta is only 19. Is there hope?

[Jeff31UK]

My wife had embryo transfer 12 days ago. 3 good fertilized eggs implanted. She had her blood test today - but the beta was only 19 (supposed to be 100+ to mean pregnant). She's having another blood test on Monday - but the clinic said things did not look too good.

Any hope for us?

[Ghost]

My wife had embryo transfer 12 days ago. 3 good fertilized eggs implanted. She had her blood test today - but the beta was only 19 (supposed to be 100+ to mean pregnant). She's having another blood test on Monday - but the clinic said things did not look too good.

Any hope for us?

She is pregnant. That hCG is coming from an implanted embryo. However, a low hCG level often indicates a weak embryo or perhaps something wrong with the implantation. Whatever the problem, those low ones usually just fade away or turn out to be ectopic, but not always. Sometimes they make it to live birth. There is some hope, but it may be best to be realistic that the odds are low.

Best of luck to you and your wife. I hope you beat the odds.

[Jeff31UK]

Thank you Ghost.

Anyone out there with such a low beta have it turn around and be Ok?

[DandMe]

There is always, always hope.... how are you both doing?

[Jeff31UK]

We just heard back. Her level went up to 29 on Monday, and is now back to 17 on Wednesday. The clinic say we should stop the meds and wait for the period. We're both very disappointed.

[DandMe]

I know how very hard this is. I had two chemical pregnancies last year at this time. The only comfort I found was that we did have implantation, for however short it was. I am sorry your cycle wasn't successful.. don't give up..

[mellowyellow]

thats such a tough thing to go through, because you get your hopes up... I've had 3 chemicals and its heartbreaking every time. BUT, there is hope to be taken from this. Your embryos were healthy enough to implant, even if only for a few days, and thats important. I don't know what lab work your wife has had done, but after my 1st chemical my doc ordered a panel of blood clotting tests, if your wife has blood that clots too easily it can prevent the embryo from implanting properly. they didn't find anything, but after I had another 2 chemicals pregnancys they ordered a genetic test to look whether I had a mutation in a gene called MTHFR. It also regulates blood clotting, and I have the mutation in one copy of the gene. This cycle, they put me on blood thinners (heparin) and I'm currently 5 weeks pregnant. Still got a long way to go, obviously, but I feel like the heparin was what finally did the trick for me. It might be something to ask your doctors about if you're going to try again. Good luck!

[shikha goel]

hi my beta hcg was 29 after two days it was 17 is there any hope pls hel[p

[Jeff31UK]

mellowyellow: our doctors are recommending she take baby asprin and dhea. I assume the asprin is to thin the blood slightly which may be for the possible clots. dhea apparently might help egg quantity and quality. Hopefully this will help. She just had her period - and after 2 weeks of birth control we plan to start again immediately.

We're wondering though - why didn't they put her on asprin/dhea on the first cycle? She's 39, I'm 35.

[mellowyellow]

baby aspirin seems to be a standard treatment, my clinic had me on that for all 5 cycles. I'm not sure why they wouldn't put your wife on it for the first cycle, especially since its such a cheap and innocuous drug! I've never had DHEA treatment but one thing I didn't have problems with was egg quality, I was really lucky there. I would just perhaps ask your doctor what other tests they can do, including blood clotting, before you start another cycle. My feeling with our clinic was that they assumed that I would get pregnant easily, I'm not that old, no problems with getting eggs, and the embryo quality was really good, so they just assumed everything would be fine. It was only after repeated failures that they thought about running some tests. Even if I'd had to pay for the tests they would only have been a few hundred dollars, and as it happened my health care covered them. I'm assuming since your in the UK it would be covered on the NHS anyway... I wish I'd asked sooner, because maybe we wouldn't have had to go thru so many cycles, but who knows! Maybe we just got lucky this time.