Cant post on previous post...

Because it is closed so I am asking here. How does HCG levels even work? So if you implant early you could have high numbers at 15dpo but if you implant later than someone else your numbers many be lower? I’m freaking out now because my number wasn’t in the 600 range until 16dpo maybe even 17dpo cause I’m not 100% sure which day I ovulated. I was feeling calm about this baby gender until I found out my brother and SIL (who I can’t stand - she’s the most argumentative, judgemental person ever! She is the very definition of maternal dominance theory. She emasculates everyone in her path) are TTC. Now I’m so worried they will get a girl and not me. :(

It's more about what your HCG level was to start with. Your HCG level can be anywhere from 0 to 5 and then it doubles.

So a person who started with 0 HCG would have doubling like this:

0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32

And a person who started with 5 HCG would have HCG doubling like this:

5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160

Both are "equaly pregnant" and both pregnancies are entirely normal and healthy, but they have wildly different amounts of HCG. That is why it is the doubling that matters and not the number itself, because people start off with slightly different amounts of HCG and even small variations become huge differences very quickly.

I don't think "late implantation" is as much of a thing as people make it out to be. Way way more likely that most of the time people think they "implanted late" that they actually ovulated later than they thought they had.

I'm not sure if you're worried about HCG for healthy pregnancy or gender though?? If for gender, you cannot tell your baby's gender from HCG levels. It is just a soft marker like height is - you can have a tall woman or a short man, and then most people fall in the middle of a bell curve. If you have a person who is 5-8 for example you have no idea what their gender is. Even if they're 5-10 or 5-6, you can guess, but have no way to know really.

So no matter what, whether it's for healthy pregnacy or for gender you can't use HCG levels alone to tell you anythign.

Thanks for the explanation and the math visual. Mine was below 2 and I know this because the dr wanted to test it the month before when AF showed up a week early. She thought maybe I actually was pregnant for some reason (still don’t get why but it doesn’t matter now).

Sorry again for the multiple posts. Weird they wouldn’t show up for this morning but now I can see them? Please feel free to delete. Sorry for the hassle.

I actually was feeling pretty calm about gender until I learned of my brother and sil trying. Then it hit me i could possibly have to see them maybe with a little girl about the same age as my child! Especially if mine is a boy. I was just feeling disappointed my hcg levels aren’t as high as I am reading from others. Obviously healthy is most important but learning about them trying right around the same time is just the worst timing for me emotionally. I feel like it was making my gender anxiety creep back this morning. Although, I had some bad news later today which kind of put things into perspective a little bit so I am feeling like I care less about what they have.

I’ll try not to put too much stock into the hcg results. Thank you.

No it's fine, it happens sometimes where there's a glitch or whatever. Would be more work to delete then just leave them. :)

Sometimes you can have heavy bleeding and be pregnant so it's always a good idea for them to test (particularly in case of tubal pregnancy) I had a 5 day "period" and ended up with a baby at the end of it.

I'm so sorry to hear of the bad news - but I promise the HCG level is WAYYYYY less a thing than people make it out to be. I have people all the time who are convinced they're having the "wrong" gender on that basis and end up getting what they wanted. So try not to stress over it if at all possible. :heart: