What next?

[dreamofdaughter]

How long after m/c does bleeding usually last? Mine is not yet heavy. I am wondering when to start LH testing. I assume after the bleeding stops?

I am feeling very guilty because I went for a massage on Friday and she touched my feet (didn't tell her I was early pg) and then the next day I had a bit of mucous with brown blood in the morning and then by the night I had a second episode of more blood loss. Then today I woke up with no symptoms and lots of blood loss. Do you think having my feet massaged did it?

Thanks for any help.

[atomic sagebrush]

No, I can promise you that this had nothing to do with having a foot massage. Losses just happen, unfortunately, and it is only very very rarely anything we did or didn't do. 99 times out of 100 these things that can cause losses are completely easy to avoid (like not drinking to excess during pregnancy) and the other 1 out of 100 time it's something like food poisoning that strikes like a bolt from the blue.

The length of bleeding time varies by individual and by the loss itself. The further along you are, the longer the bleeding ~may~ last (not always, but usually) and also the longer it may take for ovulation to occur.

Bleeding does not predict when your LH surge will come. I've had people who surged while still spotting from a loss and others went months with nothing happening before they finally ovulated.

So I want you to be on the lookout for two things - one is to treat this loss as a period and consider that you may surge and ovulate in about 2 weeks' time, and the other is that your body will simply pick it up with what your cycle was before you conceived. Or, neither could be true. But I'd be treating them as more likely possibilities than just a randomly timed surge will be.

[dreamofdaughter]

Thanks atomic. So I went to the dr on Sunday and he said it sounded like a m/c fbut wanted to check beta hcg. Well, all Sunday I bled a lot. By tonight (Monday), the bleeding has almost stopped. There weren't really a lot of clots but a lot of tissue. I had my levels checked this morning (Monday) around noon, they were already back to undetectable hcg. How is this possible? Can it go down so fast? I mean I wasn't PG for very long, and granted the test was very faint at 13dpo so I am thinking maybe implantation was late, but I definitely had symptoms of nausea and sore breasts.

[dreamofdaughter]

Also, when can I try again? Bleeding has stopped (after only 2 days!) I took my temp this morning after it had been hovering around 97.66 it dropped this morning to 97.29. And I had dreams of sex with DH sooo I am thinking maybe I am going to ovulate?? But even if I calculate from my expected day of AF that only puts me at day 5 of my cycle which is so confusing to me. AF usually lasts 5-7 days for me, I start getting CM around day 8/9 and I get a temp dip around day 11. I'm not sure if it's safe to try yet but I would really like to catch the post m/c egg on the slight chance I have a little more progesterone than normal hanging about. Do I need to get an ultrasound to confirm no contents left?

[atomic sagebrush]

Thanks atomic. So I went to the dr on Sunday and he said it sounded like a m/c fbut wanted to check beta hcg. Well, all Sunday I bled a lot. By tonight (Monday), the bleeding has almost stopped. There weren't really a lot of clots but a lot of tissue. I had my levels checked this morning (Monday) around noon, they were already back to undetectable hcg. How is this possible? Can it go down so fast? I mean I wasn't PG for very long, and granted the test was very faint at 13dpo so I am thinking maybe implantation was late, but I definitely had symptoms of nausea and sore breasts.

Yes, it can go down that fast (and in fact it's actually good when it does, it means you will ovulate sooner rather than later).

I would really tend to qualify this more as a chemical pregnancy and that means you can try again right away. Just treat this as AF, but keep in the back of your mind you may ovulate later (or even sooner, although that's less likely). Don't go off your normal AF days, but treat the bleeding as a period, if that makes sense.

At this stage of gestation there will likely not be anything left and even if there were it wouldn't be detectable by ultrasound. The HCG being so low already indicates that the products of conception are gone so I would just start OPK and prepare to attempt when the time comes.