Community Chat

[beach ladydrb]

My daughter and her husband are newly pregnant, first time. She had an ultrasound this week which showed she is 6 weeks along. It looked perfectly normal except there was no yolk sac or fetal pole yet. Her hcg levels are rising steadily and everything else is normal. Is this unusual for this stage of pregnancy? She tends to be a worrier and is already imagining the worst.

[lolakimono]

IDK, but I found this for you:Considerations

Since many women do not have perfectly regular menstrual periods, dating of a baby in the womb can sometimes be off by a few days, or even a few weeks. Ultrasounds performed at early points in the pregnancy, such as a six-week sonogram, may be inaccurate due to mistakes in dating how old the pregnancy actually is. If the dates are off by a week and the embryo is actually only five weeks old, for example, things that should be visible, such as the fetal pole or heartbeat, may not be detectable yet. Because of this uncertainty in dating, doctors will usually advise a repeat sonogram in a week or so if anything unusual is detected.

[beach ladydrb]

Thank you that makes sense because she is not certain about when she conceived.

[onlyshopsonline]

Did the doctor mention any concerns, or did she just notice the missing yolk sac and fetal pole on her own?

My daughter is expecting our second grand baby, and her first ultrasound, for each pregnancy, was always scheduled for between 8-9 weeks. And, as lolakimono stated, if she's not quite 6 weeks, due to miscalculations of her due date, there are a lot of things that won't be visible that early.

I'm curious about her doctor's explanation. If he/she had any concerns, I'm sure they would have been brought up.

ETA: I just did a little Googling and found that the fetal pole isn't visible until at least 8 weeks, via an abdominal ultrasound.

[beach ladydrb]

The nurse practitioner seemed surprised that she didn't see the yolk sac on ultrasound and said maybe her dates were off. She ordered 3 sets of hcg hormones and they are steadily going up. The size of the gestational sac is consistent with a 6 week pregnancy. I was a little surprised that they expected to see any thing inside the sac at that point.

[onlyshopsonline]

On 12/31/2014 mineralgirl1 said: The nurse practitioner seemed surprised that she didn't see the yolk sac on ultrasound and said maybe her dates were off. She ordered 3 sets of hcg hormones and they are steadily going up. The size of the gestational sac is consistent with a 6 week pregnancy. I was a little surprised that they expected to see any thing inside the sac at that point.

I bet everything is fine! I remember my daughter, and I, worrying about everything with her first pregnancy. I've hardly given this second pregnancy much of a thought, except for the anticipation of a new granddaughter.

Nature will take it's course. Sometimes I think we find out about pregnancies too soon. And, with ultrasound that is now frequently used, we look in on the process at such a early stage. All of the testing is important, but my husband always says that he feels like we're getting a peek where we don't belong at this point.

[beach ladydrb]

I agree only shops! Thank you!

[Zoologist_1]

Don't know what happened to my reply - did you post this more than once?

Maybe it's an ectopic pregnancy - the US showed a placenta in the uterus, HcG levels rising, etc., but it was an EMPTY placenta, because the embryo was actually growing in my tube.