Tell me about low HCG in early pregnancy

[jennmiller]

My SIL just had a frozen embryo transfer. She just had her second HCG test (less than 1 week after the transfer) and is absolutely devastated to find out that her HCH levels are rising, but not doubling, and not as fast as the doctors want. Her first test about 5 days after the transfer was 7. She had another one today and I don't know what it was, but all I could get out of my hysterical mother-in-law was "chemical pregnancy". Her doctors are telling her that the pregnancy is not viable even though it sounds like her HCG levels are rising, albeit slowly. With my first I had very low levels that took weeks to get to "normal" and start doubling. My firs thought is that it is way, way too soon to be making judgements about the viability of her pregnancy. Anyone have advice or a similar experience?

[MaerynPearl]

You are right, they are jumping to conclusions and freaking your family out for no reason. There is NOTHING you can tell for certain from HCG numbers, even their doubling time, that early. You cant determine a chemical pregnancy for certain (even if todays number was 8...) and you cant determine twins just by HCG numbers alone.

[jdg]

All I can tell you is anecdotal - I was sure I was pregnant last fall, but the test (which measures hcg) came back negative. Another week passed and still no period, so I tested again, still negative. I was SURE I was pregnant. I started taking 2-3 tests a week, and ALL were negative. I was about 7-8 weeks pregnant before my hcg levels were even high enough to register on the test. Since I didn't do anything to check actual numbers, just the yes/no tests, I can't tell you what my numbers were doing, but given that hcg obviously was not very high and I'm not 33 weeks along, I can't say that I believe that low hcg is necessarily a sign that the pregnancy is not viable.