A Little Bit Pregnant

Is it possible to be a "little bit pregnant?"
Everyone has always said that
there's no such thing.
They are wrong.
Being a "little bit pregnant" can catch
a woman totally off guard.
In the infertility world,
a woman usually knows she's pregnant
2 weeks after conception.
And the date of conception is almost
always known.
Women using assisted reproduction
are taking their pregnancy test before the
average person would even be saying,
"I think my period's late."

The term for being a little bit pregnant
is "blighted ovum" or chemical
pregnancy.
Basically it means an
"anembryonic pregnancy."
A pregnancy with no
embryo.
The body makes a sac inside
the uterus but
the embryo never develops.

It can show one of two ways.

1) The pregnancy test is positive but
the pregnancy hormone level is too
low or doesn't rise appropriately.
The patient and the staff are cautiously
optimistic and have a warning that the
pregnancy may not go on.

2) The second way is harder.
The pregnancy hormone can be
fine, rise appropriately and the
woman feels pregnant. However,
at the first ultrasound, there is an
empty sac. There may not be any
bleeding or symptoms.

Usually a blighted ovum or
chemical pregnancy occurs
from a chromosomal abnormality
or from a poor quality embryo.
It occurs in 50 percent of first
trimester pregnancies.
There is no treatment and
fortunately, it can be just a
one time thing.

It doesn't matter what name
you want to give it. To the woman
experiencing it, she is pregnant
and she is having a miscarriage.
She needs to know that there
is nothing she did to cause it
and there is nothing she can do to
prevent it.

In the end, the medical community
will say that she wasn't "really"
pregnant.
Call it what you want, a "little bit
pregnant," blighted ovum or
chemical pregnancy.
To the woman experiencing it,
she WAS pregnant and is
entitled to the grief that comes
with losing a pregnancy.