Increasing HCG

This past weekend, I had some chest pain and shortness of breath. The on-call (internist) was not very helpful so I made an appointment to see the nurse practitioner on Monday. I feel so lost right now. My regular doc left my practice to head a new PENN practice downtown. I could have followed her (PENN makes you choose a location and stick with it) but couldn't commit to driving that far. I agreed to see the new doc but she doesn't start until July. My Perinatal group won't see me until 8-9 weeks, Dr. Davis is just pain far and my GYN is on vacation. I can't win. So I took the 1:00 NP appointment yesterday afternoon. She is sending for an echo thinking I have some "regurgitation" from the increased blood volume. My EKG looked normal. She also drew labs that were originally ordered by my old doc but canceled by the lab. That was another issue altogether but I had the labs redrawn and asked her to throw in another HCG for the heck of it. Oh, and I also got her to order an ultrasound - I go tomorrow at 11:00!!!

Anyway, my HCG was 2336 at 4 weeks 4 days. With Missy Madame, my HCG was 388 at the same gestation. My levels are doubling at about the same rate this time as last time, every 1.3 to 1.5 days.

I have had a terrible upset stomach which the NP says is part of the whole "morning sickness". I have nausea but still have an appetite for very specific things. My craving this time around is angel hair with olive oil, tomato and shrimp. I had this for breakfast yesterday. With Missy's pregnancy, it was eggplant parm and sometimes it was just breaded eggplant. Interesting.

It is going to be easy to push myself too hard during this pregnancy. For example, this morning, my little monkey climbed out of her bed. So after therapy, she and I took her crib apart and reassembled the "toddler bed" portion. I moved a heavy rail, tipped the crib on its side and shimmied it back against the wall.


One more thing I want to mention for the purpose of "personal record keeping/journaling" - I took my last Dollar Store pregnancy test yesterday morning. It is amazing just how fast that thing turned positive. As the wave of color was moving across indicating the test was working, the test part turned red before the control part. It was a dark red. Forget the pink. And wiating one to three minutes, it was more like 1 to 3 seconds.

Just about 18.5 hours until my ultrasound!!! Is there one baby? Or are there two??