Help Please?

What is the name of your state? Arkansas
I have a friend who was/is trying to get pregnant & went to her doctor on July 28th. His Nurse called her & told her that she was pregnant (my friend had a blood test done to see if she was)

On August 2nd, my friend started bleeding & went to the ER because she thought she might be miscarring. The hospital ran urine, blood & 2 ultra sounds & the results came back that she wasn't pregnant, nor had she been. She was just having her period.

Now my friend is expecting a huge bill & she wants to know if the orginal Doctor who told her she was pregnant is in any way liable as she would have never gone to the ER & had the unneeded tests done if she hadn't been lead to believe she was pregnant & then thinking she was possibly miscarring. How does she go about getting her lab results from that doctor & will she need anything else from him or his office?

This same thing happened to me. You are describing a "blighted ovum". In this condition, the afterbirth which produces the hCG that gives the positive pregnancy test forms, but the baby formation is absent or incomplete. In consequence, there appears to be a pregnancy (the test is positive, all the symptoms and signs occur) but there is no baby.
I was told that my uterus was the size of a 11 week pregnancy. I also was concerned when I started to bleed a couple of weeks later, went to see my dr and an ultrasound was performed which showed no baby. Dr. said that my body probably absorbed the egg, but didn't realize it and continued to show the signs of pregnancy. I had to have a D&C and was told not to get pregnant for 6 months. I know this is a tough time for your friend, but I don't think the Dr could have done anything different if this were the case. If it's any consolation, I was able to get pregnant within a year with no complications.

I appreciate your thoughts & I've heard of what you had described the only thing is that while at the ER, the blood, urine & ultra sounds didn't come back postive for pregnancy, hence her first blood test at her doctor's was wrong. The hospital said she wasn't & had not been pregnant & showed concern as to who thought she had been.

dcw888
Tell your friend to ask to see the pregnancy test results at her doctor's office. Compare her name to the name on the test, likewise for patient numbers, dates of birth, date of test.

If the report is the report of her test, ask the MD for an explanation of events.

EC

To add to what Ellen said, she will need all test results with the date and times of collection, to determine if she was incorrectly informed she was pregnant. It is important to know the lab for they usually do the blood tests.

There are two types of Blood tests for HCG. One is quantative this gives an amount, the other is qualitative it says y/n but you don't know the threshold. So it is possible to have a positive test one place and a negative test another depending on the type of test or lab. With a quantative bHCG a reading over 5 is considered positive. HCG doubles every 2-3 days in a normal pregnancy. So it would be important to know the level of HCG on the first test 7-28-4 and how many days past the last period (LMP), length of cycle. She may have tested positive but already started to lose the pregnancy, usually these levels are tracked in 48 hours if there is a question as one test by it's self doesn't tell the whole picture but no reason to give if levels seem appropriate for days post LMP and no other symptoms. It is more likely to get a false negative than a false positive unless the woman is on certain medications or has certain antibodies.

It is possible for the hospital to conclude she was never pregnant if her levels on 7-28-4 were low to start with and declined, or if they used tests with higher thresholds. It is also possibly that it was too early to find a pregnancy on ultrasound, and like bHCG test there are two methods, vaginal and abdominal which is why she possibly had one of each, but if it was <5weeks +/-5days LMP they might not see it at all. It would be necessary to thoroughly examine to avoid the risk of undetected ectoptic pregnancy. That early in pregnancy there is little to be done to save a pregnancy.

How a person is counseled at this point may be subjective. The medical provider may feel better telling them they were just having a period rather than a miscarriage if it was too early to tell and they couldn't be sure, without taking onto considertion the cost of the ER visit.

Depending on age, between 20-40% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. We have tests that detect a pregnancy earlier, therefore many women experience a miscarriage when in former years it would have been a missed or late period. We also save women's lives and reproductive futures by catching ectopic pregnancies sooner and deliver many more high risk pregnancies than before. Even so, there are some risks even to the examinations and ultra sound proceedures.

Apologies to the poster for jumping in here, but just wanted to say hi to my friend Ms. Cupcake - haven't seen you around for a few days!

cbg said:

Apologies to the poster for jumping in here, but just wanted to say hi to my friend Ms. Cupcake - haven't seen you around for a few days!

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Geee I've been here, guess we just haven't bumped into each other, Thanks for asking