Understanding Potential Pregnancy After a Miscarriage: Symptoms & HCG Levels

Question
Ok this could be a long one. On March 7th 2007 I had a missed miscarriage, I had a D&C, bled, then a week later got even heavier bleeding, this died off after a day. I still didnt feel right so took a home preg test and it came out positive. I went to my GP and she done regular hcg checks on me weekly, this showed that my hormones levels were halfing and going back to normal. On the 22nd April I had my period, it was like a normal period for me. I have been having unprotected sex since then and yesterday done a pregnancy test as I felt pregnant again, it was positive but quite faint. I usually have short cycles of about 22/23 days and was wondering if I could be pregnant again or if this is still from the previous pregnancy, please help as I am getting really worried about the risk of me getting an infection if it is from my miscarriage. Thank you, Katherine  

Answer
Dear Katherine,

Usually hCG levels will decrease back down to non-pregnant levels within 4 weeks of a pregnancy loss. Occasionally it can take up to 6 weeks, but this is not necessarily the norm. Did your doctor check your levels until they reached the non-pregnant level? Many do, but there are some who don't if they have advised a 2-3 month waiting period before conceiving again.

At this point, you are 8 weeks past the pregnancy loss and your levels should have returned to a non-pregnant state by now. If a pregnancy test done within the last few days has come back positive, I would suspect it is due to a new pregnancy.

My suggestion would be to get a quantitative blood pregnancy test done at your doctor's office to verify the level.

I hope this information has helped you and answered your question. I wish you well.

Brenda