I'm very frustrated and scared at the moment. I might be concerned over nothing, or just misinformed, but if anyone knows anything I'd appreciate some outside perspective. I had an ectopic pregnancy mishandled in January/February of this year. Red flags were missed by my care provider, but my HCG doubled most of the way to 27000 and I reached 8w with no pain before rupturing. By some remarkable stroke of luck, I am pregnant again. I have been fiercely advocating for myself since the last time, and I've had many conversations with various doctors about what would be done differently if I were to get pregnant again...
5 week ultrasound was what I was told. When HCG hits about 1000, a gestational sac should be visible on ultrasound. This was written in my IVF plans (though I conceived naturally with my one tube while waiting!), and discussed at length before I was ready to try again.
Now that I'm pregnant, it has been sooooo hard to get that ultrasound. I found out on the Saturday of a long weekend, so I went to a walk in clinic. The doctor there gave me the ultrasound order, but didn't put any notes about when it should be done. He ordered a regular dating ultrasound. He told me in person it was for 5 weeks, though. He also ordered one single blood test - I argued that two would be better to track the HCG trend, but he insisted only the ultrasound could rule out ectopic, and the extra HCG testing wouldn't tell him anything.
Ok... So obviously I need to request this ultrasound on short notice, 5 weeks gave me 6 days (3 of which were long weekend) to get an appointment. There are no walk in ultrasounds in my area, so there must be a way to do that, right? ... right?
I went to my fertility clinic on Tuesday first thing, and got my second blood test there, so that's good. The nurses there were unfamiliar with my arrangement, and said it was impossible to get an ultrasound prior to 7w3d. I asked them to speak to the doctor please and check my file because it's written there. They did, and I'm supposed to get a "STAT" ultrasound order with my third blood test tomorrow.
I called every ultrasound place in a 50km radius, and filled out online forms if I couldn't get through to anyone. I kept getting told that they had no availability for the next several weeks, and even if they did, "it would be useless and just worry me because they won't be able to see anything". Like three separate places said that. Ultimately I have one scheduled for 5w5d, it was the best I could do, but they also said it was too early and there was no point, so I'm not encouraged.
Is the early ultrasound to check the uterus for a gestational sac actually that uncommon? Like, why are these nurses and imaging places not aware? Or have I been misinformed about this as a diagnostic, and it actually is useless?
And what was I supposed to do? I'm driving 45 minutes away to get this ultrasound, which I'm grateful to have the freedom to do, but what would I do if that wasn't possible? The next available appointment in my city was mid November, which would put me past 9 weeks. Am I just supposed to wait until it's an emergency, then go to the hospital? It doesn't seem right. I'm in Ontario Canada.