5 Steps to Take When You Have a Pregnancy after Tubal Reversal
Once you have had your reversal surgery, what do you do for pregnancy after tubal reversal? There are a few steps you should take and these are covered below.
Let’s start with learning if you really are pregnant. Since you are showing signs of being pregnant, you will want to test and see if you really are. There are two ways you can do so. One requires a visit to the doctor’s office. That is where your blood will be drawn and tested. The other is by buying a home pregnancy test which uses your urine to test for a positive. As the later are usually accurate to 97%, you should pick one up at your local supermarket and test.
If it is negative but you still show symptoms of being pregnant, you now have two choices. Wait a couple days and re-test with the home pregnancy test or go to your doctor and get a blood pregnancy test done.
Once it is confirmed you are pregnant, then the twice weekly testing begins. For these tests now, you are concerned with the HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, levels in your blood. HCG is the pregnancy hormone. Dr. Gary Berger, the foremost tubal reversal doctor in the world, recommends these tests be done every two to three days.
When your HCG hits 1500, then it’s time for the next step. You will want to have an ultrasound done. What your ob/gyn doctor should be looking for is the gestational sac in the uterus.
If a gestational sac is seen, you’re good to go. However, if not, you will need to do the HCG test and ultrasound again in two days. Although that may not be comfortable, there’s a chance your doctor will not see the sac until HCG reaches 2500.
Within about a week of the gestational sac showing up another ultrasound should show the yolk sac. This will be yet another indication that this is truly an uterine pregnancy.
The reason for all the testing and ultrasounds is really quite simple. After a tubal reversal, there is an increased chance of an ectopic pregnancy by 10-15%. You are testing to be sure you are really pregnant and that the egg has implanted in the uterus. You don’t want it to be developing in your tube. You especially don’t want that after having gone through the surgery to reconnect your tubes. They hold the promise of your future children. If it turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy, you want to know right away so steps can be taken to make it all safer for you and your tube.
One last step of this pregnancy after tubal reversal protocol remains to be discussed. If you are a patient of Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center, you should submit a Pregnancy Report as soon as you know you are pregnant. In addition, if you have any questions or concerns, they are there to help you seven days a week. You can still get support after your tubal reversal surgery from Dr. Berger and his staff.