Ugh. I'm having a bit of a freak out over progesterone. As I've mentioned, I had a natural FET
with this baby. This means no estrogen priming, so no hyperovulaton to leave behind lots of
corpus luteum cysts to produce progesterone. Just one, naturally ovulated
egg. I also skipped progesterone in oil, which is easily measured in the blood stream and greatly increases progesterone levels. For me, it's been just Endometrin suppositories which don’t
show up in your labs since it's absorbed directly by the uterus.
My progesterone has been increasing pretty
consistently at a "low normal level" as my pregnancy progresses, which the RE has been
happy with since the transfer was natural. With PIO, they'd be looking for levels over 20 early on and a big jump when the placenta takes over. As you can see, the biggest bump I've had was 16.6 a couple hours after I'd put my progesterone in.
I am supposed to be weaning
off the Endometrin since I'm 11 weeks today but my labs at 10w5d
showed my progesterone was only 15.4. I would have thought that my placenta would have taken over and be
producing progesterone on it’s own by now, but it’s not making the jump. The RE
isn’t super concerned since this is still technically the lowest side of
normal and my estrogen is increasing, but I am freaking out. There's all sorts of studies suggesting that "91% of pregnancies with progesterone lower than 15 ng/ml will end in miscarriage" (source) and "Average progesterone in pregnancies that miscarry is 14 ng/ml; in healthy pregnancy: 32 ng/ml" (source). I'm terrified that my levels are low enough to endanger our otherwise perfectly healthy baby.
I
know some women just have lower progesterone but I don’t feel ready to
stop the Endometrin without a real increase. I only
have 1 day of Endometrin left and I just don't feel good about stopping.
