14dpt – Beta HCG 521

November 9, 2010

I did #2 Beta today and HCG level is 521. Nice and strong. 🙂

My HCG level is a little bit high at this stage – about 3 times higher than 3 days ago. We are not sure if it will be one or two or even three babies growing in my uterus- we transferred 3 3-day embryos. I did some online search regarding HCG levels in single and twin pregnancies.

HCG levels in pregnancy

HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, is a hormone made by the pregnancy that can be detected in the mother’s blood or urine even before the woman’s missed period. This hormone is what we look for with a “pregnancy test”.

HCG is first detectable in the blood as early as 7-8 days after ovulation by very sensitive HCG assays (research assays). In real life, blood pregnancy tests will be positive (> 2 mIU/ml) by 10-11 days after HCG injection or LH surge.

In general, the HCG level will double every 2-3 days in early pregnancy.

85% of normal pregnancies will have the HCG level double every 72 hours.

HCG levels peak at about 8-10 weeks of pregnancy and then decline, remaining at lower levels for the rest of the pregnancy.

There is a large variation in a “normal” HCG level for any given time in pregnancy.

NORMAL SINGLE PREGNANCIES

Day after HCG or LH	Average mIU/ml	High mIU/ml	Low mIU/ml	#
14	48	119	17	12
15	59	147	17	18
16	95	223	33	23
17	132	429	17	21
18	292	758	70	19
19	303	514	111	23
20	522	1690	135	13
21	1061	4130	324	12
22	1287	3279	185	22
23	2034	4660	506	13
24	2637	10000	540	16

HCG levels from normal twin pregnancies

Twin pregnancies tend to show higher HCG levels on a given day of pregnancy. However, there is a large variation in HCG levels between pregnancies, and great overlap exists between single and twin pregnancies.

NORMAL TWIN PREGNANCIES

Day after LH or HCG	Average mIU/ml	High mIU/ml	Low mIU/ml	#
14	68	313	56	7
15	38	159	26	9
16	146	803	112	12
17	154	542	52	8
18	360	1760	200	9
19	499	2509	215	13
21	963	5859	631	10

The information in the table above is part of a study carried out by Dr. Sherbahn that compared HCG levels from single, twin and heterotopic (combined intrauterine and ectopic) pregnancies.

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