Imagine being pregnant, the joy and excitement, and then a doctor tells you that you are not pregnant. You are carrying a molar pregnancy. The shock and disgust of feeling you were planning a future to have it ripped right from under you. A molar pregnancy? You have never heard of that, what is that? You wouldn’t have heard of it. Its so rare. Most doctors will go their whole career without seeing one and others might get only a couple opportunities to observe this rarity.
But what is a Molar Pregnancy?
It occurs when there are genetic problems with the egg and sperm when they try to form a fetus. Instead of a fetus, there is a presence of cysts cells in the uterus that look much like clusters of grapes with hair. Thay can grow at an extreme rate and give you high levels of the pregnancy hormone, HCG, that confuse your body into believing youre pregnant.
There are two kinds: partial moles, a mole with a deformed baby and complete moles, no baby.
A partial mole is when two sperm fertilize one egg. Instead of twins forming, a molar preganancy causes you to have an abnormal fetus and placenta. The baby becomes too deformed from too many chromosomes and usually dies. The mole can grow so rapidly it engulfs the baby within its tissues.
A complete mole is a fertilized egg with no nucleus. There is no material to create a baby from the egg. The mole begins to fill the uterus with no placenta to handle the blood wich causes vaginal bleeding.
Since a mole grows so fast, you can begin showing in earlier months then you usually would, meaning you could be ten weeks pregant but showing like you were thirty weeks, and experience pregnany symptoms at extreme rates. Nausea and fatigue will feel more potent that normally would and persist more ferociously then die as you get in to the second trimester.
Molar Pregnancy usually occurs to middle-aged women (40 and up) and teenage girls but is a 1 in two thousand chance of actually getting it.
How is it treated?
Usually a women with molar pregnancy will shows signs of bleeding, or miscarrying, between 12 to 20 weeks. Most would call a doctor or go to the hospital and once its discovered that it is a molar pregnancy, they will perform a surgery called “D and C”. This procedure will clean out the uterus, using suction, of the mole cells. But that is only the beginning of treatment and is probably why its such a difficult condition to emotionally overcome.
After surgery, you will have to come to the doctor or hosipital every week or two to get blood drawn. Your blood with have to be tested for the pregancy hormone. This could last a few weeks or it could last serveral months. Its a wait-and-see scenario but its necessary. In order to fully dertemine the mole is gone, your hormone level has to reach 5 or below to be negative. That doesn’t seem too bad except you might have come in the first time with a level of 100,000. If it doesnt go down, you might have to have another “D and C” or even chemotherapy as the mole could turn to cancer. Th chance is small, about 1%, but still very much a risk.
Even after it goes down, you will have to monitored for a year before you can even think about getting pregnant again. For some its easy sailing. They have this one problem and in a year they are good to go about their lives, even have healthy children with no complications. But for some its a beginning of a nightmare. Their will be women that have trouble getting their levels down or seeing them plateau. Some will have the chemo. Some will have problematic pregnancies after or have trouble even getting pregnant.
What about the aftermath?
Its hard enough to imagine the physical lose but does anyone imagine the emotional effect on these women? How can you mourn a child that didnt exist? It might be a roller coaster of emotions to hear that you won’t be having a baby, a tiny body that you can already see in the future, and an even bigger blow when you can’t start again as soon as you would like. Then their is the added stress of health. Now you have to be concerned about your future and be tested time and time again. Every test you will sit and wait to hear the results.
When its clear, will you try again? It is possible. You can have a successful pregnancy and healty baby after such a tramatic experience. Get the proper care and be monitored and it can be possible. In fact, it is probable.
Source:
http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/pregnancyloss/a/aa072599.htm
http://www.geocities.com/thornfield8998/molar/about.html
http://parenting.ivillage.com/pregnancy/pcomplications/0,,8g60,00.html?arrivalSA=1&arrival;_freqCap=1&pba;=adid=123456
