Not looking good

There was a heartbeat, nice and strong, at 178.  There has been growth too, up from 2 mm the last time to 15 mm today. The problem is, at the last ultrasound at 5w6d, it was measuring 5w6d.  Today, at 8w3d, the embryo is measuring 3-4 days behind, at 15 mm (16 mm is supposed to be the normal 8 week CRL).
Normal growth everyday is supposed be 1 mm. This baby is growing at 0.7 mm every day, which is exactly the value I calculated in my first pregnancy. I then had freaked out, everybody pooh-poohed me, and then my mom left, and I discovered my first miscarriage 5 weeks later, which just made it all so much worse.

When the doctor at RMA NJ was asking about my pregnancies, he specifically asked me whether there had been a slowing of growth between 2 ultrasounds (measuring on target at one point, and then behind the next).

According to the conversation I had with him, and reading the accounts of many many women freaking out, it is fine if you are consistently behind (For example, if you measure 6 weeks when you are supposed to be 7, but at the next ultrasound, the lag remains the same and does not increase). But if your growth lag increases with every passing week, then that pregnancy is *probably* on its way out.  This is borne out by both what the RMA-NJ doctor said they observe frequently, this study, anecdotal accounts on the internet,  and what I observed in my first pregnancy.

However, the other thing is that J has been barely eating, because her nausea is so bad. I'm hoping the slower growth is due to poorer nutrition;while that is far from ideal, many women who starve through the first trimester go ahead with no issues. She is also having dizzy spells, which make me wonder how her iron levels are. My RE advised against iron supplementation right now because it makes the nausea worse, but I wonder how anemic she is at this point, especially if she is feeling dizzy. I don't know if poorer nutrition retards growth, or rather, how poor the nutrition has to be to achieve this. She is atleast taking folic acid (and some vitamin D), but nothing else. I had a really long conversation with her about nutrition today, and her options.  We'll see how much good it does.

I've almost resigned myself to the fact that this one may end. If it does not, it will be a very pleasant surprise. My parents talked me out of testing again in one week, because if the lag has only increased but the heartbeat is still there, that just creates more stress. But, on the flip side, if the heartbeat stops soon, I don't want to wait weeks to discover that, for multiple reasons. As a compromise, we agreed to retest in 2 weeks.

What a good place to be in, again. I don't want to be the one freaking out. But I've seen warning signs in each pregnancy (except my second, which looked close to perfect till it was over) and when I talked about them, everybody told me to stop drawing conclusions on insufficient information and stop worrying for "no good reason." Unfortunately, I was right then. I'd really, really like to be proven to be completely wrong in this instance.