This post is one to help me on my journey towards healing. This is a deeply personal post but one I am making since after my experience I found out how common it is and how little it is spoken about. This is most likely due to the extreme pain physically, mentally, and emotionally that is endured. I post this as a way to let people know this is not uncommon and for those who are or have suffered the same experience I post to let you know that you are not alone in this.
My Ectopic Pregnancy Story On December 4th, 2019 I woke up earlier than normal. I peed on a plastic stick and waited anxiously for 3 minutes to see what the little screen would flash. After 3 minutes I took a deep breath and looked. YES. The little screen proclaimed. I gasped in an excited and shocked breath and ran out to Adam smiling. He looked at me with anticipation and I said “George is going to be a big brother”. With a huge grin Adam jumped to my side and embraced me as we looked at my belly and said “Hi baby”. For the next month we planned and dreamed about what our family of 4 would look like. We talked about nursery plans and finding out the gender this time. All the while I had a sense of dread deep down. I kept feeling that something horrible was going to happen but I pushed it out of my mind. I shared our news with people as a way to combat my fears. I even went and bought maternity clothes since ones from my last pregnancy wouldn’t work in the summer heat. Still the horrible feeling didn’t leave me and I was beginning to feel superstitious. I was particularly worried about ectopic pregnancy even though I had none of the major symptoms. Everyone who knows me well knows that I suffer from an anxiety disorder and so I, and everyone else chalked up my worry to anxiety. Then I started to spot. My heart sank but I called my doctor and got checked out with all the hope I could muster. It appeared as though it was all normal early pregnancy things and with a sigh of relief I carried on. Christmas came and went and I was feeling more positive as our ultrasound date approached. The night before our ultrasound I couldn’t sleep. Dread overtook me and I tossed and turned anxiously awaiting morning. When morning did come I couldn’t eat. I was too nervous. I couldn’t shake my worry. We arrived for the ultrasound January 3, 2020. I lay down on the table and feel the cool gel on my abdomen and I hold my breath as I look up at the T.V screen. The technician scans around and then switches to looking at my ovaries, saying she is doing some routine pictures. I don’t remember this from my first pregnancy and my heart rate sky rockets. The technician stops and says she wants to try an internal ultrasound because she is having trouble finding the baby. As I prepare for the second attempt the sinking feeling grows and tears sting my eyes. We try again, my uterus is a yawning cavern of emptiness. No baby, no heartbeat, no life. Again the technician looks around at my ovaries and then leaves the room. I immediately know something is horribly wrong and that there is no baby. Tears now stream down my face as I look at Adam and George. George pats my leg and looks up at me with his big grey eyes trying to figure out why mommy is so sad. We wait hand in hand for the radiologist. When she arrives she looks at us and says that there is no pregnancy in my uterus but there appears to be something near my right ovary. She suspects an ectopic pregnancy. I don’t hear anything else. My heart shatters. There is a baby just not where it should be. When the radiologist leaved a deep sob escapes my throat as I say over and over “I knew it, I knew somethings was wrong”. I can’t control the sobs now, George begins to cry and Adam is stuck between comforting his wife and his son.I don’t know how long we sat in that room but eventually we made the slow walk to our car. I feel numb. The next few hours consisted of speaking with doctors, getting bloodwork done, and waiting for results. 10 hours we waited for my results to come back. 10 hours of agonizing over what could be happening, over the loss we were experiencing. 10 hours of tears, anger, confusion, and deep sadness. Then, at 10pm I finally get a call from my doctor, who went above and beyond by waiting up for my results. She told me my hormone levels were very high which confirmed that I indeed had an ectopic pregnancy. She told me to go straight to the hospital and that they were expecting me. We scrambled to find someone for George, my parents graciously arrived and stayed the night. I kissed George and told him I loved him and then we made our way to emergency. The rest happened rather quickly. Once we arrived we saw a doctor right away who answered all of our many questions, patiently and in great detail. She then told us that the best course of action was emergency surgery. She said that they didn’t believe my right fallopian tube was damaged but there was a good chance that it wouldn’t be in good enough condition to save it. We agreed to go ahead with surgery and within and hour and a half I was on my way to the O.R. I had never had surgery before and was a nervous wreck. Adam stayed with me until the last moment. I kissed him and told him I loved him as I was wheeled away. A sweet nurse named Barbara took my hand after that and held it all the way to the O.R and continued to hold it as I was being put under. All the while telling me it would all be okay. The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room, Adam by my side. I remember being in pain and being cold. I also remember telling Adam to not get into an accident when he went home to sleep since it was 4am. I dozed in and out for the next several hours until Adam arrived back at the hospital. It was only then that Adam told me that in fact my right tube had ruptured but miraculously my body clotted the rupture and I didn’t bleed out. This moment was completely humbling. I should have been in a worse state than I was. I should have been a lot sicker. I could have lost my life but by some miracle I was alive and my internal bleed had stopped. There was still a vast amount of blood in my abdomen from the rupture. But the rupture didn't continue to bleed. I leave the hospital on January 4th, 2020 one month after I found out I was pregnant. I leave the hospital empty. Now I am at home with three stitched up holes in my abdomen, a missing part of my anatomy, and a hole in my heart. If only the embryo had implanted in my uterus, I might still be pregnant and carrying a healthy baby. But now instead, I sit at home, unable to pick up my son for 4 weeks. I sit at home walking through the journey of healing body, mind, and heart. I sit wondering who our little sprout would have been and grieving that I will never know them. I will never hear them cry, nor their little feet on the floor or their laughter as they play with their big brother. I know that this will take time to heal and I don’t want to rush the process. I am willing to sit in the knowledge that I survived as well as the pain of knowing that I lost a child. Goodbye our precious Sprout. Know that for the month that we knew about you and the two months I carried you within me that you were deeply loved and desperately wanted. Even though we only had you for a few short weeks you were ours nonetheless. All our hearts and love, Mommy and Daddy
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