What I’m about to share with you is very personal. I don’t know many women who have had an ectopic pregnancy & talks about what they went through. I know I talked about the first ectopic pregnancy I went through with only a hand full of people. Not everyone knows what it is like to have one, thank God for that. I would like to share what I went through, so just may be, if someone else has gone through this or going through this may have some form of comfort & healing.
A little back ground on me, getting pregnant has always been a challenge. It lead me on an emotional roller coaster. Doctors had no answer why I was having such a problem. After all my first born was a honey moon baby. Had a miscarriage between my oldest & youngest. Yes, I only have 2 children but had 5 pregnancies. There is a 6 year difference between my children. After my second child, my husband had cancer & we did not know if we could even get pregnant after the cancer & the treatment for it. It was all unknown.
Six years after the cancer, we got pregnant!!! We were so happy! Cloud nine!!!! Something that we started to think would not happen, due to the cancer/ treatment for it & whatever was going on with me. Sad to say that joy was only a week long. I started spotting & it all went down hill from there. I was put on bed rest. My worst enemy, bed rest. At that point we all were trying not to have a miscarriage happen. Little did we know it was ectopic. I never had an ectopic pregnancy before.
As the the story unfolds, I was in the hospital being told it was ectopic & there is nothing that can be done to save the baby. Now, they need to save me. Many tears, sorrow, heartache, disbelief that it was happening, betrayal & anger.
I was so anger at my body for not functioning right. I felt so betrayed by my body. How could it do this after how much we tried to get pregnant. We wanted this child & my body didn’t put the egg where it needed to be. It didn’t just kill my child but almost killed me. This was my feelings & thinking.
Besides the long road of physical healing, I had emotional healing to do to. I had a great loving support system around me. But I was in my own personal hell of long road to recovery. I tried to let my body deal with the ectopic pregnancy on its own. That added to the length of recovery. Then my body went into a false pregnancy which added another level of emergency to my health. Had to go to the hospital & have my body get a chemo shot to wipe out everything & have my body reset itself. Just to give me more frustration at my body for not working the way it should. Now healing is going to take even a longer time.
Fast forward, I healed physically & emotionally. Built my body back up. Moving forward. I came less mad at my body. As more time went on I came to be at peace with my body. I still feel sorrow for the baby that did not make it. My heart will ache for the baby. I believe that is normal, I’m a mother that lost a child. My heart will be sad & ache for that child.
Now six years later after that whole ordeal, I’m in my mid 40’s, husband had a head injury during the past six years, we wanted another baby, but not sure if it would even happen at this point. Well it did happen.
We had even less time to rejoice over the pregnancy. We found out in the morning I was pregnant. We knew that since the ectopic happen once that there was a chance it could happen again. So I called the doctor’s right away. They wanted to check my hormones for the level to be 2000 before they would do ultrasound to see where the baby might be. We were praying for it to be in the right spot. They had me come in right away for the blood test.
I cried all the way the to the doctor’s office. I did not want it to be another ectopic pregnancy & I did not want to be poked with needles. I hate needles!!!! I pulled it together to get the blood test done. I’m now going to be poked till we get answers. I cried all the way home. Thank God the test results will be known in two hours.
My results came in at 4000!!!!!!!!! By the afternoon, I started bleeding & my side hurt. The doctor wanted me in asap!!! They need to do the ultrasound right away. That afternoon I had an appointment. As the day went on, the bleeding was getting heavier. By the time I got to the doctor office, I knew this was another ectopic pregnancy.
The ultrasound confirmed what I feared was true. I had to have emergency surgery. I got to the doctor’s office by 3pm, by 6pm that night, I was having surgery to save my life. My head was spinning from how fast everything was going & had to go. Not much time to think, process everything that was happening. Race was on!
Please keep in mind, I had a great support system from family & friends through this whole process. I was not alone going through this. The medical team at the doctor’s office & hospital took good care of me, also.
Now after surgery, in the recovery room, I felt the worst pain in my belly. Good news, my side did not hurt anymore or will ever hurt again. I had to have that fallopian tube removed, it was broken. But they had to also do a D&C, which I did not have the first time around. And they had to fill my stomach area with air so they can look around for any other damage. Thank God there was none. But now I have 3 like stab wounds on my belly to heal. The side area, was sore & tender same with my lower belly area but I did not realize the lower belly till a few days after. The area of the belly button, PAIN!!!!! Pain like I never had before. I never really thought about my belly button in my life, until now.
My body will heal, it’s great like that. It will take time to heal but it will heal. Let’s talk about the emotions.
The week after the surgery, I had time to process what just happened. I was starting to hurt less physically. I had many tears roll down my face while my husband held me. I was sad that it was another ectopic pregnancy, frustrated it happened again, mad at my body for doing it again, sorrow from the lost of the life, relieved I didn’t die, then guilt for feeling relieved. Then the big emotion of feeling violated from the D&C. Some of you might not understand the last one. It’s ok, you don’t have to.
I talked with my husband about all my emotions & cried through all of them while he held me. I am very grateful that I let him in on how I was feeling & he was there to just hold me. He was dealing with his own emotions & taking care of me. I had friends to talk to about my emotions & they listened & supported me, family was there too!! I had a great support team. I’m forever grateful for them all.
On top of all that, my hormones went from 4000 to 49 in a week. That was not fun. I has coming off heavy pain pills, hormones dropped like a rock & dealing with the emotions & physical healing. Thank God for the support team I had, they carried me through it. One day I was paranoid, of what not a clue, but it was giving me panic attacks. I felt so crazy, but it was “normal” for what I was going through.
Since my hormone level was not at zero I had to go back in a week to draw more blood. Gotta keep a close eye on the hormone level. Did not want another false pregnancy. Next week blood draw was 4.4!!!!! Are you kidding me!!!!! I had to go back for another blood draw. It was closer to zero, but not at zero. But it was close enough for the doctors to feel I was in the clear & did not need to go back for another blood draw or another D&C. Thank God!!!! No more needles. Let the rejoicing begin!!!!!
Here’s another little detail to add, I was dealing with low iron in a big way before the pregnancy & the surgery. I was working on building that up. After all that I have a bit of a set back with that. But pushing forward!!! That will be rebuilt in time. Did I mention, I have really bad sleep apnea & the pain pills added to it & made it really hard to breathe. I could not lay down & not have my breathing machine on, that was oddly scary.
Many different journey’s all at once. But with a great support team to help carry me through I was able to make it. God placed each one of the people who helped me in one shape or another to carry me through this journey. I had a wonderful doctor take time a week after the surgery to answer all my questions & explain what happen to my body. He went to grab a medical book to show me pictures so I could understand better. I’m so grateful! I was one of the few that got an answer why the ectopic pregnancy happen. Normally it is unknown.
Sad to say not many ladies have the closer to know why their body acted like it did. My tube was not working right from the time I was developing in my mom’s belly. The other tube is running just fine I was told. That is good news! There is no answer why it did not develop normally during the time it should of, it just happened.
My emotions of betrayal & anger just melted away with the facts the doctor share with me. My body did not betray me. It was just broke in that area. None of the emotions were wrong that I felt during this. So much healing was had in a flash of a moment, from truth.
One of the big questions my husband & I now faced, was did we want to have another child? With much taking with each other, looking at the facts before us was a journey in itself. If we did not want to have more children what were we going to do about it? So much more for us to walk out.
Unencumbered Living 