The First Ectopic Pregnancy

It took me only a few months of trying before I got pregnant a second time. Knowing that I was able to move forward with my life after being stuck in medical limbo for so long was such a wonderful feeling. I was finally seeing light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

I had been taking pregnancy tests in the days leading up to what would have been my period, but each test was painfully negative. There was no line to be seen. On the day that my period was due, I took one last test in the hopes that I would see something but still nada. I put the test aside and got on with things, disappointed, but knowing that we would just have to try again.

A few hours later, I picked up the test to have another look, and low and behold, there was the faintest of faint lines to be seen. Shocked, I headed out and picked up a First Response pregnancy test to confirm my suspicions. This also gave me a faint positive!

I called my doctor straight away as he had told me that he wanted to closely monitor me the next time I got pregnant, and he sent me in for an hCG test. That came back at a level of 14 and my heart sank. I could tell that things didn't look great from the nurse's voice when she gave me the number over the phone. The level was too low for 4 weeks into a pregnancy. And from that point on, I told myself I wasn't going to get attached. I knew in my heart that this pregnancy probably wasn't going to make it and so I didn't even let myself calculate my due date. I couldn't bear the thought of counting down to another birthday that should have been.

My heart leaped however, when a second and third blood test over the following days showed appropriate doubling of  hCG levels, although they were still really low. I tried desperately not to get my hopes up, but when you're carrying something so precious, it is almost impossible not to get emotionally attached. 

Over the next 10 days or so, I would experience sharp pains in my abdomen. I was a little concerned, but a quick internet search showed that gas pains were very common in pregnant women, and so I didn't think too much about it.

At about 5 weeks, I had a small amount of spotting which then progressed into painful cramps on the left side of my abdomen, similar to the ones that I had when I had taken cytotec. I waited through the night and then went to the hospital to find out if I had miscarried. It was too early to do an ultrasound and so more blood was taken to see where my hCG levels were at. Surprisingly, they looked ok. The nurse told me not to worry and that bleeding in early pregnancy was common.

The bleeding tapered off, but over the next four or five days, the pain in my left side remained. It wasn't a terrible pain - hell, we moved house during those few days so it definitely wasn't crippling, but I just knew in the back of my mind that something wasn't right with this pregnancy. With the hCG numbers being so low and the fact that the pain was only on one side of my body, I was starting to get concerned. 

I finally decided to go to the ER. It was a public holiday and everything else was closed. After being there for 5 hours and having an ultrasound done, they determined that they couldn’t see a gestational sac in my uterus but that I had a lot of blood in my pelvic area. They were unable to see my left ovary on the ultrasound because of the amount of blood and it was decided that I had an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured my left fallopian tube which had resulted in internal bleeding. Within an hour of that diagnosis, I was on the operating table.

I have never felt more incapacitated than I did after the surgery. My D&C was a cakewalk compared to that. Not surprising considering they cut three holes in my abdomen. Unfortunately, they were unable to save my fallopian tube and so it was removed.

I was released from hospital the next day. As I was wheeled out, I passed a very pregnant woman in her 20’s puffing away on a cigarette. I was totally shocked but it made me so angry as well. I wanted to go up to her and shake her and ask her if she knew how lucky she was? That she was able to get pregnant and have a successful pregnancy. And how many women would kill to be in her shoes?  Instead, I went home to grieve the loss of another baby.

"I'm sorry, I can't find a heartbeat."

Getting pregnant for the first time was an amazing feeling. Even though it was planned, I still felt like I was in shock for a couple of days afterwards. I took a pregnancy test a couple of days before my period was due, waiting the regulation three minutes with bated breath, and not daring to look and see what was happening. I took a deep breath, looked at the test, and found two bring pink lines! There was no doubt I was pregnant! I couldn't believe how strong that line was and I hadn't even missed my period yet! In retrospect, that should have been my first indication that something wasn't right.

I spent 9 weeks walking around blissfully pregnant. I only told a few people including my parents who thrilled. Knowing that I had a tiny little secret growing inside of me was a wonderful feeling and I never had any problems during  my pregnancy. No pain, no bleeding, and no morning sickness. I felt really lucky, but also a little concerned.

"Surely I should feel something," I thought. After all, I had to take low-dose birth control because the high amount of estrogen in The Pill had made me sick in the past.

A friend of mine who was six months pregnant at the time assured me that she had not had any morning sickness her entire pregnancy and told me that I was probably one of the lucky ones. That reassured me a little.

A few days before my first ultrasound, I went to a baby shower for that friend. I remember being excited that in a few months, I would be celebrating my own baby shower. I couldn't wait! I had had boy and girl names picked out already, having chosen them carefully several years ago in anticipation of one day having a baby.

The day of the scan came - two days before my 4th wedding anniversary, and I anxiously sat in the waiting room with my husband. After asking what seemed like a million questions, it was time to see our baby for the first time.

The Nurse Practitioner squeezed out a blob of cold blue gel and began to move the ultrasound back and forth over my stomach. For what seemed like an eternity, she moved the ultrasound around, left and right, the same concentrated look on her face never changing. Then she handed me a tissue to wipe off the gel.

"Let me try the transvaginal ultrasound. That one can usually pick up more."

She kept the screen turned away from me, maintaining a poker face that I have now come to associate with bad news. After trying some different angles with the ultrasound wand, she said those words that no pregnant woman ever wants to hear: "I'm sorry, I can't find a heartbeat. It looks like the baby stopped growing at 7 weeks."

She must have been an expert at delivering bad news to mothers-to-be because she didn't flinch. I suppose it was just another day at the office for her. When you see these things all the time, I would imagine you start to become numb to other people's pain. You have to in order to effectively do your job, but it is a moment that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

She told me what my options were - wait to see if I miscarried naturally, take a dose of cytotec (misoprostol), or go in for a D&C. I said that I wanted to wait a few days to see if nature took its course. The nurse sent me on my way with an order to go and get a blood test to measure my hCG levels. It would be the first of many blood tests that I would get over the following months.

Walking out of the hospital, I felt like my world had shattered. Minutes ago I had been anxiously waiting to see the tiny flicker of my baby's heartbeat; a baby that was going to change our lives and the start of our new family. Now, all those hopes and wishes had been extinguished along with my baby's life. All that I had left of this dream was an ultrasound of the baby who was never meant to be.