Ectopic at 8 weeks

gscoville · January 2013

Hello ladies! After posting about this in my BMB and getting so many recommendations to check out this board, here I am. After a visit to the local ER on Friday and a sirens-on ambulance ride to the city, an ectopic pregnancy in my right tube was confirmed and I had laparascopic surgery that night to remove it. We were at just over 8 weeks and baby was growing as it should have been, so I'm having a difficult time coming to terms with this aspect of our loss - but for being in the wrong place, it was a healthy pregnancy with every chance of going to term, so even though I know it had to be done I find myself still feeling horrible guilt about having to terminate that beautiful little soul.

I am trying to focus on the positives where I can find them. The surgery itself went very well. My right tube was huge and rupture was imminent, so my doctor was glad they'd gone in right away rather than waiting as a more conservative approach might have dictated. Because of the size of the pregnancy and the damage it did to the tube he wasn't able to tell why implantation happened there, but likely there had been some blockage. Upon further investigation he found that my ovaries and remaining left tube all looked healthy and clear, so our initial fears of finding a huge mess inside have been relieved and we can look forward to the possibility of TTC again - not without much nervousness of course, I know that fear of a repeat will always be there, but at least we can begin again with the knowledge that things look about as good as they can at this point.

Probably the worst part of all of this is that we had already told everyone about the pregnancy - family beginning at Christmas, and both of our workplaces just a week ago. I don't necessarily regret that we told people, the way we did it was beautiful and a part of me is glad we were able to enjoy that happiness together with our family and friends, but of course it makes things more difficult now. While I'd kept in touch with a few close friends and family through texting Friday and kept them updated with what was going on through everything, DH had only kept in touch by phone with his mom, so Saturday was when he had to start making calls to his close friends and break the news to them. We both have huge families but luckily they're all very close to our moms, so they've both taken on the task of telling each side of our family for us, for which we're extremely grateful. My work has been wonderful as well, I've been told to take all the time I need and my vice principal, at my request, told the staff for me.

So, there is a ton of support out there, at least whenever we feel we can make use of it. I know in time we'll be able to talk about it with people, but for the moment we're holed up at home, sleeping and cuddling and just recovering as best we can on our own. My mom and daughter actually cleaned the house while we were away, which was so very nice to come home to!

Thank you for listening, and for being here, I've been told this is an invaluable place for support and caring and from the little bit of lurking I've done I can already tell that's so very true. On top of general loss support, if anyone out there has had experience with ectopic pregnancy/surgery in particular, I'd certainly be grateful for any insights you can provide.

cpm1223 · January 2013

I am so sorry for your loss. This board and the TTCAL (when you're ready or thinking about TTC) are amazing. Lots of wonderful people here who know first hand what you are going through.

I don't have any experience with ectopic pregnancy, but I wanted to welcome you to the board and send you some much needed hugs!

gscoville · January 2013

cpm1223:
I am so sorry for your loss. This board and the TTCAL (when you're ready or thinking about TTC) are amazing. Lots of wonderful people here who know first hand what you are going through.
I don't have any experience with ectopic pregnancy, but I wanted to welcome you to the board and send you some much needed hugs!

Thank you!!

SnowflakeBride06 · January 2013

I am so sorry for your loss, that is heartbreaking.

Rest and take comfort in the support of your family and friends. And us!

aessary03 · January 2013

I was stalking the BMB and saw this. My heart just sank for you. I am so sorry for your loss. You came to a great place for some support.

~big hugs~

gscoville · January 2013

aessary03:
I was stalking the BMB and saw this. My heart just sank for you. I am so sorry for your loss. You came to a great place for some support.
~big hugs~

Thank you! Your name and siggy are ones I always noticed/remembered from the BMB, I always seemed to relate to you somehow and I was so sad to hear of your loss last week. I hope you're finding what you need to get through things as well. ((Big hugs back))

JenniferChess · January 2013

I'm so sorry for your loss. We terminated our ectopic pregnancy at 5 weeks. We knew we were pregnant at 4 weeks and I'd already started feeling pain by that time. Because we found out so soon, I was able to terminate the pregnancy with the help of methotrexate. It was incredibly physically painful but mitigated the risk of losing my tube.

When my RE told me that he strongly recommended terminating the pregnancy, he looked me in the eye and said that there was no possible way that this pregnancy would be viable. I know that it's hard to think about, but even if your pregnancy was on track, remember that there was no way that it would have stayed on track. Your fetus could not have continued to get all of the nutrients that it needed. Please believe that I don't say this to sound mean, but only to help you reconcile with yourself that you had no choice in the matter. This cold, horrible fact actually helped me. Every day I wish that medical science was advanced enough to remove an ectopic sac and successfully move it to the uterus, but sadly they're not there yet.

We also had told a bunch of people. I suffer from PCOS and we got pregnant with the help of injectables and an IUI. Our family and many of our friends knew about it. We chose to tell our parents right away at 4 weeks and several of my friends asked soon after that. In some ways I wished I had waited even though everyone was very supportive. Still, I figured that most of those people were those that I would have told either way.

We now have to wait 3 months to start ttc again but we're waiting 4 months for other reasons. How long do you have to wait?

gscoville · January 2013

JenniferChess:
I'm so sorry for your loss. We terminated our ectopic pregnancy at 5 weeks. We knew we were pregnant at 4 weeks and I'd already started feeling pain by that time. Because we found out so soon, I was able to terminate the pregnancy with the help of methotrexate. It was incredibly physically painful but mitigated the risk of losing my tube.
When my RE told me that he strongly recommended terminating the pregnancy, he looked me in the eye and said that there was no possible way that this pregnancy would be viable. I know that it's hard to think about, but even if your pregnancy was on track, remember that there was no way that it would have stayed on track. Your fetus could not have continued to get all of the nutrients that it needed. Please believe that I don't say this to sound mean, but only to help you reconcile with yourself that you had no choice in the matter. This cold, horrible fact actually helped me. Every day I wish that medical science was advanced enough to remove an ectopic sac and successfully move it to the uterus, but sadly they're not there yet.
We also had told a bunch of people. I suffer from PCOS and we got pregnant with the help of injectables and an IUI. Our family and many of our friends knew about it. We chose to tell our parents right away at 4 weeks and several of my friends asked soon after that. In some ways I wished I had waited even though everyone was very supportive. Still, I figured that most of those people were those that I would have told either way.
We now have to wait 3 months to start ttc again but we're waiting 4 months for other reasons. How long do you have to wait?

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It does help! The fact that I had to do the surgery has been reinforced over and over again by people's reactions whenever they hear the word 'ectopic', usually they are horrified and assume I must have been in really bad shape, so I know it was a serious situation that could have had a much worse outcome for me. I think I need to focus less on how healthy the baby was at this point in time and more on the fact that it wouldn't have stayed that way, could only have gone downhill, and of course its continued presence would have meant both of us wouldn't make it.

The doctor was really happy with how good everything else inside me looked while he was in there. Our biggest fear was that if one tube was obviously damaged/blocked to have caused this ectopic, then the other would be too and who knew what other kind of mess they might find. But the doctor said the other tube looked great, and he felt that we could start trying again after one full cycle. I'm not sure if I'll actually be ready to try at that point, but we'll see.

JenniferChess · January 2013

That's funny, most people look at me like they've never heard of an ectopic pregnancy before or what it means! I'm glad everything else internally is okay. Ectopics are no joke.

Grumble... waiting one cycle would be amazing. Unfortunately, one of the many things that methotrexate does is leach all folic acid from you. They want you to wait 3 months so that you have time to build that back up in your system.

Ectopic at 8 weeks

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