Life after Ectopic

This will be the third attempt at blogging on this site, but the first and second attempts were before I had to have emergency surgery so in time my story has changed.

My first and second attempt to write on here was after I believed to be having a miscarriage. I found out I was pregnant on May 22, 2011 and my last menstrual was April 5 so I was already a few weeks along. My boyfriend (of 3 years) and I were very excited although the pregnancy was unplanned.

I had switched employers and was off of the pill for ONE month due to insurance initiated GYN changes.  I had even followed an ovulation calendar to 'avoid' becoming pregnant. But nonetheless I was staring at a positive pregnancy test (and 3 more after that).

We decided that day that we weren't going to tell our family or friends until we had passed the 1st trimester with the exception of my closest best friend with whom had also had a late period and we had been keeping tabs on if we had taken positive pregnancy tests together.

The next day I came home and found a card my boyfriend had left me telling me how excited he was for our child and that even though it wasn't how we had planned to conceive that he was still ecstatic that we would be becoming parents sooner than we had planned. (I am 26, he is 25) It in turn made me that much more excited to know he was already planning our lives 9 months from now and on board to be in this together with me.

About a week later I started bleeding. It began as spotting but then turned into heavy bleeding and I called to make an appointment with my GYN.  I was told to come in that day and was given a transvaginal ultrasound that yielded no evidence of a pregnancy in my uterus and further examined my tubes and had ruled out an ectopic pregnancy. I was sent for blood work.

The next morning I received a phone call telling me that at this stage (7 weeks) my levels should have been in the 1,000s and mine were only in the 400's and that it would not be a viable pregnancy.  1.5 weeks and many more blood draws later, my levels kept flirting above and below the 400 mark.  I had an appt every week and 2 weeks after the initial appt I was told everything was normal and I should be finishing up the miscarriage process and another blood draw was taken.  The following morning my blood work came back and it had risen again so I was immediately told to go to the hospital.

After spending hours at the hospital, I was given another transvaginal ultrasound by an ultrasound tech and I begged her to tell me what she saw. She said she could not speak on behalf of the Dr. but she saw the pregnancy in my right tube. The same area that I had been having rather intense cramps from that went undiagnosed by my GYN.  2 hours later a doctor (not my own he was out of town) told me that I most likely had an ectopic pregnancy and had the option of being treated with methotrexate to possibly avoid surgery.

I was administered with the medication and left the hospital, days later my levels rose to 600, I was sent to the hospital again and then told to leave since my GYN's backup unnecessarily sent me down there. 2 days later I had to go back to the hospital for another blood draw in case I needed more methotrexate and my levels dropped to 265 so I was okay to go home without another shot.

4 days later I started experiencing horrible pain in my abdomen and decided to sleep on it and see how it felt the next day since cramping can both be a side effect of methotrexate and also a sign of the tube rupturing. The next day I came to work in horrible pain, crying at my desk, fearing the worst.  I knew I had to make another appt so I called and was seen. When the Dr. did a physical exam it was excruciating pain. I yelled out in pain and was having deep sobs. I had been keeping myself composed at all the other visits to the GYN and to the hospital but I was finally at my breaking point. He told me the news I had been dreading to hear, that I needed to have surgery.

I drove home going 20mph below the speed limit sobbing and not believing it had gotten to this point.  My boyfriend works out of state so I knew he wouldn't be home in time to take me. Thankfully my mom is a RN at the hospital I was being sent to (she actually works in L&D too so I was in great hands) My doctor said he couldn't perform my surgery because he was going out of town (I found out later he actually went to a U2 concert) and I was sent to his cross coverage doctor, who in turn was on call and I ended up having his on-call Dr perform my surgery. (He turned out to be great so at least that went well)

My mom set me up in my gown and then I had the IV inserted. I had never had surgery before and was nervous about all the things that would happen. I had to be put completely under so I had a breathing tube and everything. My boyfriend made it to the hospital in time to see me before I was sent to the OR, so that was a relief.

The Dr discussed the surgery over with me and told me the first attempt would be to save my tube and if it was too damaged they would need to remove it.   That was my ultimate fear.  I never thought any of this would turn out the way it did but the thought of losing my tube and hampering with my future fertility was a new fear all of its own. (I do not have any kids, this was my first pregnancy)

I had to wait while the Dr. delivered 2 babies. This in itself is a hard thing to comprehend. I'm waiting for a surgery to remove a pregnancy while 2 other women are bringing their babies into the world.... it just didn't seem fair I had to know that.

I had extremely high anxiety but opted to joke with my boyfriend and mom, and nurses, and anesthesiologist vs. letting everyone know I was freaking out inside. Finally when they wheeled me into the OR (after getting drugs to relax me) I started shaking all over. I was so insanely scared.

3 hours later I woke up trying to read a clock that was set on military time. I bombarded my nurse with a ton of questions... where is my family? what time is it? did they take my tube? how long have I been laying here?

The Dr. came in and told me my worst news. The tube had already started to leak and was moments from rupturing, they had to take it. I had asked him to show me the pictures of my tubes.  The left (not affect tube) was the size of a pencil and the right tube looked like a bruised, black and blue coffee mug sized mess. I remembering sobbing while he told me I probably wouldn't remember talking to him all while I knew I would.

I'll leave out the nauseous, dizziness, and other results of being on anesthesia and pain meds, but the next 12 hours were not my finest.

Thankfully, I was surrounded by a loving and super supportive boyfriend, mother, and group of friends. My best friend took off from work and drove (a state away) to be by my side my 1st day of recovery, and I had other friends come by, bring me magazines, movies, flowers and fudge bars.  My boyfriend took off work to be by my side 24/7.

Unfortunately, my "Life after Ectopic" has yet to find its silver lining. It?s been a week and I don't even think all of this has hit me yet. Even typing this out isn't sunk in that I'm telling MY story.

This is a site for people who are pregnant, who have had children, who are expecting and yet there is a small tiny portion for Pregnancy Loss, it just all seems so surreal. I signed up to research what I couldn't eat while I was pregnant and now I've wrote this long personal account of my situation.

This is my third attempt to post and I still don?t know if it was worth sharing or not.

I just don't know when any of this will seem real.