New to the Board: Ovarian Ectopic Pregnancy

JH2004 · December 2011

It feels very surreal to be writing this, but I hope sharing my story will help others (and myself). This is not my first time on The Bump, however, it is my first post. I am mom to a beautiful 2 1/2 year old little boy. I lurked on every board during my first pregnancy, but secretly was happy that I had the most perfect pregnancy (no morning sickness, perfect labor and delivery etc.) I found myself feeling sorry for the women who had to deal with miscarriages and other issues related to their pregnancies. However, my world changed a week and a half ago. Here is my story...

My DH and I had been actively trying to conceive baby number 2 for two months. With my son, I got pregnant the first month we were trying. Well after 2 months of negative tests, I resumed my ovulation testing 9 days after Day 1 of my previous period. To my surprise, the test was positive and the lines on the test were extremely dark (in the past it had taken me at least 6 days to register a positive). So my DH and I tried that night in hopes of conceiving another baby. But something was not sitting right in my mind because the ovulation test was positive so soon. Something in my mind (to this day I do not know what) told me to take a pregnancy test. It was positive! I was shocked but cautiously optimistic. How was my test positive the day after trying to conceive? I thought I was a medical miracle!

I called my doctor and they brought me in for some tests. My urine and blood tests both confirmed that I was pregnant. But the ultrasound showed nothing. My doctor assumed it was just too early to show up, but something in my mind just felt weird. I waited 2 days and went back in to have another blood draw. My HCG levels had doubled! They were very optimistic. They scheduled another ultrasound for 5 days later with the hopes of seeing something. Of course I was googling all of the possibilities (and was thinking possible ectopic) but tried to remain positive.

Here is where the trouble began. The next day, I was about to go home from work when I had really bad pelvic pain. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but since I was already having weird feelings about this pregnancy, I felt I needed to go to the ER. Once I got there, they did another internal ultrasound and still nothing. By this point, the pain had gotten worse, but I was not bleeding. One of the doctors in my practice came and looked at the ultrasound and determined that I was still not far enough along to see anything. He gave me some pain meds, sent me home and wanted me to come in the office the next morning.

I got home (still in an intense amount of pain) and threw up a few times and then got in the bed. 2 hours later, the pain was so bad that I could not take it anymore. I thought I was going to pass out. I had my husband drive me back to the ER. At this point, a new doctor from my practice was on call. He tried to do an internal exam but I was in too much pain. He looked at me and said I think you are having an ectopic pregnancy and we will need to operate right now. I had never had any type of surgery before so I was terrified.

I went into surgery only for them to discover a situation they had never seen in 30 years at their practice. I had an ovarian ectopic pregnancy. The embryo had implanted on my ovary. This type of situation represents 1% of all ectopic pregnancies.

I woke up and my doctor assured me that my surgery went well. Both of my tubes were in tact and they only had to take a small piece of my ovary. Unfortunately I had lost a liter of blood and ended up in the hospital 3 more days and had to have a blood transfusion because my hemoglobin levels were so low.

I have been home for a week now and am doing much better. I am no longer in any pain and have slowly begun to resume my normal activities. The problem now is that as the physical symptoms disappear, the emotional scars have begun to surface. I had convinced myself that since I had never fully embraced this pregnancy that I was really not grieving the loss. WRONG. I am truly devastated and am scared to death to try and get pregnant again. The whole situation was so trying physically and mentally and I feel like I am just left alone now because it was such a rare situation.

I have read some of the other ectopic stories and they have made me feel better. For those of you that have been through this, please tell me it gets better. That the sadness and fear lessen as time goes on. I really would like another child, but right now I can't even wrap my mind around the possibility.

I sincerely apologize for the long post, but I felt the need to tell the whole story. Thank you for reading my story.

panacea05 · December 2011

Any loss is sad; yours is absolutely horrific. I had a missed m/c almost 3 weeks ago, and while I'm still grieving, I am able to talk about my loss without having a breakdown or wanting to crawl into a hole and never face the world again. I guess all I'm trying to say is that the pain does dull over time. Give yourself time to grieve, and don't hesitate to bawl your eyes out once in a while.

Somebody on this board once said that the best way to ensure you'll never bring home a healthy baby is to not even try. I'm also scared to try to get pregnant again, but it's a risk we all have to take.

Hope you find this board as helpful as I have--and that you get a BFP as soon as you're ready for one. {hugs}

RedRose84 · December 2011

I'm so sorry for your loss. Welcome to the board. I hope you find love, support, and comfort here. **Hugs**

Trixie12 · December 2011

I'm sorry for your loss. I know how hard an ectopic pregnancy can be. If you haven't already, you can read my story in my blog. I won't bore you with the details. I just had surgery two nights ago due to blood loss and they had to remove my right tube.

Emotionally for me the toughest part was in the beginning. I thought I was miscarrying at first which was very emotional, however, after not passing anything and my betas rising, my gut told me ectopic. From that point, my emotions went from being sad about the loss to being anxious and scared that my tube was going to rupture. My concern at that point was for my own safety which kept my mind off of the loss.

Now that I've had surgery and am recovering, I don't know if my grief over the loss will reemerge. I feel like I have come to peace with all that has happened. I know I will probably have down days thinking about what might have been, but I am ready to move forward with life and TTC again.

I hope you are able to also find peace and comfort soon. I know everyone grieves differently, and you have every right to be emotional over your loss and the experience you went through. My thoughts and prayers are with you as you recover.

Shayliz · December 2011

I'm very sorry for your loss.

I didn't have an ovarian ectopic pregnancy but I did have an ectopic that required emergency surgery as well and resulted in the loss of my left tube. I hope you are able to heal physically and emotionally soon. It's been almost 3 weeks since my surgery and I'm still emotionally just not in a good spot some times.

JH2004 · December 2011

Thanks so much for the responses. I am an insanely private person, but writing down my story made me feel so much better.

Trixie12, I just read your story and your positive attitude about the whole situation was really refreshing. I am sorry for your loss and wish you the best of luck TTC.

It is nice to see that what I am feeling is normal, but that there is hope as well! Panacea05, I will remind myself often of the statement you made. The best way to ensure you'll never bring home a healthy baby is to not even try. I will give myself time to heal, physically and emotionally, but because I know how badly I want another child, I will not let my fear define me.

You ladies are wonderful. You have no idea how much I just needed someone to understand!

Laurakat81 · December 2011

I'm so sorry for your loss. I had an ectopic last month too. (((hugs)))

Its been two years since my first loss so sadly I really am a veteran here, but I can honestly tell you that while the pain never completely goes away, it does get better.

redandblue · December 2011

Hi,

first i want to thank you for your post and let you know how sorry i am for your loss. It can be very therapeutic to write out our experiences. i am new to this site, and unfortunately what brought me here was the process of concerns during my early pregnancy. If you dont mind, i would like to share my experience. Mine is similar to yours in that my ectopic was also on my ovary (like its not bad enough to experience an ectopic being rare, that it stayed on the ovary....my bad sense of humor now has kicked in and i think that it was so lazy it couldn't even start the trek down the tube!). Anyways, i have a 12 yr old son from a previous relationship, but met my amazing husband four years ago,we were married last Nov., and have been TTC since Dec. last year. i had a feeling that it was going to take me a while (no real reason, just woman's intuition), so i started seeing a naturopath right away. After 9m, i also started seeing an acupuncturist. So when i started spotting when my period was due, i called my dr to have myself checked for infertility issues. A week later (still spotting but no regular period yet, i take a hpt on Dec 3 and discover we are pregnant! (Okay i actually took 5 that weekend, and still was very cautiously optimistic). i don't know if it was my intuition, but i was very cautious the whole time. Anyways, on Dec. 12, I go to the ER due to cramping. Very long drawn out process of a week it was finally confirmed ectopic on my left ovary. i was pretty sad, and i had the metho. shot. Due to the timing over christmas, i had to have all of my follow up in the ER which caused me to loss my patience on a number of occasions. For me the hardest was this past Sat. having to go for my day 7 follow up blood work and meet with the obgyn on call, and having to wait because he was delivering other people's babies He was great with me however, told me that this time next year i will probably be the reason someone else may need to wait for him.

It is a sad and difficult process, but it gets better. For me and my husband we are focusing on all the positives of our situation. First, we know we can get pregnant without extraordinary measures. Secondly, the ectopic was caught early, so hopefully no damage. And a small thing was that we waited and didn't tell everyone, then have to go back and tell them the bad news.

I really hope everything works out for you. It is okay to allow yourself the time to grieve. It is important to do that, but i feel in times like these it is good to also take stock in all the great and wonderful things we do have in our lives. I wish you the best of luck and hope that your healing process is quick.

JH2004 · November 2013

I am writing to follow up on my own post made 2 years ago. Writing the initial post was so theraputic for me and I really appreciated the responses I received. Re-reading it reminds me of how upset I was and how hopeless I felt. For some reason it came in my mind today that I should post an update because I know at the time I was grieving so terribly and wanted to hear some stories of hope!

I am happy to report that I am now the proud mom of an 8 month old baby girl born in March 2013. 6 months after my ectopic surgery I succesfully got pregnant. My doctors monitired me very closely and made sure the embryo was where it was supposed to be. My pregnancy and delivery were normal with no signs of residual issues from the ectopic.

Again, just wanted to tell everyone to not give up hope and it DOES get better. I know people say that everything happens for a reason, but when you are in the eye of the storm it is tough to see that or to figure out why it is happening to you. Now, when I look at my baby girl, I KNOW for a fact that SHE is the baby I was supposed to have. I went through a terrible time trying to get there, but she ultimately was so worth it all.

Hope that helps some of you and gives you a sense of hope that I know I so desparately needed 2 years ago.

Ashley144u · November 2013

For me, it has gotten easier with time. Its still emotionally painful and sometimes I find myself fighting back tears when I bring it up to my DH or someone that knows about it. Sometimes I just let the tears flow. It sucks. I am nervous about TTC again, but I can't stand the thought of having to wait like 4 or 5 more months. I have to wait 6 months due to methotrexate injections. I'm trying not to count down or think about how much time it is.

At the time, I just wanted to know what happened. I googled and googled. I asked my OB new questions each visit. And sometimes the same questions just to make sure! Right now, I'm trying to decide if I should do the HSG test. Leaning towards no, but will I regret it later...

Thank you for posting. I'm sorry for your loss! Thoughts and Prayers!!

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