"Well your pregnancy test is positive, the OB will be here in about 15 minutes to talk to you about your surgery"
I didn't know I was pregnant. Well, that's not entirely true. I've been charting my cycles and symptoms for over three years. We haven't been trying to get pregnant, the opposite in fact. My career is taking off, and I'm the only income in the family. We have four beautiful children, and two previous losses (one loss was twins), and our youngest child has Down syndrome. I've got my hands full, and I felt like our lives were complete.
We had intercourse unprotected the day before I ovulated last cycle. I though about the morning after pill, but convinced myself that we would be fine. My cycles have not been typical, and for a while I've been having cycles with out ovulating. It would be fine.
The day my period started I was convinced that something was wrong. I had a huge serge of nausea right before my bleed, it just wasn't normal. I bled lightly for 4 days, and didn't stop spotting. Eleven days after what I thought was a normal cycle, I began to bleed again. I called my GP to schedule an appointment and thought that was that.
Sunday April 12th, 2015 I felt a very strong pain in my left side. It felt like a burning hot knife running me through from front to back, so I told my husband it was time to load up the kids for grandma's house, and we would go to the hospital.
The morphine barely touched the pain, the tests were excruciating. After an ultrasound, a vaginal exam, and blood and urine tests we were told the news. We were pregnant, and it didn't look good. The doctor on call said that it looked to be an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured. The first thing through my head was immense guilt. This baby's short days of life, it was unwanted, and being killed by my body. I felt like it was justice that I should be threatened with it. I didn't want another baby, but I didn't want it to die either.
The fact is, these things just happen. I didn't cause this, nor did I deserve this. But a woman going through a miscarriage can blame herself. From a professional standpoint, she is a wash with hormones and dealing with a significant trauma! Even knowing this knowledge didn't save me from those thoughts, and it still creeps into my mind today.
I was taken to surgery around 6 that evening. I don't remember anything about the surgery itself. I remember saying goodbye to my husband and making the nurses promise that he would be there when I returned. The next thing I knew I was being dressed and put into a wheel chair to go home. Apparently, I was insistent, which is so me. The surgery went well, I lost about 200cc of blood and did not need to be transfused. I lost my left fallopian tube in the rupture. I have three small incisions which are healing nicely despite all of the abdominal swelling that I still have 4 days post op.
The emotions range from numb to extreme. I opted to tell my children that I had a ruptured fallopian tube, but not that they had lost a sibling. I think that is something I will wait to tell them when they are older. It is too soon to tell you how I'm really doing. I'm Ok, but I'm lost on a journey that I don't yet know the destination. I'll be fine, eventually. I'm missing a piece of myself, and my heart is heavy for yet another soul I'll not meet here on earth. It is big, but I'll grow stronger through it.
I'll use this experience, like all of my others, in my teaching. I'll continue to educate women on how their bodies work, and I'll keep on helping them through their pregnancies, because it is what I do. Birth is my passion, even when I know the road is sometime heavy. I still trust my body, and you should still trust yours. This is life, and it is just as beautiful with the dark and twisty parts as it is with the colors and the light. But pray for me, and all of the women who have and will in the future suffer the loss of a child. We need to be reminded that light still exists in our dark days.
