Six weeks ago, on September 6th, my husband and I were on vacation in Colorado when I awoke at 5am with intense pain in my lower abdomen. The pain was so severe that I woke Jonny up and told him we needed to go to the hospital.
Upon reaching the ER they ran a bunch of tests and ultimately came back into our room with the news – I was pregnant and it was likely ectopic, meaning that a fetus was developing inside of my fallopian tube.
“Oh F*ck” was the first thing out of my mouth – because I immediately knew that this wasn’t a viable pregnancy.
They confirmed the findings with an ultrasound, put me on morphine to manage the crazy intense pain, and prepped me for surgery to remove my fallopian tube.
It all happened so quickly and was such a blur. I found out I was pregnant and that I would be losing the pregnancy (and a Fallopian tube) all in the same breath.
Thankfully, the surgery that afternoon was successful, and the near-hemorrhaged Fallopian tube was removed.
During surgery, they discovered a lot of internal bleeding confirming that if I hadn’t gone to the hospital that day there is a good chance my Fallopian tube would have ruptured and I would have been in real bad shape.
After the surgery, I was physically in a lot of pain, and my stomach felt pretty tender for the first week or so. Emotionally, I was in shock and somewhat numb to what had just occurred. Mentally, I was pissed that these losses kept happening.
This was our 3rd pregnancy loss in the span of one year – which is a lot for a couple to go through. I mean…WTF?!
Overall, I am doing pretty well now. I’m feeling healthy physically. Jonny and I are stronger and closer than ever (he was the most amazing caretaker post-surgery). And I’ve been practicing some alternative therapies to help me heal after an ectopic pregnancy that have felt really supportive to me.
I share all of this because 1 in 50 pregnancies are ectopic. Of course I had read about ectopic pregnancies before, but thought to myself “That will never happen to me.” And then it did…and I wish that I had had someone I knew who had gone through this, so I could have talked to them about it. I didn’t at the time. But you do now. I’m sharing my story in the hopes that if one of you unfortunately experiences this too, you know you aren’t alone.
The good news with this is that I should still be able to get pregnant, because I have two healthy ovaries and one functioning fallopian tube. Our bodies are amazingly resilient, and we are holding out hope that our rainbow babies are right around the corner.
Throughout all of this, we continue to be tested. But through these tests, our faith in our marriage and in our desire to become parents feel stronger than ever.
And I want to be clear – in no way are we victims to this. We all have our struggles and difficult seasons in life, and for whatever reason this is ours right now. Yes, this is hard, yes it sucks – and despite it all, we are resilient and continue to find so much joy in life and many things we are grateful for.
We welcome all of your love, light and prayers as you envision with us a sweet and healthy baby entering our family soon.
With love,
Elsie
From Dreams to Action in 7 Days!
Are you feeling overwhelmed by all your responsibilities yet detached from your purpose? Then Download the Purpose Path Journal for FREE today!
All Rights Reserved | Disclaimer | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy
Copyright 2020 © Turning Life Gold