Looking back on Ectopic Pregnancy
Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of our last ectopic pregnancy. I've spent a lot of time recently reflecting on all the things that have happened in the last year and how immensely blessed we are. That day was a very sad day for us, but it was also a day of relief. What made that day and each day since bearable was the people that God surrounded us with. This has not been an easy path to walk, but I have learned so much. Here is the story of that day and the kindness of a stranger that made a world of difference.
March 4, 2014. I had just finished up a one on one meeting with my friend and colleague that I had recently convinced to move into my department.
It was his first one on one with me as an official member of my team. We talked about the future of the department, what his role would be and what the pressing issues were as of that day. Near the end of the discussion I felt a familiar and concerning discomfort and squirmed in my chair to get comfortable. I don't think I paid much attention to the details at the end of our conversation as I was focused on wrapping things up so I could run to the bathroom in hopes of maybe alleviating some discomfort. It was a little before 10 am. I had a few minutes until my entire team would come into my office for our bi-weekly huddle where I'd do the run down of everything going on, get status checks, and occasionally go off on a tangent about something that interested me or seemed like a potential learning opportunity for them. We had a lot to discuss as the events of the previous two weeks had been crazy inside and outside of the office.
Two weeks and a day earlier on February 17th (President's day) my husband and I had our consultation for in-vitro with the reproductive endocrinologist who had performed my tubal reversal. After 3 pregnancy losses, one of which resulted in an ectopic pregnancy that required emergency surgery and the others too early to determine location, but suspected as ectopic, he was pushing for in vitro. He believed it was the safest option for us going forward with the same expected success rate. After enduring so much loss we figured we had nothing to lose but thousands of dollars so we agreed to have the consultation. I had the day off and woke up leisurely. I was feeling pretty tired. I was also a couple days late so I decided to take a pregnancy test. It was positive. I wish I could say that I was over the moon excited, but more than anything I was terrified. I told my husband. He had the same response I did. We were both thinking it, "are we going to lose this one too?" It was hard to be optimistic and dangerous to be hopeful. The glimmer of hope I thought about was that God had finally come through with His miracle for us, just in time to save us from the expense of in vitro. I called the doctor's office to arrange for bloodworm that morning and kept our consultation appointment, just in case.
When we met with the doctor he was excited and hopeful, but realistic. He kept saying, "if this pregnancy is not successful..." followed by whatever in vitro step was next. After our consultation, following standard protocol with tubal reversal patients, the next step was a repeat blood test. My initial HcG levels were not fantastic, but that wasn't as important as them needing to double in 2-3 days. He asked me to come back 2-3 days later. I thought about my work week coming up. My boss from the Princeton office was coming in for the week for the board meetings and planned to spend a lot of time with my team and I. I had to present to the Audit Committee, which is a sub-committee of the board of directors, that Friday. There was no room in my schedule for another pregnancy loss that week. I pushed back against his orders and requested that I be given until the next week. He reluctantly agreed to my request.
In my normal obsessing over trying to guess the events of the future and predict outcomes (this is what I do for a living after all), I took a pregnancy test every couple days at home that week to make sure that the line was getting darker. Expensive and crazy, I know, but the line was getting darker and it gave me the assurance I needed to get through that crazy busy week. The following Monday, however, the line started to fade, as did every bit I hope I had that I would carry this child to term. I went in for my blood work that morning and waited for the call back. If you've never had to wait for a phone call to tell you whether your child was going to make it or not, consider yourself lucky. As this was our fourth time doing this dance I had learned that I was completely useless and overcome with anxiety waiting for those results. I learned I could not, under any circumstances, be in the office waiting for or taking that call. So I worked from home. I got a little bit done here and there. The waiting was forever. Of all the times I had waited on results, this one had to be the longest. I think the call came around 3pm. I made my husband answer it. Just like every time before, my numbers dropped. This one was not to be either. I can't remember if I cried immediately or not. I think I did. Mostly I remember feeling numb and empty. "Of course we're losing this one too. What else did you expect" that voice in my head would say, shaming me for giving into the slightest bit of hope that this time would be different.
I believe I went to work the next day and the bleeding began on Wednesday so I stayed home the rest of the week. Blood work would be repeated the next Tuesday, March 4 to confirm that levels were continuing to decline, a long and drawn out process with which I was all too familiar. We had to wait until levels hit zero before we could try again or start the in vitro process. I was not a fan of the waiting game. Since the bleeding began, the levels should drop pretty quickly, although in my cases they never seemed to, hence why they were all suspected to be ectopic.
That day, March 4, as I hobbled to the bathroom in pain in between my meetings I wondered what my blood levels drawn that morning would come back as. If this pain was what I thought it might be surely those levels had gone up. I made it to the restroom and could barely sit. I was now fairly confident I was in the midst of another tubal rupture. I returned to my office as my team was filling up my guest chairs. I grabbed my cell phone and sent a quick text to my husband. "I think I've had another rupture. Can you come get me and call the doctor's office?" I then slid down in my chair to try to get comfortable and began the staff meeting. Within a minute my phone lit up with my husband's response, "OK". At that time I explained to my team that the meeting would be cut short when my husband arrived to get me. I told them he was probably going to be taking me to the hospital and I would be out the rest of the week. I outlined their tasks for the week and asked them what they needed from me in the meantime. As we were still a relatively new department with 2 new team members and were at the end of our year end processes, I assured them that I would be available via e-mail as much as I practically could be should they encounter anything in my absence that they didn't feel comfortable handling. After about 45 minutes my husband called from the lobby. My dear friend who had been on my team with me from the start and who was there to help me out of the building when I got the call about our first loss volunteered to escort him up as I was not in much of a condition to walk. He arrived in the doorway of my office with the wheelchair that was kept in the closet off the lobby for emergencies. He wheeled me out and helped me into the truck. Again, I slid down to get comfortable and on my cell phone started sending out the necessary messages to my bosses and to decline and delegate critical meetings that were occurring later that week. Before I was going to be completely out of commission, I needed to make sure everything else was taken care of. My husband was annoyed by this and worried sick about me. I have to believe he had to know that I wasn't in too bad of shape yet if I was still working that much. I asked if he called the doctor's office. He confirmed he had and in fact he was taking me there now.
When I arrived at the doctor's office, I felt a little better and began to wonder if I wasn't somehow exaggerating in my mind my symptoms and maybe I was just having a bad bout of gas. Tuesday was my doctor's day in surgery so I saw one of the other doctors in the practice, and fortunately it was the one I liked. He performed a vaginal ultrasound on me. And believe me you've not felt pain until you're bleeding internally and have one of those things shoved up inside of you while the doctor moves it around and presses it into you to get a better image. Ouch! He said there was definitely fluid in my lower abdomen, but could not tell from the ultrasound if it was blood or clear fluid. Either way, he was recommending surgery. I was to sit tight for a few minutes while they tried to contact my doctor at the hospital and get me scheduled for surgery. Well, at least I wasn't wrong about my symptoms. They could not contact my doctor but scheduled my surgery for that afternoon anyway. They instructed us to go to the hospital to the women's health floor and they'd take care of me from there.
As we approached the hospital I was glad that I wasn't entering through the emergency room doors like I had the last time I had a rupture. Sitting in that emergency room before was unbearable. We took advantage of the valet offering and I hobbled up to the 8th floor to check in. They were very nice and I didn't have to wait long, but my doctor was still MIA. By this time I was in crisis mode. Let's just get this done. There was no time to really process what was happening. And I knew that more than likely I would lose my remaining tube, rendering me sterile again, and at the time I was glad as it meant that these wretched tubes could not cause me this pain again, physically or emotionally. Unlike the time I spent in the emergency room before, this time I was well attended to. The anesthesiologist came by and introduced himself. He asked if I ever had any bad reactions, I told him of my nausea with my epidurals and he took that into consideration. They got me something for the pain so I was feeling a little more conformable.
The brightest spot of that day was my nurse, Lorraine. I am convinced she was an angel that God had sent down to watch over me that day. In all our losses what I wanted more than anything was for someone to acknowledge that what we lost was real, especially in the medical community. I never felt completely worthy of the grief I felt because my losses all occurred so early. It seemed like my grief should be nothing in comparison to the grief felt by others who lost their babies further along. I even had someone say as much to me. Grief in itself was hard enough. Pairing it with shame that there's something defective in me because I shouldn't grief so deeply made it unbearable. Lorraine gave me what I needed most that day: affirmation. As a Catholic sister in Christ, she acknowledged our loss. She gave me volumes of pamphlets on pregnancy loss and ectopic pregnancy. She gave us information on how we could obtain a death certificate for not only this child, but the one we lost when my other tube had ruptured nearly a year previously. I will forever be grateful to Lorraine for the kindness and attention she gave us that day.
Not only did Lorraine give us affirmation, attention, kindness, and information, she gave me a pocket rosary that one of the local parishes made and provided to distribute to grieving mothers at the hospital. I am not Catholic, but I wear that rosary as a bracelet everyday and frequently use it to help me pray. For so long after our losses my prayer life suffered. I was angry with God for taking all those babies from me. I did not want to talk to Him. I knew He knew what I was feeling and quite frankly, I didn't have anything I wanted to say to Him. I was blessed with a counselor who patiently prodded me to start praying again and suggested I use this rosary. With his guidance I was able to construct simple and repetitive prayers that I could say when I wasn't feeling it. And a strange thing happened. I started to look forward to my quiet prayer time. And then God opened my eyes to show me how He was answering my prayers all along. And my heart was overwhelmed with joy at the goodness of my God and Savior.