Guest Post!!! Ectopic Pregnancy

A friend of mine recently went through an ordeal. After months and months of trying to get pregnant, she went to see a fertility doctor. Before any treatment, she discovered she was pregnant. It became obvious fairly quickly that something wasn't right. Finally, the doctors determined it was etopic. It took an agonizingly long time for the pregnancy to end. I asked her to share her story with my readers.
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Six weeks ago I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy. I wasn’t surprised; I knew something was wrong. The day before they were finally able to see something growing in my right fallopian tube on ultrasound I fainted getting out of bed. Luckily, I was being monitored at the time by my fertility doctor; two weeks earlier, what should have been a routine day-3 blood test revealed slightly elevated HCG levels. The ectopic diagnosis was the culmination of two weeks of uncertainty, frustration, and the strange, strange sensation that I might have—finally, after all this time—actually gotten pregnant.
It turns out I had gotten pregnant naturally during my previous cycle--the cycle before I was due to begin fertility treatments. It came as a surprise that my HCG level was elevated because I got (what I thought was) my period right on time that month. In fact, that day-3 blood test was meant to determine my baseline numbers so that I could begin clomid that week. It was weird, though--with each subsequent visit, my doctor and nurses played it close to the vest; basically, my Beta was going up normally, yet my numbers were on the very low-end of the accepted spectrum. I was in and out of his office early mornings throughout those two weeks getting blood tests and ultrasounds, and each afternoon when the nurse would call with my results it would be a flat “we still don’t know what’s going on…why don’t you come back in a couple of days and maybe we’ll have a better idea then…” Looking back on it now, I realize that no one—not even I—ever called it a pregnancy.
I suspect that they monitored me so closely because they saw this coming—my very low (less than 1) progesterone levels, my weak Beta, the lack of anything visible on ultrasound. I think I probably owe them my thanks for not getting my hopes up in the first place, and I know I owe them my health (and, though it’s surreal to think of it this way, my life), but at the time all I felt was resolve. I didn’t want the reality of what was happening to be kept from me; I could handle it, so I thought. Following my doctor’s confirmation that it was, in fact, ectopic, things began to happen very quickly. Though even after being rushed to the hospital for a shot of methotrexate, sitting on a pink leather recliner—typically used by chemo patients (for that’s what methotrexate is, after all)—and waiting for someone to explain exactly what was going to be put in my body, what it would do to me and the thing in my fallopian tube, what would happen if it didn’t work, and what exactly “work” meant, I was fine fine fine. I could handle it.
Until I couldn’t. It hit me the next night—I think that first 36 hours was part relief that I finally knew exactly what had been brewing in my body for the last two weeks and part shock—when I was lying in bed with my husband watching TV. What had my friend told me months ago while she was in the throes of her own fertility issues and I had just begun to try? She said “talk to it—it doesn’t matter how early it is, talk to it, let it know it’s real. Let yourself believe it’s real.” And I had. I had talked to it every day, sometimes more than once a day. I told it to hold on. At the time I, of course, had no idea that it was holding on—just in the wrong spot. And as I lay there, I wondered if maybe it was listening to me. It was a baby, after all, not just a medical condition. And it had been listening to me—to its mom—and now I had to let it know it was okay to let go.
I know, I know. Cue the violins. Sorry. I just read that back and it sounds ridiculous. But if I’m being honest about this whole thing, that was exactly went through my mind.
When I said above that I probably owe my fertility doctor (and his support staff) my life, it’s not a sentiment that registers with me because I never considered that any of this could ever truly endanger my existence. My sanity—yes. My ability to have a healthy baby in the timeframe I’d hoped—yes. Even my marriage—sadly, yes. But did I ever really think about how dangerous the ectopic pregnancy could have been had it gone unnoticed? No. I’m too consumed with myself to consider the fact that I’m still here. I’m too aware of my new reality—the one that having an ectopic pregnancy has propelled me into. I see this situation more as a social responsibility than a personal health issue. I’m more concerned with how my moods affect my husband than with how they’re eating me up inside; I’m constantly battling the amount of bitterness I allow to seep into the “check-in” phone calls from my mom. I’m making sure that my friends and colleagues know I’m “okay”…after all, I want to be the strong post- trauma girl, not the mess walking around the produce section of Dominick’s with tears streaming down my face as Taylor Swift sings “Fifteen” on my Ipod.
I can only hope that the more days that go by (and believe me, they’re going by really slowly), the more okay I feel. And, of course, there’s saying I’m okay and actually being okay. I’d like to think that I’m somewhere between the two. I certainly have my setbacks—I tend to avoid Facebook these days. I also find myself gravitating towards friends, and even friends-of-friends, who have had fertility issues. It’s like being in a sorority you never wanted to join; it’s just easier to relate to these girls right now, I guess.
Someone told me once that you get the baby you’re supposed to get. Of course, at times I take more solace in her other words of wisdom: there’s nothing wrong with irrationally hating someone that gets pregnant on the first try. At least for now. I won’t always hate, and I won’t always be the girl dealing with an ectopic pregnancy. We all have our own stories, and this is just the beginning of mine.