In February 2021, I fell pregnant with our first child. We started getting excited, planning the nursery, what names we were going to call our baby, and how our life would change once the baby was here. But I knew something was wrong. I’d never been pregnant before so didn’t know what, but my instincts told me something wasn’t right with the pregnancy.
I rang the doctors, and they told me to contact our local midwife. I tried to contact them on numerous occasions, and it kept going to voicemail, I left messages – I never got that call back. I was bleeding heavily, had severe stomach cramps and was feeling faint. I rang NHS 111 (a free-to-call single non-emergency number medical helpline operating in England, Scotland and Wales) who then advised me they were normal symptoms, and that it was implantation bleeding. Not once did I see someone during that time.
Things then got that bad I rang an ambulance. They came and advised me that I was just experiencing early pregnancy symptoms, even though I kept insisting something was wrong, I knew my own body. I carried on with normal life until I was attending to a client, I worked in home care, and I had a severe pain in my stomach and started blacking out. I got sent home from work, where things got worse. I attended the hospital’s emergency department again and I was told, again, that my symptoms were normal and to attend again in two weeks if my symptoms were still happening. Again, I carried on with normal life. I had been told on numerous occasions this was normal, so I started to think maybe I was overthinking my symptoms. But deep down I still felt like something wasn’t right, but had hope that everything was normal as they said.
A week or so went by until I woke up in complete agony, I couldn’t move, every time I tried sitting up the pain was excruciating and I kept going in and out of consciousness. I was vomiting and was still bleeding. My fiancé rang an ambulance, and we were advised of a 5-hour wait, but I knew we couldn’t wait that long. They eventually sent a taxi that took me to the hospital emergency department. I was seen straight away when I arrived. I was petrified and by myself, with no clue what was going on. This was during the Covid pandemic, and hospital restrictions meant no one could come in with me. They checked for signs of a miscarriage which they ruled out. I then had a scan which was when the terrible news was broken to me that I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and they needed to operate immediately. They are words that will never leave me. Even the look on her face said it all, which is an image that’ll never leave me.
I waited a further three hours until I could go to theatre. The surgeon kept coming in and out and was advising the staff how urgently I needed this operation. I honestly thought I was going to die.
I just wanted to raise awareness to all the ladies that think something is wrong, please don’t go unheard. Make sure you are heard loud and clear!!
Even now I still struggle to speak about my experience as I have severe PTS (post traumatic stress) from this and have really struggled with the loss of our baby. Thank you for taking the time to read my experience.
Thank you to Antonia for sharing her experience. If you would like to share your experience of ectopic pregnancy, please visit our guide for more information.
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