When my partner and I first began dating I already had a daughter, and neither of us wanted to have children together, but a year later our feelings changed, and we discussed expanding our family. I had my contraceptive implant removed and within a month we found out that I was pregnant.
Everything seemed to be going great until at 4 weeks I started bleeding, and I knew something wasn’t right. I went to my doctors, and they told me that it can be normal in early pregnancy to have some spotting and that if I was still bleeding in a week to go back. I ended up back a few days later with bad back pains, so he made an appointment for the following day at the early pregnancy unit. To my surprise they couldn’t find anything, they did an internal scan and stayed quiet, they didn’t tell us what they had seen. We went into a quiet room and five minutes later a nurse came in to ask if we wanted a drink, I just wanted to know what was happening as I had no clue! She then looked surprised that we didn’t know what was happening. She said that something wasn’t right, but they don’t know what. Because I only had bleeding and had a little pain, they didn’t know what was happening, and they thought an ectopic pregnancy would have more symptoms. I was constantly asked if I had shoulder tip pain, which I didn’t. One of the doctors took us to the ward, and once again, I had no clue what was happening.
After hours sitting around not knowing what was happening, I was told that I could go home in a couple of hours, and that they just needed to run some blood work. A few more hours later we were told by another doctor we were not allowed to go home. In fact, I wasn’t even allowed to leave the ward for a walk because I had internal bleeding! This was a big shock. I was then told I was having an ectopic pregnancy; I had never heard of this before and didn’t know what it meant. After talking to the nurse, I had to go to have emergency surgery to remove the baby and my right Fallopian tube. I was 25, confused, and had never heard of this. The doctors didn’t seem to know a lot about ectopic pregnancy either.
After surgery I had to process that I had been pregnant, had lost my Fallopian tube, and could have died if it was left longer. It hit me and my partner physically, emotionally and mentally. We had to grieve on our own, had no follow-up, or offered support.
We weren’t offered any help afterwards to give us the tools to cope with this news and the pain. Our friends didn’t understand as they hadn’t heard of ectopic pregnancy before. We were on our own. There needs to be so much more awareness about ectopic pregnancy out there.
After three months we could try again, and after ten months of trying we finally became pregnant with our rainbow baby! We had early scans; extra scans and he was a healthy boy, arriving safely via caesarean section. He is thriving.
Although our story ended well as we have our healthy boy, our angel baby still lives in our hearts. Sometimes I have a cry about what could have been, I had never felt so alone. I blamed myself for giving my partner hope and it being snatched away from him. But he understood, he was heartbroken but also so supportive, it was the worse experience of our lives.
This is my story, and I hope this helps someone! I felt fine in myself, then to not only lose the baby but also a part of my body, and nearly die. It was all very traumatic.
Thank you to Briana 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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