My name is Louise, I’m 37 and am in a same-sex marriage with my partner of 10 years, Jade.
Our life plan was marriage, buying a home, and starting a family. Our journey to starting a family began in June 2022; we were unsuccessful and tried again in July.
One Monday in August, whilst in work I started what I thought was a period and the sad feeling that our attempts to conceive had not been successful washed over us. On day two of my ‘period’, I began experiencing excruciating pain accompanied by vomiting. I thought little of this until two weeks later when I started to bleed again. This prompted me to do another pregnancy test and the result was positive.
The emotions I felt took over and I was terrified. At first, my GP suspected a miscarriage, then a threatened miscarriage. I was referred to the early pregnancy clinic where I had an internal scan. This scan revealed no sign of a pregnancy. I have never felt pain like I did when I heard those words, along with the overwhelming feeling of confusion. I felt like I was in another world looking in on myself.
The next few weeks were traumatic in every sense. I was admitted to hospital at one point due to the horrendous pain and, on the ward, I felt like an inconvenience.
After the first scan, I had many more and each one I went in with a strange feeling of hope: Hope that maybe they had made a mistake; hope that this time the pregnancy would be there where it should be. But that never happened. Eventually the doctors located the pregnancy on my left ovary and, even though I already knew the outcome, the discovery wounded me a thousand times harder.
At 9 weeks pregnant, I was given a methotrexate injection (medical management). My hormone levels were back to normal within a week and the pregnancy was absorbed by my body. I was discharged, lucky not to have needed surgery.
The journey of having a family within a same-sex couple has its own struggles and is hard enough. To then experience an ectopic pregnancy added more pain and confusion and our journey changed forever.
Now I am left with a feeling of emptiness and numbness and, four months on, I am still stuck in the ‘I can’t believe this has happened’ state. I am struggling to move on, always thinking about what happened. I do struggle to talk properly about what happened and maybe that will ease in time.
Jade, my wife, has been my rock throughout and I could see she felt every pain and every emotion with me.
Our families were so supportive, but for me I felt some people around me lacked empathy and support and I wonder if this is down to lack of awareness and understanding. I myself had no knowledge of ectopic pregnancy before this.
I can’t help but feel that some people think I should “get over it” now, but they have no idea of the impact an ectopic pregnancy has on a person physically, mentally, and emotionally. I guess people don’t know how to react.
Our journey took a wrong turn, but we are still on the journey together and we hold on to the hope that the final destination will be beautiful.
For me now, it’s about working out how I learn to live with what happened, how I live with the overwhelming feeling of loss, the pain and the sadness, and with the hope that people become more aware of ectopic pregnancies and the impacts they have.
I have to believe that, with time, I can heal but a part of me will forever be broken.
I hope that writing this down starts my healing process.
Thank you for reading my story.
A special thankyou to Louise and Jade for sharing their experience with us. If you would like to share your story with us, please visit our guide for more information.
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