Stephanie and Jack's Story
February 2024 was a rollercoaster of emotions for both me and Jack.
We found out we were expecting on the 1 February, thrilled but terrified we started to think of our life as a family of three!
Unfortunately the 6 February came around and we thought we had lost our baby because of a few symptoms such as dizziness, pain in my left leg, and bleeding. We went straight to hospital. Due to being so early in the pregnancy they booked us in for an appointment at the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit a week later.
On the 13 February we went to our 6 week emergency scan and unfortunately we were told the unthinkable. We hadn’t lost our baby, it was in-fact growing inside my right Fallopian tube. It was an ‘ectopic pregnancy’ meaning the baby would not develop properly and my health could be at risk if the pregnancy continued.
on the 15 February 2024 I had surgery to remove my right Fallopian tube due to the damage our tiny baby had caused in such a short amount of time. Some women have internal bleeding which can be more serious if not treated or it is unknown that they are pregnant.
We are passionate in sharing our story to raise awareness of something that we hadn’t really heard much about. Because you aren’t advised to tell people about your pregnancy till around 12 weeks when you enter the ‘safer zone’ if you like, it felt like such a secret once we found out the ectopic pregnancy news and at that stage we didn’t want it to be a secret! Not if we could raise awareness for other women and expectant dads. It is so important that pregnant women get checked if you ever feel something isn’t right, you know your own body and I felt so silly for going to hospital at just 5 weeks, I didn’t want to cause a fuss but I am so glad we did now as the outcome could have been so different.
Lots of women suffer alone and don’t talk about it and I think it’s so important to get talking about this. An ectopic pregnancy or loss of any kind is nothing to be ashamed of.
Around 1 in 80 pregnancies in the UK are ectopic. I’m proud of my scars and I’m proud of us for getting through this awful time. A baby loss, whether it’s at 2 weeks or 20 weeks is truly heart-breaking. Women are just amazing.
Jack has been absolutely incredible throughout this whole whirlwind and I can’t thank him enough for his support while going through it too, the small amount of family and friends that knew and the hospital staff, we will forever be grateful.
Why we chose to do the Great North 10k
Having looked online we came across The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust. We were overcome with information and help offerings from the trust. We felt we had to do something to turn such a negative time into a positive, in early recovery from my surgery (feeling very optimistic) we decided to sign up to the AJ Bell Great North 10k, in the hope to raise money for such an amazing charity so close to our hearts and in turn help others going through such a awful time like we had.
The day itself was brilliant, such an amazing atmosphere and very emotional for us to be taking part. Every time we struggled we reminded ourselves just why we were running, we finished at 1hr 27 minutes and are thrilled to say we have raised £620 with the help and support of our amazing family and friends.
Our huge thanks goes out to the lovely Stephanie and Jack for their incredible support taking on this 10k, raising much needed funds and awareness. If you want to raise funds and awareness for The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, please visit our fundraising page. You can also email our Fundraising Co-ordinator Jill who will be very happy to help and guide you: Jill@ectopic.org.uk.