My name is Colleen and my husband Jerad, we have been together for seven years. I have two children from a previous marriage and then my husband and I have one child together that we had in 2019. We wanted more children so we continued to try after our daughter was born.
I fell pregnant in 2021 and when I went in for my 15 week appointment my doctor told me the baby had no heartbeat that our son had passed away somewhere around 11 weeks. I was devastated. I wanted to let my body naturally miscarry, but the doctors were worried I might lose a lot of blood. I went home and my body was not miscarrying. I could not mentally handle knowing my son was not alive in me anymore, so I called the doctor and they prescribed me a medication to help my body start the process. I went back home and that night my body miscarried our son. For the next few weeks I was having episodes where I was bleeding like I was miscarrying all over again. I went to see the doctor and there was some pregnancy still inside me and she had to perform a D&C (dilatation and curettage – a procedure that removes tissue from inside the uterus) because I was losing a lot of blood.
After that experience, I was left very devastated. I didn’t know if I wanted to get pregnant again but surprise, 2022 comes along and I am pregnant again, but this time I went to a midwife because I wanted to have a homebirth. I was concerned because I was bleeding the whole time, I was pregnant. I was about 15 weeks along when I decided to go into the Emergency Room and ask for an ultrasound, I had miscarried once again. I was devastated. It was a boy. I just didn’t understand why my body was doing this.
Recently, in May, we found out we were pregnant again. On 10 June, I woke up at 2:30 AM with excruciating pelvic pain. I thought I was miscarrying, so I lay in the bathtub. I was very lightheaded, I felt like I was going to pass out. I was yelling for my husband for about 10 minutes before he heard me because I was so weak and in pain. He woke up and I told him he had to take me to the hospital. I knew something was wrong. We got to the hospital and everything happened so fast, the doctors and nurses were all rushing to get blood tests and an ultrasound done as fast as possible. My blood pressure was so low in the 30s that they could not give me anything for the pain, they told me I was having an ectopic pregnancy and I that I had to be taken to surgery urgently. I was scared and I looked at my husband and said my last goodbye because I didn’t know if I was going to make it.
I woke up from surgery and the doctors told me that I had lost 2 litres of blood and that they had to remove my right Fallopian tube as it had ruptured. I also had breathing complications where they had to give me breathing treatments in surgery. I was in shock that I had been so close to death, and that I had lost another baby. I am still in the grieving process. The next day I got the gender results for my baby. It was a girl. This experience was totally different from my miscarriages. I am at a loss for words and feel so alone. I am so thankful I found The EPT website to read other people’s experiences. Thank you for letting me share my story.
Thank you to Colleen 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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