On Friday, February 26, I was six weeks and one day pregnant. We had just had amazing news from the doctor the day before, and I was still giddy. Friday is always "Taco Friday" lunch out with my co-workers, and its my favorite. However, they were both out of town this week, so I grabbed a quick lunch on my own. Then, the pain started to creep up on me. I slowly realized that I did not feel good, and somewhere deep down I just knew. This was not my first rodeo, I knew the symptoms, and things always went wrong during our 6th week.
Every. Single. Time.
However, I told myself all the reasons that that was not what was happening here. While my pain was increasing, it was mostly on my left side. I was previously told by one of our nurses that after having a left side ectopic patients often misinterpret discomfort on the left side as tubal issues when they are really GI since your bowels are in the same area. So, since my surgery in December removed my left tube, I knew that we couldn't be having any issues related to a left side ectopic pregnancy.
So, I stalled for an hour. I text my husband. I stalled for another hour. I called the doctor. I waited for the doctor to call me back. I saw a client (I was still at work). More waiting for the doctor. By the time the doctor called me back, the choices we had were to wait until the next morning and come into their office or go now to the ER. I was in a fair amount of pain at this point and had almost passed out at work, but all had our fingers crossed that "this too shall pass." So, we chose to wait it out at home with clear guidelines of what would put us over the threshold to go to the ER tonight. I called an uber and asked Evan to come home early. We text our families, and my uber driver got an earful as I called my mom crying, scared, and pretending this wasn't happening - again.
The next morning, we went to our reproductive endocrinologist (RE) doctor's office trying to play it cool. We saw a doctor we had never met before, who was beyond fabulous. As a side note, I really appreciate when the doctors verbalize what they are seeing in ultrasound and thinking during a crisis because without it the silence is deafening. After discussing my symptoms, she did the ultrasound herself, and she explained that she could see a lot of bleeding in my pelvis. She also said that she could not find the baby in the uterus, and that we were far enough along that they should be able to see the gestational sac. She shared she was very concerned that it was a rupturing ectopic pregnancy, and she wanted me to go to the hospital immediately for more tests. We sat in a mixture of shock and tears, and she graciously answered all of our questions. She said she would come meet us at the hospital soon, and would call our regular doctor for a consult.
We headed off to the ER, and were quickly admitted. The next several hours were a whirlwind of doctors, tests, and luckily, some medication for the pain. The hospital doctors all ultimately confirmed what our doctor had told earlier - we were having another ectopic pregnancy. However, this time, the internal bleeding was so significant that they could not tell where it was, but they could clearly see that it was not in the uterus.
After consulting with my regular RE doctor, everyone decided that I needed emergency surgery. There were a lot of unknowns, since they didn't know where the baby was or where the bleeding was coming from, they couldn't tell us exactly what they were going to do. Generally, their plan was to find the source of the bleeding, stop the bleeding, locate the baby, and remove the baby (since it was located outside of the uterus and could no longer survive). They said that there was an 80% chance that I’d have to lose my right fallopian tube (if this happened I would never be able to get pregnant without IVF), and there was a possibility that they would need to take my right ovary, too (if I lost both ovaries I wouldn’t be able to have genetic children, ever). We talked through all the million if-then-but-possibilities so the doctors would know our wishes and attempt to save my tubes, my ovaries, and the baby in the remote chance that was possible.
Before the surgery, we asked for some time alone to pray together and say goodbye to our little love.
Our hearts were broken.