Recount of my ectopic experience

I’m not sure where to start as this was truly not suspected. We really thought I was miscarrying on my own and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

On Thursday I was still bleeding and I decided to call my doctors office to update them and also get a refill on metformin. They scheduled me to come in for a beta, ultrasound and to meet with my doctor. I thought it would be an appointment where they would say they couldn’t see anything but a sac and that I’d either be told to wait it out or have a D&C next week.

I went into work before my appointment because I am bogged down with projects that I wanted to put in some time on. I left for my appointment and as the u/s tech started the ultrasound she said she would look first and then let us know what was going on. She started taking picture immediately. It felt like 10 minutes before she said anything. She showed me that my uterus was still empty. She said that most likely my doctor will want to come in and take a look himself. He came in started looking and said that my right ovary was a comma shape and he noticed something around my right ovary. I got dressed and we went to speak with the doctor.

He told us that he believes that it is one of two things that he saw on the u/s. Ectopic or a cyst on my ovary. At this point I still didn’t believe that it was ectopic because all I’ve ever heard was that I’d be in severe pain. I never experienced this. He then gave us three options…

1. A shot of methotrexate. It’s only about 80% effective. We’d never find out what actually happened. Could cause a lot of different side effects.

2. Wait it out. Not recommended at all by my doctor and most likely he wouldn’t have let me pick this.

3. Laparoscopy and a D&C. 99% effective. We’ll have an answer as to what happened with this pregnancy.

My DH and I really wanted some answers and we wanted this over with as soon as possible. I was on day 15 of bleeding and really wanted to move on to some normalcy for my life.

I had to quickly go to quest to have a few tests run to make sure I could have the surgery. I ran there and the lady freaked saying that those tests couldn’t be run stat. Telling her I had to have surgery that afternoon didn’t work so I broke out the tears and told her about the pregnancy. She quickly changed her tone and worked her magic that I knew she could do to have it do STAT.

I then had to run back to work send some reports to my boss and explain to her what was going on. I was out of work and on my way home within 20 minutes. I still wasn’t sure when, where or if I’d have surgery on Friday as I had to wait to hear from my doctors office. Once I get home they do call and I’m all set for 5:00 at a hospital over an hour away from my house in Atlanta. I had to leave pretty soon after the call because I need to be at the hospital two hours before surgery for pre-op. Since we were told that it would be an hour surgery and an hour recovery and then I could leave I only brought a change of pants so that I could wear something comfortable around the cuts.

We arrived at the hospital and of course parked what felt like an hour away from where we actually needed to be. Go me for finding out where admissions are at exactly. As we’re almost where we need to be we notice that it is raining cats and dogs outside. Glad that we were inside checked in, filled out all the paperwork that was needed and they took me back to get changed into my lovely dress for the next several hours. About 45 minutes before my surgery is to take place I’m all settled in and they are putting in my IV another nurse comes in and says that Dr. S just left his office. What?! During the day it would take 30 minutes from his office to this hospital. With traffic? probably 45 minutes. On a Friday afternoon? Most likely an hour. On a Friday afternoon while a down pour happens on the interstate? 2 hours and 30 minutes. I went into surgery 2 hours late. I had already been moved from one floor to another because I was the last one waiting to go into surgery. Once he arrived he went over the game plan and we expressed that if at all we really wanted to save my tube if it was ectopic. I kissed my husband and we were off. The last thing I remember is the anesthesiologist saying take deep breaths and I was out.

I remember waking up in a daze. I could barely open my eyes. When I did open my eyes I could only see shadows. I remember hearing my doctor say something but I’m not sure what he said. At one point the nurse asked me my pain level. I remember when I was in pre-op they asked me on a level of 1 to 10 where should they medicate me and we decided on a 2. So I said a 3…I don’t think I was in so much pain as shock at feeling the cuts. She then told me she couldn’t medicate me and I was still too out of it to argue with her. I then remember someone saying that it was ectopic and that I lost my right tube. All I could do was cry. Crying while you’re some what comatose is hard. I then started saying “My Husband. Where is he?” The nurse also denied letting him in and I replied “Why?” I didn’t care if they had others in the room recovering. I then remember my doctor saying that I am doing good and I was going to stay over night and he would see me in the morning.

The next thing I knew they were wheeling me out of recovery and I saw my husband and family in the hall way. I reached out for my husband so he would know that it was me and he could follow us. The bed they had me on wouldn’t fit into the room so they had me scoot myself onto another bed. Once they moved me into the room my family was allowed in the first thing that I asked my husband and Mom is why did they have me say 2 for the pain and when I told the nurse 3 she denied me. My husband went into total protective mode and when my nurse came in to check my vitals immediately asked her. They actually had a good reason. Apparently I was still so out of it my oxygen level wasn’t high enough that I was still using the oxygen from the machine and they had to make sure that was stable before they were allowed to give me any pain medication. At this point I was able to see around the room. My DH said that he had pictures and would show me if I was interested. Uh, yeah. He showed me my ovary. And then the tube with the embryo in it. Holy Crap. It was HUGE. How could I not be in any pain? It is amazing.

I then fell asleep but I could still hear everything going on in the room. I could even hear myself snore? Great. My husband was right – I do snore!! It was the oddest thing. I was asleep but felt like I was awake. Once my family left I thought that my H and I were going to try and get some sleep. Which I did for about two hours until I heard the nurse and my H talking. He went to get more blankets and tell the nurse that my IV bag was empty. She then asked if I was in any pain and to be honest I didn’t feel a thing! I was so excited. She then said I’d need to use the restroom some time which I did. It wasn’t until they helped me out of bed that I really felt the cuts. I had to use the bathroom 5 times throughout the night. The urge seemed to come every hour on the hour.

My doctor came in around 10 AM the next morning and checked out everything. He said everything looked great and he was releasing me to go home. We then spoke briefly about what our next steps would be. He knows that we wanted to take a break before we’d even consider moving on to our next option. He strongly urges moving to IVF to bypass the possibility of another ectopic in the left tube. The chance will be 1% at this time.

I’m now at home and healing nicely. Emotionally I’m okay. This is the first day where I’ve spent most of it along and on the couch. It’s really given me time to put my emotions together and think. I’m returning to work tomorrow. It’s going to be hard getting adjusted because I still can’t sit up straight for a long period of time. I’m also not allowed to lift anything and I have to stay off my feet as much as possible.

I wanted to take a minute to say that my husband is incredible. He has never been the kind of guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve. When I checked my email for the first time on Sunday I noticed several emails from my H. Each email updated me on what was going on throughout my surgery and telling me how much he loves me. I didn’t realize this but the doctor and nurses would call my H from the OR and update him. I was so glad because it didn’t keep him waiting since I was originally supposed to be gone for 2 hours and I was gone for over 3. The last email was sent after my family left and I had fallen asleep. It was a pep talk – he told me that he didn’t see this as we will never have kids but that this is a test to see how badly we want kids. I balled as I read these emails and I am balling as I write this. He made me feel like he was right next to me during the entire surgery holding my hand. How did I get so lucky?

I know this post is long and it has taken me 3 days to write all of this. I still haven’t got out everything I want to say but I really want to put more thought into my next post. I really want to sort out my feelings. My feelings on everything that has happened, what is to come and IVF.