2nd ectopic after missed abortion?

I’m 30 years old, have a healthy 10-year old (who I had through an emergency c-section) at home and about 2 years ago we started trying for a 2nd one. In July 2018 I had a quite early miscarriage in 5-6 weeks of pregnancy. I was gutted, but was ready to try again right away.

After the bleeding stopped, we started to try again, but this resulted in an ectopic, which thankfully dissolved on its own and no medical interference was needed. During the ectopic I was spotting for 2+ weeks until the bigger bleeding started and every day had sharp, but bearable pain in my left side.

Once it was done with, we waited for about 2-3 months and then started trying again. I got pregnant in March 2019 and this time it showed a healthy pregnancy at 8+ weeks, but unfortunately I had a missed abortion at 10 weeks, which did not fully resolve in it’s own, so I had to get a DC surgery.

After that I was devastated and determined to get both of us tested. After a few months of tests and refraining from pregnancy, doctors said that both us are healthy and there are no abnormalities in the tests.

We started trying again in September 2019. About a week ago I started noticing that my boobs are really sore and I felt nauseous - the symptoms that I have had all previous times as well. The only thing different was that this time I didn’t need to get up during the night to go pee. I had this symptom quite early on with all previous pregnancies, but when I had the missed abortion, then this symptom stopped at one point (might have been an indication of the embryo starting to shrink).

So this time I was a bit skeptical already, but thought that maybe it’s still too early and that all pregnancies don’t need to be same for sure. I was really impatient, so I took my first test (10mIU/mL) on the 24th cycle day, which of course was negative, but I thought I saw a very-very faint line on the test. So I waited for 2 days and on 26th cycle day took another one, which was also almost negative, but with a very light shadow of a 2nd line.

At that point I was already scared out of my mind, because I started having light pain on my left side and the nausea and boob soreness started to decrease.

Yesterday I started spotting and I was sure that my period will come now, but it was only brown spotting for a few hours and it stopped at one point. I am still lightly spotting today, so this morning I took another test (29th cycle day) and this one now has a visible, but still a bit faint 2nd line.

I have dull, but totally bearable pains coming and going on my left side. This together with the faint lines on tests and spotting is making me feel that it has to be another ectopic.

Has anyone else had any similar situation where you had an ectopic, a pregnancy in the uterus and then another ectopic?

Has anyone had the same symptoms, but then turned out that it was a healthy pregnancy inside the uterus?

Dear Kris21,

I am so sorry to hear of your ectopic pregnancy and losses and the worrying time you are now going through.

The problem with diagnosing ectopic pregnancy is that we all experience different symptoms, so it is difficult to say what is happening right now.

Some women do experience slight pains and spotting during early pregnancy and go on to have healthy pregnancies.

Spotting and pain however may also be signs of ectopic pregnancy and I would urge you to get urgent medical advice by attending your local A&E as if you are in the UK, it is now put of hours. Please also mention your previous ectopic pregnancy.

I hope this is all over the top advice, but accessing urgent medical advice is your main priority.

Sending much love and positive thoughts,

Karen x

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Thanks for this! I went to the doctor, who didn’t see anything in my uterus or outside of it, but 2 days ago my hcg level was 353 and today it was over 800, so now i am very hopeful!!