Hi
I had a ruptured cornual ectopic in December 2017 and my left tube removed by laparoscopy. I would just like to tell you my story, because sometimes I have the feeling that everything just happened because of some mistake I made. My husband tells me every day it’s not my fault, but I guess I need reassurance on this, but have nobody to talk to about this. Sorry if I told the full story before the rupture but if you are not interested just skip this next paragraph. I f you had a similar experience please let me know, hearing the sotries, while of course is said they happened, they make me feel less alone.
It all started between October and November 2017 when my husband and I decided that we could stop contraception and leave it to happen if it needed to happen. I am doing a PhD in science and I did not want to get pregnant while still working in a lab, and as I was coming to the end of it, it seemed the right time. When my November period was due we were visiting my husband’s parents for few days and my period was late. I got very nervous as I felt some weird pains like it was due but it was not coming. At first I did not give it too much care, as my cycles are always quite long (about 34 days, but at times even 39) but knowing about ectopic pregnancies, as my aunts and my granny both had one, I got paranoid I had one, and read all about it, to try to calm myself down, but it had the opposite effect, especially because being in someone else’s house taking a pregnancy was not straightforward. However, at the end with an excuse my husband took me to get one and the result on the screen was negative. I got more relaxed until after a couple of days I started bleeding, but it was strange, very dark and clotty, but I told myself to stop being paranoid and that is was just my overdue period. Once the bleeding stopped, just to be sure, I took another test. This was one of the classic tests with the lines, and when I took it I thought it was just confirming the negative result. In hindsight, it was probably a faint positive, but I had no experience of positive tests, so I just concluded that it was just like the others and I was only being paranoid, as I also just had my period. I now feel so stupid for all of this, and I feel that I should have seen it, I should have known it, how could I be so stupid? I could I not take an idiot-proof pregnancy test?! Anyway, as it was decided I was not pregnant I just went on with my life, working in a lab, etc. at the same time of this happening I started having always a lot of air in my tummy, I was waking up during the nights with very strong cramps, but I am used to general digestion problems, and I thought it was just the stress and the food, and thought of having an intolerances test to understand what was making me feel that bad. I could only eat rice and veggies and I even stopped drinking coffee (which was very weird). In all of that time I thought I couple of times I could be pregnant, but I thought it was not worth it to take a test until after my period was due at the end of December, as the month before I was not pregnant.
In the middle of December, we went for holiday in Italy to my parents. I was a bit sad as I would have loved to be able to tell them at Christmas we would have a baby, but it wasn’t the case. While in Italy, we had planned some trips by train for a few days, and thinking that my ectopic did not rupture during all of those trips makes me feel so blessed. Nothing happened then, I only had an headache and took an aspirin for it. The day we were back from the trips, in the evening I went to visit a friend for dinner, and started feeling the tummy pain I had kept feeling in the past month or two, but over the evening they slowly got worse, to the point I had to undo the button of my jeans, and when I eventually tried to go to the toilet, but I felt something wasn’t right. I went to the toilet, but didn’t even lock the door and immediately came out and curled down to the floor where I collapsed, I got sick, and could not move anymore. At first, we thought I had a congestion from the pizza we had eating, but I had the feeling it was not that, but could not say. I was taken into ER with an ambulance, and at that point I had pain in my tummy, in my lower abdomen, and in my shoulder tip, to the point it was really painful to breathe. I had to wait a long time, I think at least 3 hrs to be visited, as I was considered low emergency as they thought it was just the pizza. When eventually I was visited, I was first told it was probably appendicitis, but they took a pregnancy test for precaution, which ended up positive, so I only discovered there I was actually pregnant, and they sent me to the gynaecological hospital as it was a suspected ectopic. There I was visited immediately and the scan showed internal bleeding and I was taken into OR for emergency laparoscopy. They told me I had cornual ectopic, which ruptured and left tube was removed. I had lost about 1000cc of blood, but I was fine without transfusion. I spent about 4 days in hospital, during which I was too shocked and too much in pain from surgery to cry, even if inside of me I wanted to just sit there and cry all my tears, for that baby I did not know I had and I had immediately lost. I was sent home on Christmas day on condition I would come early the following day to test my hcg values were going down. I needed to go back for few times, but within a couple of weeks they went down to 2 from 1700 after the surgery. The following month was quite hard, as I had to stay over with my parents, and my husband after 2 weeks had to go back anyway for work. I had to wait for the post-op visit, which told me I was recovering well. I could walk normally only after 2 weeks and within a month I was fully recovered phisically, only had some small infection in my belly button I controlled by keeping it clean and dry and with some antibiotic cream. Going back to the lab initially was ok, as by that time I just wanted to finish my things and start to write my thesis, which got postponed by a couple months at that point. I should be writing my thesis now, but I felt I needed to write this first, to leave my thoughts somewhere and not into my head, continuously and repetitively. Thinking about how I ignored the signs, makes me feel so guilty, especially because I like to be on top of things, and to be in control, and in this situation, I had no control, I made mistakes, I was silly, but also, I could not know and I had nobody to turn to. With my mum I don’t have that relationship I would ask her for baby advice (when I was in hospital she complained to me as I should have a gown for pregnancy emergencies…I did not even know I was pregnant and I was on holiday for a week! Never been in a hospital before), and the friends who would listen to my problems cannot hear about baby and all that stuff, so I felt a bit alone. I know that even if I had known I could not have done anything for the baby, that this could happen in the same way, but I feel wrong, I feel stupid, I feel like this made me a terrible mother, not even knowing my baby was there.
Thank you for this space and for listening, I have been reading this forum for long, but never found courage to write my own story till now. I was worried nobody would care, but I then thought it might help somebody else, like reading other’s stories helped me, and I felt it was good to write it down. Maybe now I can allow my mind to forget about it as it is written and I do not need to keep it in anymore.
All the best wishes for recovery and luck for the future to all
Annaxxx