Grief Process

Who's Who
1

Hello everyone,

I’ve come here in hopes to move forward through my apparent grief and struggle post ectopic, and rupture.

I’ve chosen to use the copper IUD as my main contraception for 7 years. It has worked wonderfully for me, and I have had no problems with it until I became pregnant.

I started to have my suspicions on February 28th this year… My breasts were awfully tender, and I was having abnormal spotting (something I never do). On March 1st I took 5 pregnancy tests, and booked an appointment with my Physician to clarify with a bHCG test, and discuss the possibility that it was an ectopic, since I had the IUD insitu.

On March 6th, after my transvaginal ultrasound, I was treated with Methotrexate IM to rid my body of the ectopic pregnancy. I also had my IUD removed as it was causing me a lot of discomfort… probably due to cervical, and intrauterine changes.

My bHCG levels were trending down appropriately due to the Methotrexate. I was feeling better about the (non-viable) pregnancy, and my emotions regarding the same.

Then on March 27th, during a night shift, I had weird pelvic floor pain, then sudden awful lower right quadrant abdominal pain. I told my fellow nurses that I needed to go down to the ER.

I had a contrast CT done, and confirmed that my right fallopian tube had ruptured, and that I would need abdominal surgery to rectify the situation. My partner, being a Resident, was 4 hours away doing his off service rotation in another hospital. I requested to be transferred there so I could be with my person. The surgeons at his hospital said that I was too unstable to transfer, and would need to stay in my town for the surgery.

Thankfully my partner was able to take time off, and drove the four hours to come be with me.

I needed to wait a couple hours prior to surgery as I had eaten at 1900 prior to my shift, and therefore it was too risky to put me under anaesthetic, and intubate me.

At 0600 on March 28th, I went down to the operating theatre for the surgery. My abdomen was quite distended.

The surgery went well. My surgeon was able to save my tube and ovary. He worked relentlessly hard. I lost a lot of blood, and required a couple transfusions over the next couple of days while I was in hospital.

I dealt with awful nausea, vomitting, weakness, headaches, abdominal pain.

It is now April 15th, and I am just starting to feel the fear, sadness, and other mixed emotions I am unable to put my finger on.

Just putting my story down has helped… Thank you.

2

So sorry to read your story :frowning:

It is such a shock. My surgery was on the 27th Feb and I had my left tube removed along with baby.

I had been on the contraceptive implant until it ran out in December and I decided to try the mini pill so that we could try for baby later on this year. The mini pill failed me but I didn’t know until I was in A&E in agony being told I was pregnant and it was ectopic.

The two emotions I struggle the most with is the fear, the fear of everything that happened. The smell of antiseptic gives me a lump in my throat.

Unfortunately 4 weeks later I ended up back in A&E with a suspected kidney stone. Having the go through all the cannula and scans again just terrified me. I was an emotional wreck.

The second emotion is the loss mixed with guilt. The pregnancy was not planned, however if it had been viable I would have been over the moon. The guilt of having to end it, that my body failed. Is unbearable at times.

Please remember you are not alone. You are not the only one to feel like this. This forum is a brilliant place to talk xxx

3

I’m 6 weeks post op now, I’ve been seeing a counsellor Every week, and my life is back to “normal”, yet this morning I burst into tears in the shower.

My counsellor told me that grief is not linear, it comes and goes, there is no set order in which to feel the emotions. I understand completely the feeling of guilt that my body failed. I too feel that. Not only guilt for my baby, but guilt for my partner too - he did it all right, it was my silly body didn’t know what to do.

All we can do is just live, breath, and talk (type) about how we feel…

I hope you both are doing OK. Xx

4

I think that everyone truly does grief differently. It has been almost a year and a half since I have had my whole ectopic pregnancy and honestly it is a constant battle how my day is going to play out. As hard as it may seem I just try and think about the positive things and really focus on keeping myself busy. It truly is a frighting feeling. One second you find out that you are going to be a mother and than the next second your getting told that you are going to need to terminate the pregnancy. I had a horrible experience and I am still to this day deathly afraid of getting pregnant again. I don’t think I will every be able to get over what I went through, but at this time I am really trying to find people that understand what I am going through. I don’t think anyone truly understands what it is like unless they have been through it. I was only 6 weeks pregnant. I still lost… but know one gets that.

5

Cmooers12:
I think that everyone truly does grief differently. It has been almost a year and a half since I have had my whole ectopic pregnancy and honestly it is a constant battle how my day is going to play out. As hard as it may seem I just try and think about the positive things and really focus on keeping myself busy. It truly is a frighting feeling. One second you find out that you are going to be a mother and than the next second your getting told that you are going to need to terminate the pregnancy. I had a horrible experience and I am still to this day deathly afraid of getting pregnant again. I don’t think I will every be able to get over what I went through, but at this time I am really trying to find people that understand what I am going through. I don’t think anyone truly understands what it is like unless they have been through it. I was only 6 weeks pregnant. I still lost… but no one gets that.