Hi, I’m Natalie & I’m new to this forum, I wanted to share my story to hopefully help others and prevent what happened to me happening to someone else.
On 7th of January this year (2024) I went into hospital with what I thought was kidney stone pain, but due to me being around 7 weeks pregnant I was given an internal scan straight away (luckily hospital was empty as was a Sunday morning, so felt I got treated well & quickly) although to make it clear I didn’t have any of the usual ectopic symptoms, I only had lower back pain and not being able to pass urine properly.
I went in for the internal scan and the sonographer wasn’t talking at all and clicking away, I had a gut feeling then something was up and I was right.
She turned to me and told me my pregnancy wasn’t located in the uterus it was in my RIGHT fallopian tube and that I had a cyst on my left ovary.
I was told I needed to go for surgery immediately to have the pregnancy (my baby) removed and probably my right tube, and to have the cyst on my left ovary drained.
I felt numb, I was in so much shock, that much shock I didn’t even cry I just felt like I was in a dream, an awful one.
So off I went to surgery for my RIGHT fallopian tubal ectopic pregnancy.
After the surgery and a few hours into recovery a consultant came in to see me, he told me it was in fact my left side that was in a ‘mess’ and that they had removed my left tube and drained the left cyst, he didn’t mention anything about my right tube, although the sonographer had seen the pregnancy in there and sent me up to surgery stating that.
They then sent me on my way with all my leaflets and told me to take a pregnancy test in 3 weeks time.
My discharge notes also stated ‘normal right tube’ so I trusted they had done their job & knew what they were doing.
For the next 2 and a half weeks I felt still so poorly & with me already having 2 children, I suffer morning sickness very badly and this is what it felt like, I felt like I was still pregnant.
It got to the 23rd January, just 5 days short of the 3 week mark and with how poorly I was feeling and my gut telling me something was up, I decided to take a pregnancy test a few days early.
As soon as I took it, it came back so strong, it wasn’t a faint line you could barely make out.
It was a deep dark line and I knew in my gut something wasn’t right, so I decided to call the hospitals emergency department.
Upon speaking to a nurse she advised to come in, in the morning as the wait time was very long.
I went to bed early, but was woken in the middle of the night by the worst pain ever!! I was so scared because I had no idea what it could be and then the right shoulder tip pain came on and a pain across my ribs & abdomen (nothing I had the first time I was diagnosed).
I felt so poorly and immediately went into the emergency department of the hospital I’d visited nearly 3 weeks prior, however this time I was treated a lot differently to the first.
I went back in stating how unwell I had been, the fact the pregnancy test was so strong and now the immense pain I was in and nearly all the symptoms of ectopic pregnancy.
But because I had surgery nearly 3 weeks prior, I unfortunately was not taken seriously & sent away. I had to call back and ask for an internal scan, which was given 2 days later as they were ‘busy’.
So the point of this post is to say trust your gut!!! You know your body and if you feel it could be an ectopic pregnancy, push on and on until you’re heard, don’t be fobbed off.
I went in for the scan on the 26th January, upon walking into the scan the sonographer said to me so you had a right ectopic pregnancy and your right tube out and I felt so much confusion because it was my left side they’d taken and then panic set and remembered it was located on the right on the first scan.
She went on to scan me and found the pregnancy still growing in the right fallopian tubes, I was nearly 10 weeks by this point and my baby had a heart beat, but I knew I had to go for surgery to have it operation done all over again.
And I think this is what haunts me most, knowing my baby had a heart beat but just didn’t make it to the place that he/she could grow and survive.
I also had the devastating blow that my fallopian tube had in fact ruptured (which was probably the pain) and I had internal bleeding.
So within the space of 3 weeks I had two surgeries (one avoidable) 2 tubes lost and my pregnancies and could’ve potentially been fatal.
The point of this post mainly is to raise awareness for HETEROTOPIC pregnancies.
A very rare pregnancy BUT it does happen and because it was rare I wasn’t taken seriously.
It’s when two separate pregnancies (non identical twins) travel down a tube each, sometimes one makes it to the uterus but in my case both got stuck in the tubes.
But because it’s so rare they ignored the fact I’d been sent for my right side originally and because that hadn’t ruptured assumed the sonographer meant the left side because that was leaking.
So not to scare anyone but please please please trust your gut and always push to get seen if you don’t feel right because I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
And I know that NHS is an amazing service who are under strain but it scared me that something so serious was overlooked, so don’t let anyone tell you it’s normal if you’re feeling really poorly, always push to get seen.
I just hope I can help at least 1 person by raising awareness of my story and this kind of ectopic pregnancy.
Natalie x