Our Ectopic Pregnancy – Part 1

Today, I just want to curl up on the couch and sleep and watch TV. Instead, I’m sitting here at my computer writing the most personal blog post ever. My hope is that this educates others and possibly helps someone who may be searching for answers and what to expect if they’re in a similar situation.

In mid-March I turned 31. I had a nice day with my family and my hubby surprised me with guests over the weekend. I had a great time with friends and family despite an annoying sinus infection that just wasn’t letting up after three weeks.

Earlier in the week I started to suspect that something wasn’t right.

I checked the calendar. I should have had my monthly cycle by now.

Dave and I talked about everything and what it could mean. The day of my surprise party, Dave went out and bought a home pregnancy test and I used it Sunday morning (March 22, 2015). We were a little unsure of the result but sort of leaned toward it being positive. We talked about making an appointment with my midwives to confirm everything.

Within an hour, I decided that I needed to just be seen right away. I had wanted to be checked out for my infection but had put it off due to busyness and Dave’s own worse health concerns at the time. Now, there was no more waiting. After all, our boy also made himself known during a month long sinus infection!

Also, the major thing – I was starting year four of my IUD. This wasn’t supposed to be happening and it could be bad for the baby if I was in fact pregnant.

Dave dropped me off at Urgent Care and went on a drive with the kids.

I told the nurse that I needed to be seen about my lingering sinus infection and the possibility of being pregnant.

The test came back positive. I was in shock. I was very excited about another little one growing inside of me and joining our family at the end of the year. I thought about the timing. Great, it’s going to be another winter baby just before the holidays like its big brother. Grace would be in second grade and Darren would be in half day preschool. That’ll make things easy…

But wait, I still had an IUD.

The nurse and doctor acted like it was no big deal. “Make sure you get in to see your OB soon.” That’s all they had to say. So I was going to call Paragon the next morning, on Monday.

Sunday night my four year old woke me up at 1am because he had a bad dream. I got him settled and went to the bathroom. There was blood. Light and pink, just enough to know it was there.

I woke Dave up as gently as I could and told him I needed to go to the ER. Thankfully my mom was at the house within an hour to stay with the kids.

I went straight to OB triage and told them I was pregnant with an IUD and that I was spotting. They took a blood test and checked my hCG level. (hCG is the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin)

The level was low. The way they were estimating my pregnancy, I could have been about 6 weeks pregnant, but my hCG was entirely too low. My hCG was 458. (It was determined later that I was probably 1-2 weeks along instead.)

I was told to make an appointment to see my OB on Wednesday. They would have to check my level again. An hCG is supposed to double every two days in a healthy pregnancy.

Monday morning I made the call to Paragon. I was very disappointed to find out they had just changed which Hospital they were affiliated with and I could no longer see them with my insurance. I don’t personally care for the other hospital anyway, but I was very disappointed to not have Paragon anymore since I went to them with both pregnancies and had great experiences there. Fortunately, they recommended another office where some of their own doctors were going to be moving to. So I made an appointment for Wednesday.

We went in and told the nurse and the new doctor everything that had been going on. They did another blood test and said they would call with the results. 756. It did not double, but it went up the bare minimum that they needed it to. There was hope!

At the appointment the Mirena (my IUD) was discussed but nothing was planned for removal yet. I was shocked that no one had been making a big deal about it yet. Later that day the doctor called and said she discussed my situation with a superior and was told to get the Mirena out right away. We scheduled for the next morning. I went in, had it removed quite easily. It was a stressful moment as I knew the little arms could injure the baby on the way out. There was nothing obvious on it but it was sent to be tested just in case.

That day the bleeding increased. It was no longer a light pink spotting. It was now red and heavy. It was expected that I’d have more bleeding after the Mirena was removed. There was no range of how long it would last so it was just something to watch and deal with. I had some cramping as well but it was gone within a few hours or so.

The next day, Friday, March 27^th, I went back in for another blood test. When we left, we tried to do some quick shopping. We were in the middle of WalMart when the call came in. My hCG was 876. It only increased by 120. I bawled in the middle of the shoe aisle at WalMart while Dave took my phone and continued talking to the doctor. It was all over. It wasn’t going to last. We scheduled one more blood test for the following Monday. This would be the longest weekend of my life. I had already been sleeping as much as possible because my dreams were the only place I wasn’t haunted with real life. I planned to do as much of that as possible over the weekend too, but we did have some plans we weren’t canceling.

The kids went to my parent’s house for the weekend, as we had planned a month before. It was the start of Grace’s spring break and going to my parent’s house was the best start. Saturday morning we traveled to Youngstown for our friends’ vow renewal. That night we went out to Massillon where Dave performed along with a couple other solo acts we knew. It was nice to get out and it wasn’t that hard on me physically, with the exception of a few moments of overdoing it. On Sunday Dave did a lot of household work – laundry, dishes, general cleaning – on top of waiting on me as I took the day to rest on the couch and do nothing but nap and watch TV.

*This is Part 1 of a 4 part series.

You can continue to Part 2 here: Our Ectopic Pregnancy – Part 2