1 in 100

Every March I feel called to write on this and every March I falter to find the right words. I know shedding light on situations that feel too dark, too heavy, too hard often get swept under the rug for more pleasant chit chat. I know that while miscarriages are common and are now being spoken about as somewhat of a sisterhood, my story is the only of its kind that I've ever heard. I know that as someone low risk for any complications, this made me feel damaged as if I were somehow to blame or as if my body was not enough for the task it was "meant to do". I know that when it was happening to me, I could not believe it was actually happening to me so I allowed it to progressively get worse because surely I was not 1% of the population and a statistic I had never heard spoken about from anyone I knew. I know that if I knew I could even get pregnant while breastfeeding or without having gotten my period back after having my daughter, I might have known sooner and I might have been able to do something before becoming incredibly sick. I know that if it wasn't the year 2020, I might not have been terrified to seek medical help sooner. What I am trying to say is that I am writing this because if knowing what I now know helps someone sooner and allows them to not end up in the same situation I was in, I feel this was well worth it. Knowledge is power and in this case could in fact save your life.

I've decided to go the storytelling route as I feel that is the best way to truly paint a full picture for you. It was St. Patrick's Day 2020 and the world had been placed on hold as we all tried to navigate the beginnings of the pandemic. We had a 6 month old at home, and my husband and I spent the day cleaning out and organizing the garage for a neighborhood yard sale the next weekend that would be cancelled later that same day. Our childless friends were all out together celebrating as no one knew exactly what precautions anyone should be taking. We put our daughter to sleep and they came over to celebrate what was left of the day drinking beer and chatting around our fire pit. As we sat there, I got a really strong pain in my stomach. I ended up in the bathroom for quite some time thinking maybe I had eaten something I shouldn't or that the beer was not agreeing with me. Either way, it was memorable enough that I am writing about it here as the starting point to this whole story 3 years later. 

Several days passed by and I didn't think about it again until I was sitting on the couch with my daughter one morning and all of a sudden was sent into crippling pain. I could not stand up straight and felt like I could barely breathe. It felt like I had been stabbed right in the lower part of my stomach. I had gotten what I assumed was my period back that morning for the first time since giving birth to my daughter and I assumed maybe that was the cause of my pain. I immediately texted my girlfriends and consulted Doctor Google to get their medical opinions, because that felt like the obvious next step to take. I was also mildly convinced it might be something like appendicitis and since my husband was home, I decided I would rest all day and see how I was feeling the next day. The pain got progressively worse throughout the day, but my desire to not go into a medical office during this time in the world where doctor's offices felt like the last place you should be was stronger than my willingness to believe something was actually wrong with me.

The next day I woke up to the same debilitating pain and after I once again consulted with my team of non-medical professional friends and the internet, I decided to make a doctor's appointment. When I called, they were not able to see me until late that day. Thankfully, because of lockdown, my husband's job was flexible with him needing time off to care for our daughter while I sorted out my mystery pain. 

Late that day, I drove myself to my doctor's office. I got to the waiting room where I sat doubled over in the seat having the lady at the front desk very concerned with my well being. I swore up and down I did not have the dreaded "c word", but just felt like I had a really bad stomach ache (aka the lie I kept telling myself). Once in the room with my doctor, I explained that I had just gotten my period back and how I was in a lot of pain. As she felt around my abdomen and I let out embarrassingly loud screams, she looked more and more concerned for my safety as the appointment went on. Eventually she stated that she was concerned about my appendix and wanted to send me in for some scans. When she called the radiology office, they told her that they wouldn't be able to see me until the following day as it was so close to closing.

I went home that night and as I was trying to rest in bed, my doctor called me. She raised some concerns for my overall health and told me that if I got worse, started to vomit, or got lightheaded that I should head to the Emergency Room immediately. Since my coping mechanism is to make people laugh, I tried to make light of the situation to reassure her I would be OK. She was less amused by my attempts. After getting off the phone with her, I went to the bathroom to change my pad (yes pad, because helllllo first period after giving birth). When I got up to come back to my bed, I immediately became lightheaded and had to ask Siri to call my husband to help me back into bed. The rational part of me knew I should probably go to the ER like immediately, but the other part of myself really was not trying to go there when we were in the third week of lockdown and that seemed like the last place one should go to. I decided to try to sleep it off until my appointment in the morning. As I laid in bed, I started to scroll through Doctor Google again to diagnose myself as any good millennial does. I was more and more convinced that I had appendicitis until I came across the words "ectopic pregnancy" and clicked on the symptoms. It felt a little too spot on, but when I read that it happened to only 1% of pregnancies, I figured that that must be coincidental especially because I had my period, right? 

The next morning when I arrived at the radiology office, I was met with a sign that stated that my husband would not be allowed in with me. I was feeling fairly weak at this point, so he sat in our car right outside the window to watch me inside in case I needed help. When I got inside, I was told that my insurance would not cover this scan and it would be $800 up front. I wish I was kidding you. As if I was not in enough physical pain and already up to our eyeballs in bills from delivering a child six months prior, now I would need this to figure out how to save my life. Excellent. After negotiating with the ladies at the front desk for quite some time, I was able to get them to agree to me paying only $400 that day and paying the remainder later. It felt like a horror movie version of "The Price Is Right".

Once inside, they had me disrobe in a room that had a large sign that read, "Please let us know if you think you could be pregnant." I tried to shake off the feeling that what I read the night before could be really happening to me. But then, when the lady who would be performing my scan asked me if I could be pregnant. I stopped, looked her, and gave her the response that seemed to become my mental mantra, "Well, I currently have my period so...". She led me into the room, I laid in the machine, and was told that my doctor would contact me with the results as soon as possible. When I asked if she could tell if there was anything going on since I was in so much pain, she said there was definitely something but she really didn't know. 

As per my doctor's instructions, my husband then dropped me off at my doctor's office where I would find out the results of my scan. Once inside the room with my doctor, I was told that it was definitely not appendicitis, but there was so much free flowing blood that they couldn't really tell what was happening down there. (This felt like an excellent use of $800.) She felt around on my stomach some more as I let out screams of pain. I then gained the courage to ask the question that had been sitting in the back of my throat. "Do you think this could be an ectopic pregnancy?" She looked at me with alarm. "Didn't you say you had your period right now?" I explained that while I was most certainly bleeding a lot, I now was worried that that was not the reason I was bleeding. She immediately gave me a pregnancy test that, of course, came back positive. I'm not sure who was more red in this moment, me or my doctor. She ran to the phone and immediately called my OB. My OB was in the hospital that day delivering babies, so I was told I would need to go to a further office to see someone else who I believe was a nurse practitioner.

My doctor walked me out to my car where my husband had been waiting (since he was not allowed in any building with me because of the lockdown). She reiterated that if I felt lightheaded at all to go straight to the Emergency Room.  Of course I felt lightheaded, but I really was terrified of what I might encounter inside the ER based on what the news made it sound like. I got dropped off at the OB office that was very far from both the hospital and my doctor's office that were across the street from one another and had a far too long sit in the waiting room. By the time the medical professional (whose title I am still unsure of) saw me, I was sweating profusely and trying not to vomit. She scanned me and happily told me, "Congratulations! You're pregnant!" She then followed it with a furrowed brow and said that she wasn't sure what she was looking at and would need to call my OB for a phone consult. If looks could have killed in this moment. Anyway, once she returned, she let me know that I would need to drive 20 minutes back where I came from to see my OB who would leave "Labor and Delivery"  and meet me in her office (which is inside the hospital) to see what was going on with me. I cried the whole way there. The gravity of this situation began to hit me like a ton of bricks and I suddenly became all too aware of my own mortality and the fact that I had a baby girl waiting for her mother at home.

Once in the hospital, my husband dropped me off and I waited doubled over in pain to be cleared as "safe" to be allowed in the building. After arguing with the staff about why I was there and that I had not been in contact with anyone who was sick besides myself, I was sent up to the third floor. By the time I got into the waiting room and was sitting waiting for my OB to meet me, I was overcome with a feeling of nausea. I immediately sat up and asked to use the bathroom. I ran in and sat on the toilet drenched in sweat. After a pep talk with myself, I stood up and immediately felt like my world was spinning. I just got the door open to make eye contact with a nurse that I knew to tell her I needed a chair when my world turned black.

I opened my eyes to about 10 pairs of eyes staring down at me asking me if I was OK. Mentally I responded, "I've been better" but I'm not sure my joke actually made it out of me. I was lifted up, sat in a desk chair, and force fed water. I looked up and made eye contact with my OB who was sprinting in my direction. My OB took the office chair and rolled me down to the ultrasound room running. They did an ultrasound on me in the same room I had been in to see my daughter only months earlier in my belly. It was confirmed that I had an ectopic pregnancy as I was crying to some woman I didn't know who kept calling me sweetie and smelled like lingering cigarette smoke. I cried heavily as the doctors discussed more with each other than with me about what would need to happen next as this turned into an emergency situation very quickly. I was told my fallopian tube had ruptured and would need to be removed. In a heart stopping reality check, I blurted out, "Does this mean I can't have anymore children?!" My OB stopped everything, took my hand, and told me I could have 12 more children if I wanted- little did she know that was my actual childhood dream. I took a sigh of relief as I called my husband. I started talking, but before I knew it my OB as on the phone with him telling him what to pack for me as I was about to head to the Operating Room. I was then helped back onto my trusty office chair as my doctor wheeled me to the elevators. All of a sudden it hit me like a ton of very heavy, lactating bricks. "I NEED TO PUMP!" It had been hours since I last fed my baby let alone pumped. I was told that I would need to wait until after surgery since we needed to start it ASAP. While we were in the elevator, my OB took out her cell phone, had me give her my husband's phone number, and told him to bring my pump and secretly meet her in the parking lot so she could get me my belongings. He would not be allowed in the building because of the lockdown. What an angel this woman is.

Then, like out of a scene from Grey's Anatomy, she rolled me across the entire first floor lobby of the hospital with every human yelling at her to make sure I was "safe" as she flipped them off running at a full sprint to the Operating Room. The next 20 minutes was an absolute blur as the kind lady from the ultrasound room helped me get ready for surgery. I remember signing papers that I didn't read and handing off all my valuables in ziplock bags. The last thing I remember was the anesthesiologist telling me to count and even that is a blur. The surgery was a success leaving me one fallopian tube lighter, but alive.

As I recovered the next few days and got home to my husband and baby girl, I was reminded to hug my people a little harder. I also learned a hard truth for a postpartum mother to hear- don't ignore that pain, it could save your life. As I said in the beginning of this long story, I tell this as a way to shed light on something that isn't widely talked about. If I had heard of even one other person tell a story similar to mine, I might have taken a moment to really consider this possibility from the beginning and could have saved myself a lot of pain (and medical bills). Also, a reminder that you can get pregnant even if you're breastfeeding, even if you haven't gotten your period back yet, and even if you're not trying, but you're also "not not" trying. Love to all of you.