pain & the ectopic pregnancy

Four days ago I had another hospital visit.  Supposedly today will be the last.  If the beta levels go down to the doctors satisfaction, I won’t have to return to the hospital and have only the occasional clinic visit.

I’m still carrying pain around.

It had been hanging out in my pelvic area, generally on the left, radiating to my lower back.  The night before my last visit it had had me curling up in a hot shower at 4 am, chanting to myself, Please just stop.  Please just stop….

Eventually I crawled out, thinking that it had abated when I was overcome with an urge to vomit.  I collapsed right there in front of the toilet and waited.  Nothing happened but I could feel the blood drain from my face, my entire body shaking, world rocking, and a part of me wanted to vomit.  Maybe it would help me feel better.

I didn’t.  Instead, after some moments had passed, I crawled to my feet and staggered back to bed.

I slept hard.  When I woke up later in the morning, I felt like someone had been using me as a soccer ball.  Even though I didn’t have this kind of pain for the rest of the day, I was tender with myself, the cramps there at their lowest setting just waiting for me to get ambitious so they could kick into high gear sending me back onto a couch, bed, or the floor wondering why I needed to always overdo it.

I don’t know if this is something that others who’ve had the methotrexate injections experience or if it’s more specific to an ectopic pregnancy.

That last visit the doctor seemed unsure about my numbers.  After pushing her she assured me that they’d dropped within their safe parameters and it was okay for me to go home.  Now today I’m hoping to hear the same and that it’ll be the last and I can ignore the twinges in my lower abdomen.

The best thing about the past couple days is that the pain has gone down to manageable levels, enough that I can actually feel like a mom again and do things like drink coffee and eat.  Yes.  Eating had become a grueling task.

Of all of this, the pain has been the absolute hardest part which if I ever have to experience worse in my lifetime all I can hope is that I pass out.

It’s those nights, like the one I described at the beginning, but it’s also the helplessness.  I wasn’t able to do anything and when it came to my little boy that was the killer.  At best I could help my husband change my son’s diaper.  I had to give up breastfeeding.  I wasn’t able to pick him up.  I couldn’t even clean up his messes.  That bothered me.  Useless.  I didn’t feel like a mom at all.

The house was going to pot all around us, my husband overwhelmed with the task of childcare all on his own.  The days that I thought I had some strength and energy (and no pain) I’d dive into a chore to find myself curled up in bed shortly with that question–why do I do these things to myself….

Well.  Because I desperately want to feel normal again.

During that time it was a matter of just living with my body.  Now that I’ve (mostly) got the body I recognize back, I’ve returned to the business of getting my family’s life on track.

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ectopic pregnancy

This is the earliest I’ve been able to get up in a while so I guess that says something for my physical condition….

Through this entire ordeal I’ve debated about how much to make public.  Generally I’m fiercely private and have some major issues with even friends and family knowing much about the personal details of my life.  From the start of this, however, more have known what’s happening to me than I wanted and then I found myself sharing some of my experience with others, hoping to feel connection and empathy.

It’s strange how I’m surrounded by help and sympathy and yet still so intensely alone.

The doctors refer to my condition as having “a pregnancy of unknown location”.  It’s not in my uterus despite my rising hormone levels as of the last blood test, the one I took right before my 2nd dose of methotrexate.  Because the pain I’m experiencing is specific to my lower left abdomen, radiating into my left lower back, there’s been a lot of sideways talk that this is an ectopic pregnancy without anyone directly saying to me “This is an ectopic pregnancy”.

During my last visit, the doctor told me that if this round of methotrexate didn’t do the job, they’d have to perform surgery.  This is not a D&C.  They aren’t going to scrape my uterine wall because there’s nothing in the uterus to scrape.  They’ll have to locate where the pregnancy actually is, cut open that area, and remove it that way.

Part of what makes this so lonely is that even when I tell people what I’m going through, they persist in thinking that this is a miscarriage.  This is the main reason that I want to add my story to the growing collection one can find on the internet.  The more of us who share what we’ve experienced and know, the more it can help guide others through their own pain and confusion.

Miscarriage isn’t exactly common but more likely than an ectopic pregnancy. According to the American Pregnancy Association 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage.  Compare that to 1.9% for ectopic pregnancies (aafp) and you can get the idea how this could lead to all kinds of misinformation from well-meaning people.

What’s really scary about this is that because miscarriage is generally not life-threatening, a woman who believes she’s miscarrying, might think medical intervention is unnecessary.  An ectopic pregnancy is life-threatening.  Even though it’s possible the pregnancy will miscarry on its own, this is not a chance anyone should take with her life.

The night that I got a positive result on my home pregnancy test I started bleeding.  I ignored it because I found research that said this could be normal and that’s what I stubbornly wanted to believe.  Two days later I started cramping, all specific to my lower left abdomen.  My steadfast conviction was to not see a doctor.  I didn’t want the bad news which I thought at that time was going to be the word “miscarriage”.  Had my family been less insistent, I might not have gone to the emergency room.  I might not have found out that there is something terribly wrong happening inside my body.  This misplaced pregnancy would continue growing inside my body, where it has no business growing, and eventually something vital would burst and I’d wind up in the emergency room anyway.  That’s the optimistic view of how things could’ve turned out.

I’m writing this to urge anyone who even remotely suspects a problem to please not ignore it and see a doctor.

Aside from my fear, we’re still uninsured (and unemployed!) and that in itself is a huge deterrent for seeking help.  We’ll need to make a visit to the hospital’s financial aid office in hopes that they’re willing to consider us a charity case.  This is to say, don’t let being uninsured be another reason to keep yourself from seeing someone.  There are avenues for help.

I could go on at length but I’m going to stop here for now.  There’s plenty to write about and I’m sure I don’t have enough time left to get it all down in a coherent form.  Plus I really could use some painkillers.

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the tsunami and the wall

I’d written an entire post and unwittingly erased it all.

I really don’t want to rewrite all of what I’d gone through and still I want to put this out there.

I found out I was pregnant about two weeks ago.  Two days after that I went to the emergency with bleeding and cramps.  It’s been a series of hospital visits every two days since that point.  The cramps were only that one day but the bleeding (or spotting rather) has been a constant.  For a while I felt shaky, tired, and lightheaded.  Then the day of my last hospital visit, I felt better.  More energy and a clear head, ready to take tackle the chore of caring for my son, husband, and grandparents.

That day, two days ago, my pregnancy hormones increased.  Not as much as the doctors expected but they did and again, I was handed this palm-sized hope.  A dear friend of mine, along with my husband, suggested I should stop breastfeeding.  Didn’t get to talk to the doctor about it.  None of the doctors I saw ever asked if I was still breastfeeding my son.  Maybe it’s strange to Americans to extend breastfeed (he’s 20 months old) but I would’ve thought if this was even the slightest concern they’d ask.  No one ever did.

I didn’t breastfeed him that night or yesterday.

Around 5 pm yesterday the cramps started.  Husband went to class at my urging because at that point it was more like menstrual cramps.  Three hours later it was far more like contractions if contractions were a tsunami of pain that never receded.  They stayed localized to my lower left abdomen, occasionally radiating into my back.  It wasn’t until 11 pm that they eased enough that I could relax and fall asleep.

This morning I’m tender.  I’m also lightheaded and shaky again.

Emotionally… I’m a wall.

Last night I kept thinking that all I wanted was for this to be over.  If it was a miscarriage, and I’m pretty confident it was, then that will mean I can finally make peace and start over.

Just end.  Just let this be over.

Hasn’t this gone on long enough?

I go back to the doctor today.  Truth is, if last night hadn’t happened, it’d still be up in the air.  As it stands, I have a good idea what I’m going to hear.  On second thought, maybe I’m not a wall after all.

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bleeding

It’s been a while since updating.  I had this brief period where I was doing well with writing and I felt like husband and I were on the track to getting our lives sorted.  Finally we’re going to be functioning, contributing members of American society.

I took a pregnancy test last Tuesday.  The positive result was almost immediate.  I call husband in to look at the test and we laugh and celebrate–we didn’t expect it but we’re thrilled.

That night I started bleeding.  Not much and so I was concerned just not panicking.  Light bleeding does happen during some pregnancies and since I wasn’t experiencing anything else, then maybe everything was still okay.

Two days after the positive result, husband had a job interview for a part time position at an elementary school.  The principal suggested that he apply for full time positions instead and she’d see him for another interview.  It sounded promising and so we decided let’s go to the Strawberry Festival at our neighboring city or we can go to Busch Gardens.  Something fun.

On the way home, I started cramping.  By the time we got home, it was to the point that when I tried to change my son’s diaper I could barely move.  This went on for a couple hours.  My dad and his wife calls while this is happening and I tell them about the bleeding and cramping (they knew about the pregnancy already) and they urged me to go to the local walk-in clinic.

The doctor there can’t check out anything although I do take another pregnancy test and, yes, I am pregnant.  The bleeding is a concern.  She tells me to go to emergency.

Husband and I go with our 20 month old son.  We’re there for 7 hours.  My dad doesn’t go because there’s a Styx concert he’s been wanting to see for the last two months and he chooses that over going to the emergency room.  I’m still trying to tell myself that’s not a big deal and it’s just the way my dad is.  My aunt does come and it’s a massive relief because managing a toddler in a hospital environment over several hours is no easy chore.

After being examined, prodded, poked and every other thing that they can possibly do, it comes down to “We aren’t sure.”

One of three things: 1. Viable pregnancy at its earliest stage, 2. Miscarriage, or 3. Ectopic pregnancy.

Come back in two days.

Two days ago husband and I went back.  This time I guess dad felt guilty enough about not going.  He and his wife watched son for us and thankful that because that time we were there for four hours.

Again, inconclusive.  Still bleeding.  Pregnancy hormones did drop but not nearly as much as they should have.  Still can’t figure out what they saw on the ultra sound.  They referred to it as a “cystic structure”.  Could’ve been a miscarriage taking place; they just can’t be sure.  The doctor this day tells me that it’s either an abnormal miscarriage or it’s an abnormal pregnancy.

I ask her what the chances of the pregnancy still being viable is and she hesitates before telling me that in a normal pregnancy the hormones should increase.

Today we go back again for more blood work.  Get stuck with a needle yet again and I’m frustrated with all of this.  At this point I’d just as soon receive bad news so long as it’s something definite that I can wrap my brain around instead of the guessing.

I called my friend up to tell her what was going on and she commented that I sounded far more calm than she would’ve been in this position.  The thing is, I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel because I don’t know what’s happening.  My gut tells me it can’t be good.  There’s no way things will work out this time around and isn’t that just as well, us not having jobs or insurance?  We need to wait until one of these interviews provides us with a paycheck and benefits.

If there’s no baby that’s fine.  Try again later.

This is how I’m trying to rationalize it.  If they finally just tell me today, though, then I’ll digest it and go somewhere to be alone for a moment and let myself feel what I need to feel.  I don’t want to talk to anyone else about it.  I don’t want to break down anymore than I want to pretend that I’m fine.

I wanted this pregnancy.  I guess the universe had other plans.

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