My Ectopic Miscarriage

If you're pregnant, frightened, bleeding, in pain don't make excuses, don't try to self diagnose, don't wait. Go to the hospital, go quickly.

I was 30 years old, a single home owner who had just moved to a beautiful new town due to job promotion and met a wonderful new man. Life was wonderful, I couldn't have planned it better.

Things were moving fairly quickly in the relationship stakes and we were pleasantly shocked when we found out we were pregnant very early in our relationship. In hindsight I'm surprised that no-one (including myself and my GP) picked up on the first symptom of an ectopic pregnancy at this point.

I was sure I was pregnant - everything said so, my period was late, my breasts were tender, my gums and nose bled - everything pointed to pregnancy except the pregnancy tests! I did 5 or 6 tests during the 2 weeks after my period was late, and they all came up negative. In the end I went to my GP, explained my symptoms to him and he agreed that a baby was the probable cause. He conducted a urine test and it came up a VERY faint positive (we nearly missed the result on the test that time too). The doc congratulated me and gave me contact details for an obstetrician who would see me throughout my pregnancy.

It was a very exciting time, I told my mum about the pregnancy strait away and before we knew it the whole family knew (even though she was sworn to secrecy!!). Everything was going along just fine until I noticed a little bleeding, just that brown blood you get at the beginning or end of your normal period. I rang my OB's rooms strait away and spoke with the nurse who assured me that it was probably OK, that some women lightly bleed throughout their pregnancy with no detriment to the baby or themselves but to call back or go to the hospital if the bleeding became heavier or there was any pain.

I was 8 weeks pregnant and lying in bed I felt a very faint aching pain in the right side of my abdomen, it was so faint that I had to concentrate to actually feel it and wrote it off as my mind playing tricks on me. The next morning I got up, dressed and went to work. As the afternoon progressed I started to worry, that faint pain was back, and this time it wasn't so faint. By the time I saw my last client that afternoon I was in extreme pain whenever I sat down but as the pain eased when I stood up I thought it might just be gas and tried stretching to relieve it.

The next morning I was due to meet my OB for the first time. I was bleeding quite heavily however the pain had subsided slightly from the day before. I figured I was losing the baby but as I didn't feel too bad thought I'd wait for my appointment rather than making a big fuss.

My partner was pretty worried about the baby and me so he took the day off work to take me to the OB's rooms. As the nurse on duty took my urine sample I told her I thought I may have lost the baby. She looked surprised but did a pregnancy test for me which came up, again, as a very faint positive. The OB matter of factly said "well, it sounds like you've lost the baby doesn't it?" and promptly made an appointment for an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a collection of fluid outside my uterus around my right fallopian tube. I was told to go to the hospital, that the emergency department would be expecting me.

The emergency staff at the hospital were wonderful, very caring and explained to me what was going on. My OB was concerned that I hadn't suffered a miscarriage but that my pregnancy was ectopic, meaning that it was occurring outside the uterus, in my case in the right fallopian tube. It was explained that the pregnancy could not progress and that the condition could threaten my life if my tube ruptured.

I was booked in for emergency surgery to remove the pregnancy that night. While waiting for over half an hour in the operating suite for the (well regarded) surgeon to get out of a meeting the procedure was explained to me. The procedure would be attempted with an endoscopy (key hole surgery) however if the mass (my baby) was too large they would have to make an incision and possibly remove my fallopian tube which they would try to avoid if possible due to this being my first pregnancy.

I woke up from the operation to learn that I had lost both my baby and fallopian tube and that this would reduce my chances of falling pregnant in the future and also that the risk of a future ectopic pregnancy is increased by 70% against a normal pregnancy. I was told this in the same breath that I was told that I would be recovering in the maternity ward.

At the time I just nodded, everything had happened so quickly. The wound from my surgery caused me great pain and looking back I realised that no-one ever checked or re-dressed it while I was in hospital. I was upset and just wanted to go home, hearing the other babies on the ward was breaking my heart. I understand that public hospitals are very busy and vastly under funded but I felt neglected and isolated.