What Happened When I Published a Piece About My Ectopic Pregnancy
ectopic pregnancy | early pregnancy loss | ectopic awareness | apollo fields wedding photography
What happened when I published a piece about my ectopic pregnancy:
Over 100 women personally reached out to me to share their own stories of loss. Some were close friends who had been holding their pain so close to their own chest that I had never actually seen their struggles, while others were complete strangers who by the power of the internet had found my blog post. I had women who were merely acquaintances suddenly show me the most intimate and vulnerable parts about themselves. I had more than one person tell me how I was the only person they told about their loss besides their partner and their doctor. I am so humbled by the amount of support and compassion that we received yesterday, but especially from the women who feel empowered to speak about an otherwise very off-limits topic.
This is a sisterhood and holy shit I’m so grateful for it. I went back and forth for a long time about whether or not to share our story. On one hand, I felt like I should be quiet about the loss. That felt like the protocol that you’re supposed to follow. On the other hand, I was afraid to hurt other women who have experienced pregnancy loss. I didn’t want my words twisting the knife in their own wounds because they were too raw. The last thing I wanted to do was resurface someone else’s pain. But that’s not what happened. My story became a safe zone for sharing, a platform for empathy, and a step towards breaking the silence around this type of loss.
Do I think that everyone should share their losses?
Absolutely not. This is such a personal decision and you have to do what is right for you. We are a very open couple and transparency has always been our default, but what is right for us is not necessarily right for other couples. There is this stigma around loss and that is what I want to shatter. Women should feel just as empowered by choosing to share their stories as they should be by choosing to be private. The last 24 hours have been absolutely eye-opening for me because of two realizations: pregnancy loss is not uncommon and women are so fucking strong.
I heard stories of women who tried to conceive for years and years and then lost their babies, women who have had multiple miscarriages and still don’t have any children earthside, women who have also suffered ectopics, women who bravely delivered stillborn babies, and women who finally have their arms tightly wrapped around their rainbow babes. Every story is unique, heart wrenching, and so full of love. Pregnancy is no joke. This shit is hard and a positive pregnancy test does not always give you a healthy baby. We give up our bodies and our souls to become mothers and when you put that much on the line, any loss – no matter how early – hits hard.
What exactly is an ectopic pregnancy?
I’ve been talking a lot about how common pregnancy loss is, but I’m using that as an umbrella term. An estimated 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage; however, ectopic pregnancies only occur in 1.5% of pregnancies. Ectopic pregnancy is not a miscarriage and should not be used interchangeably. Physically, they are quite different. I am losing my baby, but I am not miscarrying. My pregnancy took place in my fallopian tube (where 98% of ectopics implant) and therefore cannot continue. A healthy pregnancy must take place in the uterus, and anywhere else is considered a life-threatening condition. This is because as the baby continues to grow, it puts an enormous strain on the tube and if not diagnosed and treated in time, will eventually rupture and cause massive internal bleeding. Ectopic rupture is the leading cause of first trimester maternal deaths and the only lifesaving option is emergency surgery.
There are many risk factors for ectopic: over the age of 35, previous abortions, chlamydia, pelvic conditions, getting pregnant with an IUD or other forms of birth control, smoking, previous ectopic, or scar tissue from pelvic surgeries. Personally, I didn’t have any of these factors and yet I still ended up with an ectopic. Sometimes the embryo just ends up in the wrong place and there’s nothing you can do about it.
What about getting pregnant again?
A lot of people have asked me about this. First, I have to get my body back to a non-pregnant state (an hCG of 0). This can – and probably will – take a few more weeks at best. Then I’ll have to be on folic acid supplements for 12 weeks to get myself healthy enough to actually grow a baby again. The methotrexate works by depleting your body of all of its foliate in order to halt the progression of the pregnancy. Foliate is imperative to a healthy pregnancy so I’ll have to restore my levels before we’re cleared to try again. Once we do get pregnant, I will be considered high risk until they can identify a fetus in my uterus on an ultrasound. My hormone levels will be monitored closely as soon as I get a positive pregnancy test because my chance of having another ectopic will be 1 in 10 for all future pregnancies. I don’t love those odds, but it is a chance that I’m willing to take.
In terms of fertility, everything comes down to scar tissue and my tubes. Lovely, right? Our biggest motivation for trying the methotrexate before surgery was to preserve my fertility. Most ectopic surgeries result in the removal of the affected fallopian tube because the scarring makes it too risky for another ectopic. Scar tissue is unavoidable and can present very real complications for future pregnancies. If I lose a tube, my chances of never conceiving again are 30%. Some women end up losing both tubes and for them, IVF is sometimes an option. Many women go on to have normal, healthy babies after ectopic pregnancies, but we’re also being pragmatic about our options.
What should you say to someone who is dealing with pregnancy loss? What shouldn’t you say?
I’ve heard some fucked up stuff the last two weeks, and most of it was well-intentioned. If you don’t know what to say, that’s totally fine. Sometimes the simple act of holding space with someone is the best thing that you can do. Most likely, you’re not a doctor and you can’t solve this shit for me, so just bewith me. Listen, hug, and look me in the eyes. One of my favorite things anyone has said so far came from a dear friend, Lindsey, who just asked, “how can I support you?” That’s perfect.
What not to say? Don’t tell me that there will be other babies. Don’t call this my “practice round”. Don’t remind me of how sick my baby was. How it ‘wasn’t meant to be’. How I had no choice, or how this baby would have killed me if we did nothing. Don’t assume that I’m as bible thumping as you are because God’s plan ain’t working for me right now. Don’t make this about your religion. In fact, don’t make it about religion at all unless the person experiencing the loss takes it there first. Be conscious of your words and the impact that they have. I’m in hormonal-mama-bear-mode right now and I’m ready to check your ignorance, unapologetically.
What am I thankful for right now?
So, so much. The holidays have a way of bringing this to the surface. We got engaged on Christmas morning last year. This has been the year of my highest highs and lowest lows. My husband is a freaking saint. He is always my partner-in-crime but this experience has brought us even closer together. He held my trembling body through the second round of methotrexate while I sobbed into his hands, and found the strength to tell me how strong I was in my darkest moments. He’s not unaffected by this. It might be happening in my body, but we are going through it together.
I’m also thankful for my (relative) health. Don’t get me wrong…I’ve been quite sick the last two weeks, vomiting in parking lots, losing a bunch of weight, being completely anemic, and pumping my body full of toxins. The methotrexate combined with the hormones has made me feel like a steaming pile of garbage, but things could have been much worse. I could have gotten on that plane and ruptured. No shit, I could have died. As of right now, I still have both of my tubes and have avoided surgery. I finally got my hCG levels to drop by 27% yesterday. Things are slowly moving in the right direction and we’re feeling optimistic.
Finally, I am immensely grateful for this community of friends and family we have. I am especially grateful for all of the women who have shared their personal stories with me and continue to put their own hearts on the line. They are the true warriors, the mothers of all types, and they are my role models. I have neverfelt this supported, even on our wedding day. I have the thickest-of-thieves badass group of women behind me. People have stepped up when we needed them most: they have offered their homes, their cars, their booze, and their hearts. We have had a squad helping to keep our dogs and horse cared for while we cannot be there. We are immeasurably lucky to have you all. So thank you to anyone who has held space with us, offered us solace, or shared their love. We love you all, too.
PC: Maddie Mae Photography
My Ectopic Pregnancy
ectopic pregnancy | early pregnancy loss | ectopic symptoms | boulder, colorado | apollo fields wedding photography
TRIGGER WARNING – This is a raw and personal account of what can go wrong during pregnancy. I am going to explore sickness and loss and it’s going to be a little fucked up but I can promise you that it will be candid and honest. Stop reading now if this topic is going to be too heavy for you.
Exactly two weeks ago, I was about to get on a plane back to New York when the most horrible day of my life began. We were seven weeks pregnant and had already been told that there was an 80% chance we were miscarrying. Then things went from bad to worse…
Not only was the pregnancy not viable, it was ectopic and needed to be terminated immediately. I was already in a life-threatening situation and had to make a decision to end my pregnancy that night. It wasn’t a matter of “if” but a matter of “how”.
Backtrack to that Sunday night, I was trying to fall asleep and all I could think about was the blood test I had to get at 8AM the next morning before my flight. All I wanted was for my hCG levels to increase because that was our only hope for not miscarrying. I had a lot of women trying to comfort me by telling me how the bleeding could be perfectly normal, some women bleed for their whole first trimester and have healthy babies, I was told more than once.
But I think somewhere deep down, I knew it wasn’t good. I remember telling Terrence on the phone that I didn’t think we were ever going to meet this baby. I only told a few other people, but when I did, it went like this: “We’re pregnant” – and as soon as their eyes would light up, I would quickly say, “But it’s not going well”. I couldn’t stand to watch them try to find hope where I instinctively knew there was none.
I was ecstatic when I found out that my levels had increased on Monday. The doctors weren’t expecting it either, and I thought that it could only mean good news. I was at Enterprise, about to return my rental car to get on a flight back to NY, and the doctor’s affect had totally changed: “You cannot get on that flight” she told me. I resisted. I needed to get home. I needed to be with my husband and my dogs. I needed to get to South Carolina in a couple of days.
There were three doctors in the office all talking about my situation. They were concerned because my levels were so high and suspected an ectopic pregnancy. They went on to tell me that they absolutely had to find my baby that day, but my stubbornness persisted. Her tone became even more stern, “If you get on that flight and your tube ruptures, you could bleed out before they can land the plane”. Okay, point taken. I wasn’t getting back to New York.
So back to Westminster I went. I remember sitting in a coffee shop trying to pass time before the scheduled ultrasound. The barista offered me their seasonal Juniper latte – the name we had already casually picked out if we were having a girl. I accepted the offer, thinking that maybe superstition would turn everything around. The drink was gross, and it hit my empty stomach like a cinderblock.
I was trying to be chipper when I went in for the ultrasound. The tech and I were making casual small talk about photography and dogs while she was reviewing my file. “Okay, I see we’re ruling out an ectopic today” she said optimistically. It sounded like a no-big-deal thing at the time. She told me that our due date would probably be somewhere between July 25 (Terrence’s birthday) and August 1.
She rubbed the gel on my belly and began scanning. We were still chatting about dogs when she started tilting the machine away from me so I couldn’t see what was happening. I had asked her what her dog’s name was and she didn’t respond. Her eyes were fixated on the ultrasound and I saw her lips fall away from each other. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” she kindly responded a minute later. I knew then that it was all over.
She was sweet, but couldn’t tell me anything. I was in there for almost forty minutes while she just kept taking screen shots. She stepped away to talk to a doctor and when she came back, she was grabbing my backpack and telling me that I needed to check into urgent care immediately. My worry turned into panic, which quickly turned into rage. She insisted that she couldn’t tell me anything, but when I began tearing up and shaking, she just placed her hand on my shoulder and whispered, “You know, I think you know, it’s the thing that they, well, try not to worry too much”. And then she just turned around and left. No goodbye, no good luck.
I had to go through the same slew of tests and questions trying to get into urgent care. What’s your date of birth? Are you a smoker? Let’s do a quick blood pressure test. How much do you weigh? When was your last period? What’s your favorite color? Okay, obviously not the last one, but I was so mad that I had to answer all of these stupid questions for the second time that day when nobody would tell me what the hell was wrong with me.
I sat in urgent care for another hour while one doctor told me that my case was ‘complicated’, that this was not his specialty, and wanted to transfer me to OBGYN. I was getting moved again with no answers. Finally, I made it to a specialist who had apparently already run my ultrasound past two other doctors. She was an older woman, with a silvery ponytail and caring eyes. She was also the first person to be straightforward with me, and the news hit hard.
I think she spoke slowly, but it all felt like such a blur that maybe I just processed it slowly. She explained that at seven weeks, they normally hear a heartbeat and can see the fetus safely embedded in the uterine lining. Instead, I had what was called an ‘empty uterus’ and they had eventually found the pregnancy – which was described as a mass – near my right ovary. I remember her assuring me that there was a zero percent chance of viability and there was no wait-and-see option.
She immediately began discussing the pros and cons of medication versus surgery. Absolutely none of what she said was registering, and I just heard ‘blah blah blah scar tissueblah blah blah rupture blah blah blah copay blah blah blah save the tube’. That was my breaking point. I officially lost my shit and just began sobbing. In the first act of humanity that I got from a doctor in that whole weekend, she began also welling up and just held me. Neither of us said anything for a long time. She rubbed my back and I just cried into this stranger’s scrubs.
She told me that she would step out of the room and I should call my husband. She would come back into the room in a few minutes to go over our options again. She did and we decided that we would try the medication before surgery in an attempt to preserve my fertility. Another woman came into the room to give me the methotrexate and the fifteen or so minutes that followed would prove to be some of the darkest moments of my whole life.
I had to sign a bunch of consent forms that could be summed up into: (A) I understand that by accepting this medication, I am terminating my pregnancy; (B) I understand that by denying this medication, I am putting my own life at risk. It was harsh, but it was true. I wasn’t given time to process, nor was I given time to grieve. Time was not on my side because every passing hour meant that my hCG levels would climb, putting me at greater risk of a tubal rupture and imminent surgery. I was only given five minutes to use the bathroom between making the decision to try the methotrexate and actually receiving the injection.
I walked down the sterile hallway at the OBGYN like a zombie. I was sobbing so hard that I didn’t even try to wipe my tears. I forgot to shut the door in the bathroom and instead just ran ice-cold water over my hands, trying to feel anything else but the raging pain inside my chest. A few minutes later, I walked back into the room and the doctor was patiently waiting, holding the needles. I tried not to look at them, but I was fixated on the bright yellow fluid inside. I stared at them the way that Americans watch a car accident – horrified – but unable to turn away. This would ultimately end my baby’s life (or at least that was the “hope”) and no amount of rationalization could shake that fact.
“Are you ready?” the nurse asked softly. No– I don’t remember if I said it out loud or not. Of course I wasn’t ready, how the fuck do you feel ‘ready’ for that moment? But I had no choice. It was the first time that I felt like my body no longer belonged to myself; I was a prisoner aflame in an incinerated cell, and I just had to roll over on my side while the nurse prepped the injection site. The table was hard and the florescent lights were stinging into the back of my eyes. The needles felt like a thousand bullets piercing my flesh and the chemicals burned through every ounce of maternal instinct that I had recently found deep inside my psyche.
I had to lay on my side with my knees up to my chest while she prepped the injection site. I was crying so hard that I was sure that she wouldn’t be able to get the needle in the right place, but I just laid there completely helpless while she pushed the shot into my hip. It ruined me, and I felt the burning chemicals raging into my muscles. It was the point of no return: this was the bright yellow fluid that would kill our baby, and I had to roll over onto my other side to endure it all over again.
By the time the second injection was done and I sat up, my hips were already on fire. She went over the side effects and left the room. The other doctor came back again and we talked about success rates and what to do in case I begin to rupture (a very real possibility still). She handed me the whole box of tissues and told me to take them home. I think I used half of them in the elevator where I stood next to an older woman who was obviously uncomfortable by my breakdown. She gave me that half-smile that suggested that she might exit the first floor that the doors open even if it’s not where she was trying to go.
It was horrible. It was the worst day of my entire life and I can’t undo any of it. Two weeks have passed and my body continues to fight against the toxins that are raging through all of my cells, desperate to stop anything that is rapidly dividing. I am still technically pregnant and trapped in this hormonal warfare while I go through everything from nausea to dizziness to contractions and cramping and bleeding and clotting. I get hot and I get cold. My muscles are sore and my heart is just so heavy. I am grieving a loss that isn’t over and I am still at risk of rupturing or ending up in surgery.
I had believed up until that moment that pregnancy was about wellness, not sickness. But the reality was I was sick, my baby was sick, and there was no amount of meditation, positive thinking, or God that would get me out of this one. I had taken immaculate care of myself: I eat like a monk, I’m active, I don’t smoke, I wasn’t on birth control, I’ve never had any pelvic conditions, and I’m under the age of 35 – which is to say that I didn’t fulfill a single risk factor. It felt so unfair that somebody who could be so health-conscious could be suddenly fighting to save their own fertility.
For now, we are stuck in CO and have no choice but to live through this hell until my levels return to zero. We have already missed my sister’s wedding and will not be home for Christmas. I feel like I could collapse from sadness at any moment. This body was supposed to be able to create life, and almost destroyed itself trying. It is simultaneously trying to create andundo another human while I have to live in this battlefield of hormones and toxins raging through my bloodstream. I am merely existing under the weight of fear and loss, and I think I for the first time I finally understand the true meaning of womanhood. Femininity is not about being delicate and sexy, it is about being a warrior when your only weapon is the primal strength that resides in the very fabric of our DNA.
I will not meet this baby and yet I knowthis baby with the resonance of a thousand spirits. I will not know whether it would have been a boy or a girl, and I will never know if its heartbeat pulsed inside of me. If all goes well, I will absorb our baby back into my own body, the same place where it came from. It is the most tightly woven circle of life, so tight that I wonder if this is even a loss at all. I have lost nothing more than blood and innocence and I think maybe motherhood is the ability to love our babies whether or not they ever make it earth-side. I have found a fortitude that I wish I never knew, but it is one that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.