Today I’m writing with grief…and a despair so deep, there’s a nasty taste in my mouth.
On June 18th, just a little over a month after my wedding, I got a positive pregnancy test. I was ecstatic, but also absolutely and utterly terrified. We weren’t trying and after the last six years, I thought I would never get pregnant again. After two ectopics back in 2011, with one resulting in the partial loss of my left tube, my chances of having another tubal pregnancy was really high and these results left me in a state of shock and worry.
And after two weeks of ups and downs – bleeding, hCG slowly rising, dropping, only to rise again, with no sign of an ectopic – I spent most of this past Saturday with extreme shoulder pain. I went to the ER, where my hCG should’ve been high enough to see a sac with an internal u/s, but there wasn’t anything. And still, no sign of an ectopic. They sent me home, merely telling me to “wait it out” as I had an appointment with my regular ob-gyn on Thursday.
But yesterday morning, I lay in bed trying to take it easy until we got answers when I suddenly couldn’t move. All I could do was whimper and cry, the pain in my abdomen so sharp and instant, I knew this wasn’t a good thing. I managed to crawl up the steps, where I begged my mother and father-in-law to “help me” as my husband was at work. It hurt so bad, I couldn’t stop crying. My MIL called my husband, who met us at the hospital, and after everything, they did another u/s… where it’s discovered I was having another tubal pregnancy.
I was rushed to surgery, in the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life, where I lost my right tube, and therefore, any chances of another natural pregnancy. Of ever having another baby of my own without assistance I’ll never be able to afford.
And right now, I’m devastated. Broken.
Right now, I can’t see beyond today, because there’s nothing except darkness. The death of a dream I’ve had for so many years… a child with the man I love. A biological sibling for my son.
And in my grief, I don’t care if he got two step siblings when I married. I don’t care that I have a living, breathing, and mostly healthy child already when some people don’t even have one. Because I’m sad and extremely pissed off.
PIssed off at having something I’ve wanted for years taken from me when I haven’t done anything to deserve it. Pissed off at my shitty body, that’s never done me any good and caused me more grief than anything else; a body that is fucking stupid, can’t handle most medications, allergic to way too many things, and aging me well beyond my years day by day. Pissed off at having to resign from my seasonal job at a time when I need the money now more than ever because of all this crap and probably going to have to file bankruptcy despite all my hard work these last 4 years at building myself back up.
And sad. Sad for having this taken from me, on top of every other way the world has let me down over the years, no matter how hard I’ve tried to work to fix it for myself. Sad for my husband who has a grieving wife he can’t do anything for because there’s nothing he can do to make it better. Sad for my son who spent all day yesterday terrified after seeing me crawl up the steps and is seeing me cry over and over and doesn’t understand, in a situation I hope he never has to experience.
Sure, I’ll get better. Sure, I’ll get on and live with it, because what other fucking choices do I have? But I’ll never, ever get over it. I never wanted just one child, and this hole in my heart, the one that I’ve been carrying around since the first time I had a tubal pregnancy… it’s never going to go away, because I was so screwed up when pregnant with my son that I never got to experience the joy of carrying him inside me or having the support of the man I loved beside me, helping me through the rough times with our child.
I don’t care if I’m oversharing right now. I had to write it down, somewhere, because I know someone else shares my pain and I know I’m not alone. It doesn’t make it better, it doesn’t fix it, but just know, there’s another person out there right now crying their eyes out and wondering what they did so wrong for this to happen to them.
And hoping it’s just a horrible nightmare they’ll wake up from soon.
ectopic pregnancy, infertility, pregnancy loss