Elizabeth's Story

We had been trying to conceive since October 1996, and suffered a miscarriage in July 1997. After this, we waited the two months recommended by the doctor, then resumed trying to achieve pregnancy. After about a year of the "baby game" I decided that something had to be missing. We had been trying to be sure to hit the fertile window each month and we were still not having any success. I started charting my basal body temperature (BBT) in September 1998, figuring I would be sure we had the timing down to the "right" days around my ovulation. The first month was a breeze, and I saw a very clear pattern in the temperatures. That cycle finished, my period came, and with that part of the cycle being normal in every aspect (heavy flow and crampy) I started charting again. This cycle was very strange. The temperatures were all over the scale. The chart looked like the Rocky Mountains - but my temperatures were taken at the same time every day. I thought I was doing something wrong, or that my digital thermometer had gone berserk. I could never seem to see whether I ovulated. Then, my period was late. I was puzzled, but hopeful.

Three days later, Friday, November 6, 1998, started like every other. I went to work - I was a kindergarten teacher at a Christian School-and was talking to a fellow teacher while my class had Spanish and music. While we were talking, about 9 am, I felt what seemed to be gas pains in my lower right abdomen. I went to the restroom, and the pain intensified somewhat. I became dizzy and nauseated. I knew it was not my appendix, having had that removed some time before, so I thought I had caught a flu bug or something.

Everyone could see how pale I was and my principal offered to take me home, since I could not drive myself. I got home and went to bed. I woke up about an hour later (maybe about 11 am) and felt some better, so I puttered around the house, had a piece of toast, and called my husband to tell him what was happening. After a while, I started having the stomach pains again, so I went back to bed. This time I could not get comfortable, and I was feeling worse. I became very weak, and it became harder and harder to move. With great effort, I moved to the couch and called my husband. I told him he needed to come home because I was feeling worse and could not take care of myself. By the time he arrived, I could not sit up by myself. He tried to help me sit up and I passed out. He called an ambulance, and I was taken to the emergency room.

What I will now relate are fragments of memory. I passed out in the ambulance, and was never truly lucid or coherent most of the time I was in the emergency room. I believe I was told I was there over two hours, but I had no concept of the passage of time. Don was not allowed to be with me, but I was not coherent enough to be frightened by this. I found out later that I was very unstable physically, and they had people working on me constantly in order to monitor me and try to diagnose what the problem was. I know they did several ultrasounds. They attempted to do some in the emergency room, but the equipment was not what they needed, so they had to move me to radiology to do another set. Whenever they would move me I would have "waves" of pain that would literally convulse my body and cause me to lose consciousness, but it seemed to be through my whole body...not localized pain. I was also so cold, but I couldn't get anyone to give me a blanket. I remember in radiology that there were at least three doctors and two nurses in the ultrasound lab with me, as well as the technician. If I had been myself and realized what they were saying about me, I would have known I was in trouble, but fortunately, it was as if they were talking about someone else. I was too "out of it" to be worried or scared. They kept asking if I was pregnant, but I was only three days late, and I had NO other symptoms like I had experienced the first time. I told them what I could...I knew it wasn't appendix or gall bladder, since those were already gone, but if I was pregnant it could only be a couple of weeks or so....right?

They finally determined that I had suffered an ectopic pregnancy in my right fallopian tube about *9 weeks gestation* (this meant I had had a full, normal period while already pregnant), and that the tube had ruptured. I was bleeding internally. They were going to do surgery to make repairs and stop the bleeding. The most wonderful doctor, Dr. Galen Jones, came to the emergency room to tell Don and I the verdict. He was so patient and kind, soft-spoken and calm...Don says all I could ask was if I would be able to have more children after the surgery. I guess I must have remembered that sometimes they must do hysterectomies to repair ectopics and was concerned about that. They had to give me blood and tried to stabilize me before they moved me to surgery, but from the things I remember them saying I think I was continuing to deteriorate. I found out later that Dr. Jones finally ordered me moved to surgery because I was not going to stabilize and would die if something was not done STAT. I remember an orderly running with my gurney on the way there...then they were giving me the anesthetic while they were in the process of moving me to the operating table. I remember someone talking about my blood pressure dropping...again, if I had been coherent, I would have known how serious my condition was. A very sweet nurse told me I would feel better when it was all over and stroked my hair as I went under. I don't know her name, but she was so kind to me-I can't ever think of her without tearing up.

I woke up in the recovery room, feeling warm, and surprisingly pain free. It was at this point I realized how serious my condition had been, because I had nurses monitoring me constantly. I had been through surgery before and knew I was getting more attention than usual. They moved me to a room right across from a nurses' station, and they continued to monitor me throughout the night - more closely than usual. All the staff that had seen me before surgery commented on how good I looked, so I guess I had been pretty ragged! I stayed in the hospital through the weekend and was released Monday afternoon. The nurses all tried to shelter me from the babies in the women's section where my room was, but I walked the halls and could hear them in the rooms. I knew I had lost a baby, but when it really hit me was when it was time to leave. They sent a grief counselor in to talk to us, and then wheeled me down to the front door. They have excellent security at this hospital - they check the babies to the mothers through security when they leave. The security guard asked "No baby with this one?" and that simple question hit me like a ton of bricks. Don and I both cried all the way home.

The next few weeks were overwhelming. I was physically almost helpless. For several days, I could not get out of bed, off the couch, or off the toilet without help. Being a very active, "do it yourself" type person, that was humiliating and depressing. My grief only compounded my emotional state. I blamed myself, not for my physical condition, but for the death of our baby. Ectopic pregnancies are, except in VERY rare cases, always fatal to the baby, but knowing that did not alleviate my guilt. Then, since I had not grieved our first child adequately, that loss came flooding back as well. My guilt over that loss was incredible...I had not been ready for that baby so I felt that meant I had not wanted the child. I had not sought medical attention soon enough. On and on and on went the blame. The one thing that held me together was that I knew God was in control. I clung to Him. Sometimes I felt as if I were lying face down on the floor at His feet holding on to the hem of His robe, but I just held on. The grief subsided some, only to return around the time I would have been at my due date. It was at this time that I went online searching for help and found Krista's site.

Between my faith, Krista, and a couple of email support groups I found, I made it through that time as well. I am sure the Lord directed me to these people that would help me. The grief is easier now. It is manageable. There are still times I feel the hole in my heart and the tears come - sometimes at the oddest times and occasions. I did not understand "why" then, and I still do not understand "why" now. I want to make something very clear though. I do not believe for even a moment that God "caused" this to happen to me in any way. He does not sit on His throne and come up with ways to make life difficult. God is the source of all things good, pure, and wonderful. He does not *cause* pain, fear, or suffering. We live in an imperfect world, of which pain and suffering are a part. We will continue to face trouble until we leave this world and go to Heaven. I look forward to being there and meeting my children.

UPDATE:

I continued to see Dr. Jones, the doctor who did my surgery, even after my follow-up care was finished. He gave us the go-ahead to try again in February of 1999 and was very encouraging about our chances for conceiving naturally. After about 6 months (and approaching the third anniversary of when we started trying initially) I went to him to seek some further testing. He did an HSG which showed my remaining left tube to be unblocked. he then did some blood tests and an endometrial biopsy to see if hormones were as they should be. These tests showed a deficiency in progesterone. I was scheduled to start clomid in October to correct that problem, but my cycle did not start as it was supposed to. I had some spotting and thought AF was on her way, but then that stopped. Once day I looked at my temperature chart and realized that I had 18 high temperatures. This is a pretty sure indicator of pregnancy. I could not believe it. We had been trying for three years at that point and had all but given up on natural conception and were looking to clomid to be the thing that "did it" for us. I went to the doctor for a pregnancy test - I have had false negatives on hpt's as well as false positives and do not trust them at all! The test was POSITIVE!

I was 5 weeks pregnant at that point, and was monitored very carefully due to both the history of ectopic pregnancy as well as the progesterone deficiency. I was given progesterone supplements to increase those levels until the thirteenth week of pregnancy. I was also given an early ultrasound at about 6 weeks to find the location of the gestational sac and be sure that this little one was in the uterus and not another ectopic. We had good news then as well-we even got to see that little heart beating away and very clearly in the uterus! I am due July 13th, 2000, and so far, all is well with this little one!