The Aftermath Of My Ectopic Pregnancy ❤
In less than a week, I went from finding out I was pregnant to find out I needed emergency surgery. A very painful week in ways I can’t describe. It’s one of those things you have to experience in order to understand. Something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
It took some time to be able to talk about it, especially without crying. It took even longer to write about my Ectopic Christmas.
I was not living in my country of origin and if it was horrible not having my loved ones close by, it was good not having all the unloved ones around. It made it easier not to tell those who didn’t deserve to know.
I told my mum and my brother. I told my cousin, my close cousin who was constantly asking me when I was going to get pregnant. I begged her to never ask me that, ever again. It’s one of the ah-ha moments you get.
Don’t ask, don’t make any sort of pressure on others. You don’t know what they are going through, and a question that sounds so naive and harmless can trigger a lot of pain. I learned the hard way.
In the worst timing, even the right things will sound deeply wrong.
We only told those who were strictly necessary. I honestly didn’t want anyone to know, I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t know how to deal with it. No one does. Mostly because no one talks about these things, so when they happen we feel so deeply alone and unfit.
There’s no one to refer to, no one who will understand. I didn’t know one single woman who had been through a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy. How could I? We just lock ourselves in this pain and shame, as if we had done something wrong.
I remember feeling like a failure. But why? Didn’t I already have enough to feel? I felt disconnected as if I didn’t belong anywhere. It’s such a mix of feelings and fears, a mix of why’s and what’s. Why did this happen to me? What did I do wrong? What if it happens again? What if I can’t get pregnant?
I lost my left tube and a much-wanted pregnancy. I gained three scars and got scarred for life. But that was my point of view. To others what I was going through was just a step back, a sad thing that happened. Done. Gone. Finished. “Just move on!”
If now we’re still struggling to be more open about these things, four/five years ago was, well, not that different.
And there I was, alone in a pain I had no one to share it with.
Lost in this sad loneliness and desperate for some comfort, I dived into an online search for as much information I could find. Amongst it, I found forums where other women were telling their stories. All of a sudden, I realised I wasn’t alone.
“Why?” — I asked the surgeon, as I wasn’t in any sort of risk group.
According to her, “sometimes it’s just bad luck”. What a haunting sentence to get stuck in the back of your mind. “At least you know you can get pregnant” goes to the pile of things that might be right, but in the worst timing don’t sound like it. Because, in the worst timing, even the right things will sound deeply wrong.
So many women experiencing “bad luck” and none I could refer to.
Gradually I found a few, as some people found out what had happened to me I started hearing things like: “Oh, I know someone who...”; “Oh, you know “Sarah” had a miscarriage too.”
And in those forums, so many different stories being shared. I read them until I found the courage to share mine. I ended up exchanging messages with two other women. Later, I created a WhatsApp group for the three of us. We’ve never met in person but we still talk every now and then.
It’s nice being able to talk to someone who understands what you’re going through. It makes a difference. It helps.
Back in the hospital room — after losing my pregnancy— just a few hours after surgery my partner said: “You’re not going to like to hear this right now but it’s probably better if you hear it from me”.
The kind of intro that leads to no good.
What followed was the news that our friends were expecting their third baby. It felt like a punch in the stomach. Hey, I never said I was a good person. I’m also not not a good person. I was just in a bad place and he was right, I didn’t like to hear that. Of course, I wanted to be happy for them, I just couldn’t stop feeling how unfair it was. All I could feel was the Universe pushing me further down. “It’s there for everyone, just not for you.”
Again, I felt like I was in a movie with a succession of dramatic scenes happening in my life. The kind of movie you watch and think: “Come on, life can’t be that dramatic!”. It can.
The day after surgery, I left the hospital. Two days before Christmas. It was late-night, which was good. I needed that quiet. I remember thinking about how they did things right by putting me alone in a room, away from pregnant women or crying babies; how they discharged me at that late time when not much happens.
It was a slow walk towards the exit in the almost deserted Hospital, in a helpful quietude.
As we reached the exit door, just like in a movie scene, I faced a couple holding a baby carrier with a pink blanket on. And if it was a movie, I would’ve been complaining about such a dramatic coincidence precisely placed.
“It’s there for everyone, just not for you.”
I stayed home for two weeks, the prescribed time to recover from a salpingectomy. Definitely not the time it takes to recover from the loss that goes way beyond than a fallopian tube. At that time, I was a month away from being entitled to get sick pay from the company I was working for.
I went home with my stitches covered. Me, a 27-year-old who had never had stitches in her life. I’ve never been good with wounds so the thought of looking at my stitches was dreadful. I couldn’t even remove the medical plasters covering them. But when they were gone and I saw those three cuts for the first time… I can’t even describe what I felt.
“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
Time creates the distance from not being able to confront something to be able to accept that it happened.
For a while, I was constantly on the verge of bursting into tears. I wanted to be alone, to avoid any social interaction in order to avoid the awkwardness of crying in public spaces, around strangers.
I wanted to avoid the pity stares from those who knew. I wanted to avoid that pat in the back followed by the “Oh, next time it’ll go well”. As if I had failed a driving test. But how can you explain to someone that losing a pregnancy is not like failing a driving test? How can you explain the pain you don’t even think you’re entitled to feel?
Before I was born, my mum had another baby (born at 7 months) who lived for 48h. And if I felt that level of pain, I can’t even understand the pain she must have felt. It’s probably one of the reasons I think I’m not entitled to say that I lost a baby. We always find ways to rationalise our feelings, don’t we?
Going back to work was an entire movie of its own kind…
If I write what I feel, it’s to reduce the fever of feeling. — Fernando Pessoa
To anyone experiencing this loss, I can only tell you that things often get worse before they get better, but they do get better. Finding someone to talk helps. And you’ll find many of us out here available to hear you.
You are not alone and you shouldn’t have to feel lonely.
Looking back I can see how lucky I was. Was I living in a different country maybe I wouldn’t be here now? Was I living in a different country and I would be in debt for the rest of my life.
